ACI 11 «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы, часть II», занятие 4

Class Four: Contemplations of the Perfection of Effort, Part One
July 22, 1997
transcribed by: Amber Moore

... which is the fourth perfection. Patience was number three and you had a
quick review of patience. It normally takes about a year and a half straight to
teach the patience chapter, but you did it in three nights and now it's time for
you to move on to effort and I'll spell for you that. ....{parchin}, {tsundru kyi},
[repeat], {{parchin}, [repeat]. {Tsundru}, means, "effort", {kyi}, means, "of". And
{par chin}, means, "{parol tu chinpa}", which means, "the paramita or the
perfection.". This is the perfection of effort and it's the fourth perfection. The
opening lines of this chapter say, say, {lungmay}, [repeat], {yewa}, [repeat], {me},
[repeat]. Okay, {lungmey}, [repeat], {yewa}, [repeat], {me}, [repeat]. {Lung}, in
the high tone with the head letter means "wind " and it can mean physical wind
like the wind coming from a fan or it can mean inner wind, like the psychic or
the spiritual energies moving through the body. Through the spiritual body,
and that's called "{lung}". For example, when you meditate the wrong way or or
meditate too hard, you don't go into it the right way, you get {lung}, , a {lung},
condition is called {lung } for short and you start feeling nervous and you can't
sleep, your body starts to shake, and this is the function that {lung}, it's {chi}, in
Chinese, and that's the function that lung had in you body. It's the energy
flowing through your fundamental spiritual body, inside. {Lung me}, means, "
without {lung}". Okay, {lung me} means, "without, without wind". {Yewa},
{yewa}, means, "for something to flicker", or for something to move like that.
Like the, the word for earthquake is {sai yom}. You know, which means, The
earth goes like this [shakes]", So {yewa}, means like if you blow on a candle
flame and it goes like that, that's called {yewa}, okay. {Yewa me}, means, "It
doesn't flicker". And this is in the opening lines on effort. It says," Without wind
nothing flickers, without wind nothing flickers." And Gyaltsab Je and Master
Shantideva himself explain it as meaning, "without effort, without the perfection
of effort, you can't do merit." Okay, without effort you can't, you'll never do
merit. You can't... and then Gyaltsab Je goes into a bit of explanation of that and
I thought it would be nice to go into that. I think this is very charged. I think
this line is very, very profound. In the highest teachings of Buddhism, in the
Secret teachings, it's very significant that without wind there would be no fire,
there you know, there would be no movement of the fire without wind and, and
I can't go into it because it's secret, but it's very, very profound. He's talking
about the creation of your enlightenment. He's talking about the creation of a
Buddha's body and a Buddha's mind in this little line here. He says, "without
wind, the candle won't flicker, the flame won't flicker", and he, ultimately, even
according to Gyaltsab Je, he's talking about the creation of you now, your Angels
body, you know like this pure body of light, and the and the omniscience of a
Buddha. The mind state of a Buddha, the enlightened mind state of a Buddha,
and all of that is hidden in this one little line. Without the air, the fire won't
flicker, okay. How does effort have this kind of effect on you, your body
turning into light and your mind turning into omniscience. you know , how
does effort play a role. Okay, and for that you need to have a little bit of an out
line of the six perfections, okay. What's the first perfection?

student: Giving.

Giving. People say, "generosity", but I don't like the translation because there are
three kinds of giving, right? Which are? Material giving, you know, like giving
somebody some food or a place to stay. Then there's protection from fear and I
wouldn't call that generosity, you know what I mean? Like saving someone
from a mugger is giving them help, but it's not like generosity and the third one
is giving Dharma. Okay. Second one, it's called morality sometimes. I think the
word is too "Billy Ghramish", and I like to call it an ethical way of life. Like I have
a friend who asked me to sell him a big diamond tomorrow and I know he's
gonna ask me if he can just skip the tax to New York City, you know, and I'm
like thinking, you know, what am I gonna do? I start to think, what am I gonna
do when he asked me. And I just decide, he's gonna have to pay the tax. [laughs]
You know there's all these ways you can get out of it and they are not honest,
they're not moral, they're not ethical. And an ethical way of life is that. You
have to give up those temptations to do those things cause it's not, it's not good
karma and if you get out of the tax, it's not because you lied to the government,
it's because you did something generous before and long story, you know all
that, okay. Patience, "the art of not getting angry". I, I told some body in the car
on the way over here I was Happy that we are finished the patience chapter
because I got so angry today at my boss, but I felt like we're already today onto
effort so it's not like I couldn't, it's not like I couldn't teach it honestly tonight, you
know. Number five, you could say, "meditation of concentration". And number
six, "wisdom". What does it mean when Master Shantideva says, {lung me yewa
mepa shin}, {lung me yewa mepa}, "without the wind the fire never flickers".
He's talking about the central position of effort in the six perfections. Okay,
effort goes both ways. Effort applies to the first three and effort applies to the
last two. Effort is considered the key in the six perfections. The first three
perfections produce something and the last two perfections produce something.
And effort is located between them because it's needed for both, okay. And for
that you have to know an idea called... Say {sonam}, [repeat], {kyi}, [repeat],
{tsok}, [repeat]. {Sonam}, [repeat], {kyi}, [repeat], {tsok}, [repeat]. And then
{yeshe }, [repeat], {kyi}, [repeat], {tsok}, [repeat]. {Yeshe kyi tsok}, [repeat].
Okay, {sonam} means, "good deeds", goodness.               It's translated as "merit"
sometimes. It just means goodness, good deeds, good deeds. {Sonam kyi tsok}
means, "a whole collection of good deeds", a whole pile of good deeds. Okay, a
whole collection of good deeds. {Yeshe kyi tsok}, {yeshe} means "wisdom",
knowledge, okay, it's a common Tibetan name. {Yeshe kyi}, {tsok}, means , "The
accumulation of that knowledge", the collection of that knowledge. If you were
able to collect a great deal of great deeds, in this arrangement here, it creates,
your body, a body of light, a Buddha's body, okay. So number one here creates
the body of a Buddha. Okay, eventually , everybody in this room, if you haven't
already, will enter a body made of pure light and you won't have a Body like this
anymore and you won't suffer in a body like this. This body as we pointed out, I
think last time, is innately defective. Once you have a body like this it must
suffer. There's no way that you can have a body like this and not suffer. Once
you have a body like this it must suffer. It must go wrong it must break down
and it will break down. If it didn't break down yet, just wait awhile and it has to
break down and it will break down and it will get older and older. Day by day it
will get weaker and weaker and then finally it will just die, it must go like that it
always goes like that. If you collect enough goodness, good deeds, called
{sonam kyi tsok}, then that whole energy, that whole collective energy of all the
good deeds you've done, they produce an Angels body, they produce a body of
light. And, and then that body doesn't suffer, that body doesn't have organs, it's
just pure light, and it's, it's the kind of body you see in all those Buddhist
paintings, and I think those paintings are a little bit dull to me, they, they should
have light bulbs behind them or something, because they're really shining,
they're really just made of light. You know, it's not like they're just sort of dull
white or you know off white or whatever Tara looks like sometimes. She's
actually just pure light, and shining in pure light like that. {Yeshe kyi tsok}, is the
combined knowledge, the whole big ball of knowledge that if you are able to
reach it, it produces a Buddha's state of mind. It produces omniscience, it
produces the ability to see all things in all times and all places at one moment,
and the emptiness of those things at the same moment. Ad, and that's the mind
of a Buddha. So the first, the collection of merit, number one here, produces you
Buddha body. Number two produces your Buddha mind, what's that got to do
with the six perfections. The number one from the other sheet, the collection of
good deeds, or goodness is primarily related to the first three perfections, if you
perform the first three Bodhisattva activities well, which is giving, keeping up an
ethical way of life and patience, it produces what? The physical body of a
Buddha, pure light. By the way, that, there's another body of a Buddha, right? I
mean there's a body of pure light that exists in a Buddha Paradise,
simultaneously, actually one millisecond later, after enlightenment, you are able
to send out bodies in any form to help people on any planet, in any galaxy of the
universe, so that's called the sending body, or the nirmanakaya, the body that
you send out.       And that is called {deme hlundrup}, which means, "It's
spontaneous", the Buddha doesn't have any premeditation, the Buddha doesn't
think, "I have to send a body to Saturn today, I need one to go to earth, I need
one on New York, I need twenty five out in Kansas.                 It's just, he just
spontaneously appears in those places immediately, one millisecond after
enlightenment if it helps somebody. And it can even appear as a dog as a tree, as
a bus, it doesn't matter, the Buddha can appear like that and they do. So that's
the physical body , it's created by the first three perfections, those two physical
bodies. The mind of a Buddha is created by the last two perfections, meditation
and wisdom. Yeah?

student: [unclear]

They count it as physical body, motivated by the mind of the Buddha, motivated
by the Dharmakaya, the Janadharmakaya, which is the mind of a Buddha. So it's
that's by the way the reason why the fourth body doesn't kick in until one
millisecond after enlightenment, because first you have to achieve omniscience
and then omniscience send out the body, so there's a time lag of a whole
millisecond. You know, and {tsundru}, number four, the perfection of effort,
feeds both, it feeds collecting the merit that you need to reach a Buddha's body
and it feeds the meditation and wisdom you need to reach a Buddha's mind and
that's why Master Shantideva said"{Lung yewa mepa shin}", okay {lung yewa
mepa}, means, "Without the wind the flame doesn't move", meaning, if you don't
have effort, you won't get the other five perfections, you won't have anything to
motivate the other five perfections and you won't have anything to create your
enlightened body and your enlightened mind. If you get into the secret
teachings of Buddhism, which you must try before you die, if you're serious
about all this stuff, this has very profound implications. The statement that the
inner wind moves the fire is very important for achieving, within this life, a
Buddha's body and a Buddha's mind, before you die. If you go into the secret
teachings, you can save about a zillion years and you can achieve your goal
within this life, but you need the six perfections. And so I think that Master
Shantideva is punning us, you know, because it seems otherwise wise sort of a
weak metaphor to say, "Oh, candle lights don't flicker unless there is a little puff
of wind, "you know. What's the point, you know. And then Gyaltsab Je says,
"what he means is; without the fourth perfection, you don't get any progress in
the other five perfections in producing the two collections which produce your
body of a Buddha and the mind of a Buddha, which incidentally, are produced in
the secret teachings through processes that are well described in the words, "The
fire never comes without the wind". So I think it's kind of beautiful, I think he's, I
think he's kind of setting us up for something, okay. I'd like Hector to read the
verse, okay, now you can hear the verse again. So close your eyes.

Hector: Contemplation one, "What moves the Flame".

Once you have practiced patience, begin your practice of effort, for
enlightenment lies in making this kind of efforts, without a breeze they never
flicker, and just so in the absence of effort, merit can never occur."

So he's saying, the text says, the verse says, "In the absence of merit.... what
cannot occur?"

Hector: In the absence of effort.

Oh , "In the absence of effort merit cannot occur." And then Gyaltsab Je says
here, that "merit here refers to merit and wisdom, referring to the collections of
merit and wisdom", referring to the things that create your Buddha body and
your Buddha mind. Okay, that's he's explaining he central position of effort in
the six perfections. Okay, we'll go on to number two, so close your eyes. This
ones short, you've got to listen carefully.

Hector: Contemplation two, "Effort is Joy".

"What is effort? It is joy in doing good."

[silence]

Say, {tsun kang}, [repeat], {gela}, [repeat], [trowa o}, [repeat]. {tsung kang},
[repeat], {gela}, [repeat], {trowa o}, [repeat]. Okay. very, very famous I think it's
the most famous word from this verse. And one of the most famous lines from
the whole [b: bodhisattvacharyavatara], and I'll spell it for you. {Tsun}, {tsun},
here stands for {tsundru}, which is what? [laughs], Effort okay? It's funny, like
in Central Tibet all the words have become slurred, like in New York City. And
then in the outlying areas, like Ladakh, or even Mongolia they pronounce all the
letters purely. So in Mongolia they'd say, {rtsungrus}. And we had a monk,
when I first came to the Rashi Gempil Ling in New Jersey, this old hermit who
lived there for many years, never came out much. And his name was {zungru}
so that's easy to learn the spelling if your learning Tibetan, {dzungru}. Which in
modern Tibetan, modern Central Tibetan is pronounced tsundru, okay,
{tsundru}. {Tsun}, means, is short for [tsundru}, meaning "effort". {Tsun kang},
means, "what is effort?"
What is effort? What is effort" It's a rhetorical question. What is effort? And,
and think about it in your own mind before I give you the answer okay? Just if I
say effort, sounds like something undesirable, right Sykes? I mean, just kidding.
[laughs] It sounds like somebody making you wash the dishes or something like
that, to me, I mean the word effort. You know, so what is effort? Is it just trying
hard? Is it just try hard? Does effort in Buddhism mean to try as hard as you
can? Because that's to me and I think the general meaning in English okay.
{Tsun}, {tsun}, in Tibetan or effort in, in English means to work hard or to try
hard, to put forth great efforts. okay, but that's not the meaning of effort as a
perfection, that's not the meaning of effort as a perfection. And Shantideva gives
the true meaning of effort in the next part of this line. I'll give you. I'll give you
Shantidevas, Master Shantidevas description, {ge},means "good deeds", doing
good deeds, doing nice things. {Ge la}, means, "about doing nice things", or good
things. {Trowa}, {trowa} means taking joy, so this is interesting, very, very,
famous line. Lamas are quoting it all the time in the monastery. {Sung kang gela
trowa o}, means, "What is the perfection of effort? It's to get off on doing good
things, it's to enjoy doing good things.", Okay, and that's very different from the
feeling of "effort", is to feel some kind of real delight, and some kind of real
enjoyment and pleasure in doing good things. And, and that's different from the
idea of effort. It's just some automatic, spontaneous, happy, joyful, I like to call it
getting off on good things, you know, you're just very much attracted to doing
beautiful deeds, you know you're attracted and you're very, very excited about
the idea of thinking good thoughts, you get excited about the idea of doing some
Dharma activity. You get very turned on about the idea of going to meditate, or
do a retreat or something. And this is {sung kang gela trowa-o}. It doesn't just
mean to work hard. You can work hard your whole life and never get the
perfection of effort. The perfection of effort like all the other perfections is an
attitude, it's an attitude it's not how much you work, it's how much you enjoy it.
And that's very interesting to me. I like that. And it's just to be excited and
turned on by good things, you know, to really enjoy. You know somebody
says, you want to go meditate for an hour?", and you say, "Yeah, I'd really like to
do that." you know. Or, or they say, you want to go on retreat? And the say,
'yeah", and you get very excited and you say, "yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to do
that". So you want to write in your book and write all your bad deeds and track
your thought today?" You know, and you say, "Yeah, that sounds great you
know I think that's a great idea." You know and they all sound great to you. You
want to go to class? In the, Chandrakirti says, "You get the hair, you get some
kind of rush up the back of your spine." You want to go to Dharma class?" and
you're like, "Ohhh." You know, [laughter]. That's {tsun}, that's effort and that 's
the meaning of effort as a perfection and this is a classic, thins is the most famous
reference to that in, in Buddhism. I think "joyful effort", might be a good
translation." You know, joyful effort, happy effort, you know, happy, virtuous,
good deed effort or something like that. You know, just enjoying it. And I think
that you really have to try to get there, you really have to try to do that. You
know , in the monastery, if you're a bad, if they catch you going to a movie in
town, there's a couple of punishments. One is that you might have to stand
there with this movie poster in the, in the middle of the assembly, during the
middle of the morning prayers, like for an hour you have to stand there and
hold up this stupid movie, Indian movie poster you know. And another
punishment is, is to do like a hundred prostrations to all the assembled monks as
an atonement you know. And then I remember the {giku}, which is the
disciplinarian, the, the, you , know the person who keeps the discipline in the
monastery. He, he gave this stirring lecture one day about, this is not really a
punishment, you know, if you had {tsundru}, you know, if you had {tsundru},
you'd be turned on by the idea of having to do a hundred prostrations in front of
the whole assembly of all these holy monks, you know. And he wasn't even
sure it was a very good punishment you know, because if you were really a
bodhisattva, there wouldn't be anything that you enjoy more than, than
prostrating a hundred times in front of the assembly, you know. And I
remember he gave this big lecture one time. But I think you really have to
examine yourself and there's this thing where, where, in Tibetan it's called, it's
called what's it called? {Tre mare}, {tre, tre mare], means, "look, doing good
deeds is no, like some kind of obligation, {tre} means, like a customs duty or an
excise tax or something like that. {Tre yon mare}, means like "don't, look upon
your meditation and your practices and keeping your book, keeping your book
of your good deeds and your bad deeds. Don't look upon it as some kind of
obligation, you should get turned on about it , you should have some joy about
it, and if you don't have that then you are not perfecting this perfection. You
know , if the idea of going to class, or the idea of meditating or the idea of going
on retreat, or the idea of going to work today and try to practice patience with
this boss who was screaming at you. I had two bosses screaming at me today. If
it doesn't turn you on, you don't have this perfection and you have to think
about it you know. You have to think about why is it that you have to drag
yourself to your meditation seat, you know. I've had people tell me, "Do we
have to meditate now?" and I'm like, "Yeah, you have the great honor and joy of
meditating now, you know." And , it's very bad to think of it as a {tre}, as an
obligation, you know, it's an honor, it's a joy, it's a fantastic opportunity, to do
your meditation in the morning you know. And if you have any other attitude
you have a serious problem, you have a really bad problem. And you he to
work on this, you have to study this chapter. So I'm setting you up for this
chapter. I mean, if you have any hesitation about doing your morning prayers,
or you have some kind of you know, you make a face when it's time to meditate
or you keep putting off your tantric retreats that you have, that Rinpoche told
you had to do for next year or next month, or you keep doing that because
really, you don't take any joy in it or you're kind of making up excuse of how to
cut our meditation session short you know, like not fifteen minutes but thirteen
minutes you know. You don't have joy and there is a serious problem and you
have to, you will fail. You won't collect those two collections, so you have to
look into why, why you think like that and this is the subject of this chapter. This
chapter is supposed to inspire you to get some kind of joy or happiness or
pleasure or get turned on by doing Buddhist practice, you know, your
meditations, your prayers, helping other people, staying up late to do some
virtuous thing. It's supposed to turn you on about doing all these things. You
know serving the monastery, serving Godstow or what ever you know. Just it's
supposed to get you inspired about doing these things rather than liking on
them as an obligation. Master Shantideva and the debate Master at Sera May,
they don't like the word obligation, that's very bad. It should be joy, you know,
you should be sneaking into your room to meditate extra. you know, you
should be breaking into peoples homes and putting money in their wallets, you
know, you get turned on by doing good deeds and you get excited about it and
be , be unstoppable, you should just be like addicted, like a virtue a holic or
something. You know and all you want to do all you can think about is doing
your next virtue or doing your next practice, it should be like that. And I think
that allot of Americans start to look upon their prayers and their meditations as
some kind of obligation, or something they're supposed to do, or the {dakye} is
something you're "supposed" to do, or something you're supposed to memorize.
And I have to, I'm supposed to do so many mantras, that's really bad. That word
is rally bad. "Supposed to do", is really bad. You know, it's like your honor and
your joy and your privilege and your fantastic opportunity to do those things
and if you don't think like that, you have a problem and you have to study this
chapter, you have to think about this chapter, okay. Next verse.
Hector: Contemplation three; "What Stops Effort?":

"Here I will explain the things that work against it these are laziness and
attraction to what is bad and the feeling of being discouraged, belittling
yourself."

Okay. The next, in the next section, Master Shantideva, after identifying what
effort is which now you know, it's now just working hard about the Dharma, it's
getting turned on by the Dharma okay. Getting turned on by the Dharma. And
he says, "What could stop you from getting turned on by the Dharma?" He says,
"Let's make a list...", he says, "I'm gonna make a list for you of all the enemies
you have to watch out for that will destroy you effort." The thing which will
destroy your getting turned on by the Dharma, so he makes a list, okay. And I'll
give it to you in Tibetan. {Lelo} is one of the first words that all Americans learn
who try to study Tibetan, it's very interesting and I think it's subconscious. I
think because it's very similar to "laying low". And {lelo}, means "laziness" in
Tibetan. Yeah, it's the Tibetan word for "laziness" and it's a kind of neat, sounds
like , lay, lay , "I'm gonna lay low for awhile." It almost seems like connected to
the word for laziness. Master Shantideva will get into, in the next verse of the
definition of laziness and what is laziness, but basic laziness, in this verse he
describes it as pretty much, being attracted to some kind of inactive, unjoyful,
laying around or lazing around. You know, just enjoying the pleasant feeling,
of, of lazing around, not engaging in virtue. Okay, just lazing around you know
to get into the felling, you know wasting time. Wasting hours of your day,
sitting around doing nothing, okay. Basic description of laziness, to be attracted
to that and you know, you get some kind of feeling it some kind of, it's like
eating too much chocolate or something an you get some kind of stuffed feeling.
Stuffed, stupid, overdosed, felling, I don't know what it is, but that's {lelo}. {Lelo},
is to be attracted to that feeling when you sleep in too late and you slept too
much and you feel like a pig. You get this inner fell ing you feel stuffed or
bloated or something, or somehow lazy, sleeping you know, just some kind of
eating too much or sleeping too much. And that's and that's, and then not doing
your meditations, not doing your practices, not feeling like studying Tibetan,
you know, just this kind of sloth, he calls it sloth. That's his description of {lelo}, a
basic description of {lelo}. By the way that is not the same as, and Mater
Shantideva and all the Masters of the {Lam rim}, are very clear, it is not the same
as doing virtue very well, and happily and then taking a good rest. That's a
different thing you know, that's a whole different thing. Like if you stayed up all
night doing the reading or something and only got one hour of sleep, to go and
lay down for a couple of hours is fine, is wonderful. And it is a bodhisattva
activity to take care of our body and to sleep well, you know, to sleep enough, to
take care of yourself is a bodhisattva activity, no problem, he's not talking about
that. They're very careful to say that. This is talking about excessive, lazy sloth,
lazing around, reading the New York Times for three hours on Sunday, you
know, that's sloth. It's a waste of time and there is no great benefit. There is
practically no benefit to it. But if you're overworked with your Dharma work
and your stressed out and you're tired, it might be very appropriate to sit down
and read a novel or something. It might be very virtuous to do that if you need
it to keep your balance. To keep your spiritual balance there are times when
recreation or entertainment is, is very, very spiritually desirable and healthy and
virtuous. And they are all clear to say that. You know, it's not that it's bad
persay, it's that it's bad in excess. It's bad when it's all you do. It's bad more than
you need to get on with your virtue, okay. But there is a time when you have to
do it and in the monastery we have a, we have for example, {Gaye}, {gaye}, is,
and I think every great religion has the equivalent of {gaye}. {Gaye } is after the
strict summer debating and meditation season that we have then there's like this
two, three week {gaye}, {gaye }, means "let it all out", and you're allowed to play
radios and you're allowed to play games and you're allowed to play soccer and
you take your shirt off and you run around and that's called {gaye}. And
suddenly all over the monastery, these tape recorders appear, you know, and
radios and checker games and... what do they call those things? What's it called?
There's this thing that they play, what's it?

student: [unclear]

{Karim}, {karim}, they call it {karim}, You know suddenly the abbot is playing
{karim}. You know, suddenly this {karim} board has appeared, you know and
even the abbot is playing. And there's a time for that. There's a time for resting
and there's a time for entertainment and there's a time for relaxing and then you
get back to your virtuous activities and that becomes a virtue. We're talking
about just continually doing it when you don't need to do it, when there's no
great function to it. Just being lazy, okay. Number two, [cut]. ...{la}, [repeat],
{shenba}, [repeat].     {Changen}, [repeat], {la}, [repeat], {shenba}, [repeat].
{Changen}, is short for {chawa ngenba}, means, "bad deeds. Okay, doing bad
things, doing wrong things, killing, stealing sexual misconduct, lying slander,
harsh words, idle gossip, craving, ill will, wrong view, excetera, okay? Being
attracted to those things. I don't think any one in this room is particularly
attracted to murdering people, or embezzling large amounts of money from
work or committing adultery with every lady you meet. But we do have this
attraction for things that are not wholesome. Things that are not beneficial,
things that don't help anybody in particular. I can think of the New York Times
and stuff like that. I mean, just television is{changen la shenba}, it's being
attracted to something which is actually pretty negative. And, and if you're a
Buddhist, there's I think that it's very American or Protestant or something or, or
judeao Christian or something about feeling guilty. The word guilty doesn't
exist in Tibetan. I don't know any word for guilty. There's no word for feeling
guilt. They don't have the idea of feeling guilty. It's not like that, it's not like you
have to feel guilty about watching TV or guilty about sneaking our to an R rated
movie or guilty about reading the New York times or something like that. It is
just simply, a very dangerous thing to do, it's a dangerous thing to do. You don't
have much time in your life, you could die at any moment, it's easy to get hit by
a car in New York City. You know, it's very easy to die on the streets of New
York very suddenly. And it's just dangerous to do those things. It's not like you
have to feel guilty about it, it's just stupid. It's you don't have that much time, it's
a race against death whether you will reach that body of a, of light before you
die or not. It's a very deadly, very serious game that we're in, life. And you
must, if you do not reach it before you die, you're mind does not stop, you do
not stop. You go somewhere else and there are many terrible places you can go.
So it's a very deadly, serious, race against time and you need every moment that
you have. So it's not like you should feel bad or you should feel guilty about
wasting your time, it's dangerous to waste your time, it's very dangerous to do
that. And that's all he's sayings, {shenba}, means, "to be attracted". {la}, means
"to", {changen}, means like, "negative" or" useless activities, okay very... that just
another thing that destroys your sense of joy in the Dharma. That's another
thing that destroys your sense of joy in the Dharma. You know, to be, to be and
I say again not on a, not on level of killing people, but on that like we used to do
this thing, like we used to do this thing like in the Diamond business, there's this
thing called white topaz and it comes from Sri Lanka and it comes from Brazil
and the stuff from Brazil, well all topaz if you radiate it, it turns blue. So all the
blue topaz that you see in the store is white topaz which somebody has radiated,
you known, in an atomic reactor. And so we called up the federal... the Atomic
Energy Commission, and we said, "Is this dangerous?". And they said, "You
know, we don't know, you know everybody's doing it, they're selling it in the
stores in the United States, but we really don't know if it's dangerous or not
because we don't know the effects of low level radiation over a long period of
time. You know, we know that if you stand in front of an atom bomb and get
your skin peeled off, that's bad for you. But this thing about wearing something
that has a little bit of extra radiation for a year or two years, or five years, or ten
years we can't really... we don't know, we think it really hurts you but we can't
prove it because you're radiated by so many other things that it's hard to test it"
you know. And I think of {chengen}, like reading the New York Times on
Sunday is like the low level radiation, you know, it's not gonna kill you, it's not
like one exposure is gonna kill you, but the habit of wasting three precious hours
of your life once a week over the period of a decade, I don't think you can
measure the damage, it's damaging, it's very seriously damaging you know
wasting an hour of a day watching TV or something is like low level radiation.
It's not gonna kill you but I think the habit of doing it over along period of time
creates cancer you know it has its effect on you it has this negative effect on you.
That's what Master Shantideva is saying, "It's this attraction to low level negative
things over the length of a lifetime it destroys your effort. It destroys your joy in
the Dharma. And if you expose yourself to that low level radiation over a long
period of time it kills your joy in the Dharma and then your feeling about the
Dharma is like , "yeah, do I have to meditate for a half an hour, couldn't you
make it like twenty eight minutes" You know I get people asking me that, you
know, "When you say I have to meditate for one hour a day, can I count the
preliminaries or I can't count the preliminaries?" And it's like, what are you
talking about you know, it's like your honor, you should be asking me, you
know, "Is it okay if I don't go to the bathroom until three in the afternoon
because I want to meditate all day, you know." And that would be joy, that
would be spiritual joy and those other things would be like low level radiation,
okay blue topaz okay, reading New York Times, watching TV, reading
magazines, you know not one of them is going to kill you. Except articles about
us in the New York Times, okay. Number three, {giluk}, {giluk}, [repeat].
{Giluk} is a very rare word and it's a very specific word and he place where it
comes most is in Master Shantidevas patience, chapter on effort okay. And
{giluk} is a very special feeling. It's like, "I don't think I could ever do that." It's
like, like you know, "I've seen how the Dalai Lama acts, I've seen how Khen
Rinpoche acts, and I don't think I could ever do that, you know, how could I ever
be like them? How could I ever get so patient, or how could I ever learn all those
things? You know, it's impossible. And how could I ever get to the point where
I could meditate for two three hours straight with out any kind of distraction? I
can't do that, that's for those big Lamas, you know, I'm not like them." And, and
that's just not true and Master Shantideva, throughout this chapter, through out
the last chapter, throughout the whole book he says, you know, "just start."
"Start in your own puny, wimpy, little way and start to make it a habit and the
human mind is extremely powerful and if you start at a low level you know at a
tiny level to do something small, like when he's on the chapter in giving he says,
somebody says, how could I ever be like a bodhisattva, bodhisattvas can take a
knife and cut their hand off and hand it to somebody who needs something to
eat for example, if they are not vegetarian. [laughter] There's this thing where
they have the ability to reach into their eye socket with this finger, I mean
theoretically you could do it right? Like I could do it right now if I really wanted
to, if I had the strength you know. And reach in and pull out your eyeball and
hand it to someone who doesn't have an eye. I mean bodhisattvas have this
ability to do that, because they care so much about other people. So Master
Shantideva says, "Don't do it. It's a big mistake." Like someone like you and me,
if they tried to do that, after a couple of minutes, we'll regret it, we'll say, "Oh my
god, what did I do?". He says, "Start with carrots and potatoes." Give away a
carrot, give away a potato." You know get in the habit and make it habitual.
That he said in the last chapter. Everything depends on your own mind.
Everything depends on getting used to it. You can do anything, anyone in this
room can do anything. The human mind is very, very trainable, you just have to
start small and build up steadily and you can, anyone in this room could get to
the point where you could cut your arm off and you could get to the point
where you could reach in and take your eye out and hand it to someone. Don't
think you can't do it. You know there's a very famous verse where the Buddha
says, "Bugs can do it, flies can do it, roaches can do it, if you try if you train, if you
build up steadily you could do anything." You know the human mind is
extremely powerful and you can do it, you just have to start, and try. So {giluk}
is, {giluk} is the opposite emotion. {Giluk} is like saying, I could never do that, it's
a big enemy of the fourth perfection and you have to forget it, you know there'll
be bad days
when you feel depressed, like you taught the patience chapter at the Quaker
house for two or three weeks and then your boss screamed at you a little bit and
you got pissed off and said something, like I did today. And then you start
feeling {giluk}, you know. Like here I am, I'm standing up here talking about it
and I'm getting furious at my boss, right away. I mean within about two
minutes after he screamed at me. But you, you can't be {giluk}, you know you
have to think, "I failed this one time, but I'll come back, you know, tomorrow,
Thursday, when I have that meeting with him, I'll just keep my cool, you know I
won't get angry and I'll think about..." What am I supposed to think about? You
tell me? And I'm gonna keep bringing it up. Very, very, very important, don't
forget it, most important think of this class, most important thing of this course.
Where did he come from? You know no Buddhist who ever encounters
something negative should ever fail to say, "Where did this come from? Why
did I ever meet this stupid boss? Why did I ever walk into this company ? Why
did he ever interview me here? Why did he see the add in the paper and come
to interview here? Was it just a mistake?
{cut} ...enjoy their practice and like that. It's not like that, it's like just, just practice
a little bit, you know, get used to it, start small, start small. You know, get off,
you know, start with a ten minute meditation, go up to fifteen minutes and go
up to twenty minutes. You know, don't feel guilty if you can't sit down and
enjoy a whole hours meditation, cause it hurts. At first it's not comfortable, so
start small. Get used to doing ten minutes then do fifteen minutes and you
know, if you do something like exercise, right, if you go and try to bench press
two hundred pounds the first day, you hurt yourself. If you start with a little bit
of exercise and then build up slowly, it becomes quite enjoyable. Once you get
good at it, it becomes very enjoyable. But if you ran five miles on the day that
you tried to run, it, it would feel bad and you wouldn't want to do it again. And
it's the same with your meditation and the same with your virtues, it's the same
with generosity, it's the same with generosity, it's the same with keeping
morality, you have to start on some level that you can handle. And, and start
modestly, start wisely and then build up slowly, so he's saying like that.
{Nyomley} is some kind of feeling of pleasure about wasting your time. Say,
{nyila} [repeat] , {denpay} [repeat], {sepa} [repeat]. {Nyila}, [repeat] {denpay},
[repeat] {sepa}, [repeat]. {Nyi}, means "sleeping", lazing around. {Nyila Denpa},
means to sleep for a period of time, to spend a, to spend time sleeping. {Sepa},
means to have a craving for that. So {nyila tenpay sepay}, means, you just get
sort of an addiction to lazing around. You know either in the form of sleeping or
laying half way down, and, and like that. It's on of the enemies... it's one of the
things that promotes laziness. It's one of the things that will destroy your joy in
virtue. Incidentally, eating too much is related to that. You know, incidentally,
eating too much or eating the wrong things very much promotes this. Being in
the habit of eating too much, which is very typical for Americans, you know,
eating more than you need, eating more than you're hungry for promotes this
also. It gets you into the frame of mind... like if you try to meditate after eating
two pizzas or something, it's impossible. Or if you have too much sugar it's
impossible to meditate right after that. So you have to, part of, part of that is to,
is to watch your eating. And you know, it's not emphasized allot in Buddhism
except when you do retreats, but in general, if you don't eat, if you don't eat
wisely then you won't be able to meditate well. And you will get sleepy when
you're trying to meditate and that. And I think it's important for Americans to
watch that also, you know. And if you go to a corner store or a convenience
store here, it's almost impossible to find something that doesn't do that to you.
You know, I mean, I think three quarters or eighty percent of American foods
are, they make you sort of lazy, they make you sort of low level, low energy.
And it's different for each person, it depends on your own body. You know,
what's healthy for one person, you know is not healthy for another person, you
know, and you have to get to know your own body, especially in retreat or
meditation. A food that might be harmful for one person might be very helpful
for another person, so you have to be very careful. You have to be careful. I, I
believe that we eat too much, we eat too much of the wrong things. And then,
they, they generally drag down your energy and your ability to meditate. I
think, I think, if you didn't do that you could do allot more, you could stay up
more, you could have allot more energy. Did you have a question?

student: [unclear]

He asked the difference between [nyomley}, and {leylo}.              The words are
linguistically related, obviously. {Nyomley}, is one of the causes of {leylo}.
Okay, {nyomley} is like taking an excessive pleasure in doing what I call low level
radiation. And {leylo} technically speaking, is not to feel joy in your practice.
Okay, so technically speaking, you know if you want to get technical, you know
{nyomley}, attraction to wasting your time for example is a cause of not being
happy to meditate and not being happy to do your practice, okay? That's, that's
the difference. In Master Shantideva's presentation that's the difference. In
general, in Tibetan language, {nyomley} means someone that lazes around and
{lelo} means laziness. So, but Master Shantideva is trying to present it as cause
and effect and Gyaltsab Je is doing that, okay. Say {korway}, [repeat], {duknel},
[repeat], {la}, [repeat], {mikyewa}, [repeat], {korway}, [repeat], {duknel}, [repeat],
{la}, [repeat], {mikyewa}, [repeat]. Ahh, this is a third condition that promotes
laziness that Master Shantideva mentions but he almost mentions it as a cause of
the first two, I mean as a result of the first two. So it's, number three is a result
of the first two, but it also promotes laziness, laziness, being a lack of joy in
goodness, a lack of joy. {Korwa}, means samsara, or cyclic existence. How is it
defined? I mean how is {korwa}, defined? Basically, the death and aging of this
body and this life, basically. You know, you hear cyclic existence and you're
thinking rebirth after rebirth after rebirth. You don't have to think of it that
way. The definition of samsara is, technically, is the, the aging and death of you,
as caused by your past deeds and mental afflictions, that's samsara. Samsara is
not outside of you, you are samsara, you are cyclic existence, you are suffering,
you are the condition of suffering, is you. And that's {korwa}. {Korway duknel}
means suffering. Okay, the suffering of this life, the suffering of normal life,
non-enlightened life, non-paradise life. If you were n Friday nights class, non-
going to heaven life. Okay, {korway duknel la}, {mikyewa}, means to fail. To
fail, to get fed up with it. {Mi}, means, "not", {kyewa}, means, "I'm fed up with
this stuff". "I'm tired of this stuff I don't want anymore of this stuff", okay. And
what he means is if you get into the New York Times and television and stuff
like that, [A], [B], if you get into lazing around, going out to movies, you know,
just enjoying yourself basically and wasting your time, something much worse
will happen to you then just getting old and dying, you will fail to recognize this
life for what it is. You will fail to recognize this life for what it is, it is pure
suffering. There is nothing about this life which is not suffering. And if you get
trapped in those fist two causes for laziness you'll never recognize that fact. Who
recognizes it? Who comes to church? Who comes to temple? Go, go to a
Christian church service, the seven o'clock service, not the nine o'clock, okay, go
to a Christian Church at seven o'clock for the early service, you know, go to
Rashi Gempil Ling Buddhist Temple, Howell New Jersey, not at the Christmas, I
mean, not at the Je Tsongkapa day. Go on during the eighth or the thirtieth of
the month when it's the standard daily service, the only people there are over
seventy. The only people who come are over seventy years old. Why? They
woke up to this fact. Are we in the same condition that they are? Yes. Are we
just as mortal and likely to die tomorrow as they are? Absolutely. But when
you get seventy you can't ignore it anymore because all your friends are dead,
you know. All the people you know, all your brothers your sisters your mother,
your father, all your old friends from the old days. You're like the one in twenty
that didn't die yet, or the one in fifty that didn't die yet. And then you go to
church, you go to temple. Your {korwey duknel, kyewa}, you know, you are
really fed up with this life and you finally see it for what it is. So don't wait till
you get that old, you know. You have to use logic, you know, you have to say
friend number one died, brother number two died, my father died, my mother
died, my grandmother died, you know, people around me dying all the time,
duh... I might die too. You know, you know, maybe I should do something
now, while I'm still alive. I mean it doesn't take a genius to figure it out but we
have this kind of blinders, you know, we refuse to admit it. That that's the way
life is, And that's the third cause for laziness, okay, We gotta move a little bit.
Okay.

Hector: Contemplation number five, "Lambs to the Slaughter".

"Haven't you even got the eyes to see how those in the world with you have
gone steadily to the slaughter? To sit here still and enjoy your sleep, it's just the
same as the oxen waiting for the butcher.

Okay, okay, I was in Arizona on retreat, like last month and when I got out I was
driving to the airport and there was, I passed a, a slaughter house and there was
this long, like, I don't know, half a mile of fencing and then there were all these
cows you know, hundreds and hundreds of cows and they are sitting around
and they're chewing, their chewing hay and they're drinking water and they're
all like very relaxed you know. And then you get to the other end and there's
this big building and they're leading them in there you know, and you know you
don't come out, they, they, they catch a hook on their behind on this tendon here
and they pull them upside down and they slit the throats. Alive, alive, when
they're alive they pull this hook on them, and then they slit their throats and
then they bleed them a special way and stuff like that. And so the ones outside
are just sitting there, and you know, they're like, oh, you know, cow number
one just went in that building, my other friend just went in that building and
they are too stupid to figure out what is going on. They are too stupid to figure
out that they are going to be led into this building next and that is the nature of a
cow. I mean, a cow, according to Buddhism, the brain of a cow is too stupid, in
most cases, except when they feel some kind of instinct about what is gonna
happen and they start to cry or something, but in general they are just too stupid
to logically deduce that nobody comes out of this building that all of these other
cows are being led into and they just sit there and chew on the grass and watch
you know. And they are just not aware, they are too stupid to figure out what is
going on and, and Master Shantideva is comparing us to them, okay, [laughs].
Okay, he's saying, "{mahi donyi duba shen}" is the root text. Which means, most
of us are just like that. You know, people all around you are getting led away
day by day by Lord of death you now, and He's slaughtering them. You know
people all around you, people a work, people you know, people in the New
York Times, read the obituary, although you're not supposed to now, right?
You know all the famous people around you, all these famous people, Versaci,
or whatever his name is, getting killed, day by day, you know each day one
more person dead one more person dead, one more person dead. They are
your contemporaries, contemporary means your in the same generation as
them, what did you think, they're somehow lot's older than you? They're not
older than you and lot's of them are younger. They're your contemporaries.
That's what Master Shantideva is saying, look, look they are your
contemporaries. People who are alive and in the world with you right now.
And they are just dying, day by day, they are just being led to the
slaughterhouse and dying, and you are like those stupid cows watching those
other cows go into the slaughterhouse and you can't figure out what is going on,
you know. He says, "Wake up". {Munsum du tong}, means open your eyes you
know, you can see what is going on, you don't have to be an Einstein to figure it
out. Your, your, your, your like them, just don't sit there like a stupid cow and
watch TV, and read the New York Times, and sit around. He says, don't do it.
Don't be like a stupid cow. Okay, and that's, that's, it's the stupidity, it's
happening right in front of you and you don't notice it. It's the steadiness of
other people getting killed, you know I mean it's a very steady flow, it's not like
in one day three hundred people get killed around you, it just the very steady
you know every week, every month somebody gets killed, dies, and what are
you? Stupid? You know, they are leading people in one by one they are leading
the cows in one by one, don't sit there like a cow and think about your next TV
show or your next movie, you know, do something you know, and this is what
this verse is about. Okay, next verse.

Hector: Contemplation number six. "I still have time"

"Death is coming to take you, moving at incredible speed. In the time you have
left try to amass good karma. When the moment arrives, it's true you may give
up your laziness, but what good can it do at a time so wrong? You haven't go to
this just yet the other's just started and yet another has still left to do, suddenly
then does the Lord of Death make his arrival and in your mind you can only cry,
"He kills me." "

Okay, you know we have this computer project and we are inputting all these
important texts you know, in Tibetan, and it'll take maybe another fifty years or
a hundred years, And in the Tengyur in the Canon in the the basic Buddhist
books there are a couple of books that are unfinished, you know , they just go
and they just stop in the middle of a line and the author died while he was
writing it. {Dini ma che di che che lobor chitta ongwa nyi}, this is root text you
know, you didn't quite get to do this yet, you know you have this plan to do this
project and this other project is like half done and this other project, your
thinking about doing it, and you know you have all these plans you know, you
have all these projects, I have twenty one projects you know and some of them
are half done you know, some of them are in the planning stage, some of them
are pretty well along and in the back of your mind always there is this, "I'll be
able to finish this, I'll be able to finish this." You know, "Give me another six
months, this will be finished." When do you plan to do the next CD ROM?" "Oh,
six months you know, it'll be out." you know, but you can't be in that mode you
know, says Master Shantideva, you know it will come and you know, they'll say,
"This is the book that Michael Roach started that he never finished, you know"
"It stops in the middle of a sentence, you know, cause he got hit by a car that
night or something like that, and he says, "Wake up." You know, there's gonna
come a moment, everybody who ever died had all these plans and all these
projects and all these things they were gonna do and then suddenly just boom,
they die, you know, and he says, you gotta get into that mode and be ready for
it to come and then he says something very beautiful and it's leading up to the
next verse, He says, "What the hell did you think you were gonna do at the
moment you died?" You know, are you gonna save.... are you gonna do all your
meditation for your life on your death bed, are you gonna wait till then? Are
you gonna become a master meditator on the last few days? You know, when
you get cancer and they put you in the hospital, it that when you're gonna start
meditating? Is that when you're gonna start learning Tibetan? You know, is that
when you're gonna start reading scriptures? You know or, is that when you're
gonna start thinking about all this stuff? He says, "Forget it." You know, wrong
time. You gotta do it now. He says if you wait too long you just won't be able
to do it. And beyond that you know, we have a body problem, you know you
get to a certain age, you will not be able to meditate properly, period, you
know, people tell me, people over fifty, my student's over fifty, they, they start
complaining, they come to me after class, they say, "that was kinda cool that you
said that you know, it's a fact". You know you get to a certain age and you can't
meditate properly, you can't do it. You know, you can't sit long enough, you
never will and it's a fact of life, get used to it. Quit fooling yourself. And
everybody says, "I'm gonna do my retreats next year." Or, "I'm gonna do my
retreats when I get a good vacation from work." Forget it you know, quit the
job, get a job that you can do nice retreats. You're not gonna have time later.
There is no later, everybody thinks, later and then nobody does later. If you're
not doing it now, you're not gonna do it. Period. forget later I mean so many
people say later. Had so many students say, I'm gonna go to law school then I'll
be back in class. yeah right, you know, I never see them again you know. And,
and that's it. forget later If you're gonna do something start now. If you're not
starting now, you're never gonna do it, face it, what's gonna be different a year
from now that 'n not gonna be here now. You know you have to take steps
now to take care of things. You will not be able in the final years of your life or in
the Final hours of your life to make up for what you didn't do throughout your
life, it's impossible, it's impossible, you can't do it. You can't wait and, and, and
when the time comes that you're too old or, or not well, you won't be able to
meditate. You won't be able to reach those levels that reach you when you die.
By the time you get cancer or something, or whatever it's gonna be for you, it's
too late, it's just too late to do anything. You can't be effective, your body
doesn't move that well and your mind is already disturbed. There is a too late, I
mean don't think that there is not a too late. There is a too late. And we are
close and everybody here is too close. And don't think you're gonna do it next
year, forget it. It doesn't work that way. If you're not planning it now and
acting out the plan now to prepare for your death, and do your meditations and
do your retreats and do your practices, do your meditations in the morning.
You won't do it, you just won't do it. If you are not doing it tonight, if you don't
start after class tonight, some kind of practice, forget it you know, you are
kidding yourself, you really are kidding yourself. And, and that's the point of
that verse. Okay, next, next verse.

Hector: Contemplation number seven: "What it feels to die."

"What is it that you imagined you'd do at that moment? Tormented by the
memories of the wrongs that you've done and with the roar of the hell realms in
your ears, bringing such terror that you cover your body in shit and reach the
depths of insanity."



I, I have a pet peeve. I have all these Dharma pet peeves. I hate Dharma rumors
and I have all these Dharma pet peeves. One of my Dharma pet peeves is that I
have some students who come to me and say, "I don't have to meditate that
much and I don't have to meditate that much cause I went to this Lama you
know, this Lama came into town, he dropped in on a Friday night, and he was
gone on Sunday and he taught us all {powa}, you know, and no problem, you
know, when I die I'm gonna do {powa}, you know. " And what's {powa}? It's
like this thing where you project your consciousness to a higher realm. You
know, as you die, you go into this deep meditative state you know and you
project your mind to a higher realm. And, and this you learn on Friday night
and the Lama's gone on Saturday morning and you've mastered it in twenty
four hours you know. Master Shantideva says, in this verse, says, "forget it, you
know, forget it". Go up on a high building in New York, have someone stand
behind you, go stand at the edge. Let them go like that [shake you] and feel
your reaction. [laughter] Seriously. Feel that, there's this human thing about, "I
don't want to die." And there's this incredible fear of dying, everyone has it. I
think it's subconscious because we've died so many times and gone to so many
bad places. I think it's this subconscious memory of your past lives. But, go up
and just let someone jerk you like that, and feel the feeling of it, you know, and
you will just instinctively go like that, you'll fight them. You don't want to die
you know. And they say that as you die, as you go through the process of
dying, as you go through the last few hours, it's its total chaos, you know, the
mind is collapsing , the physical basis that supports thought, what we call,
"electricity", in the West, is collapsing, and you hallucinate, you start to go into
incredible hallucinations, and you start to have this incredible terror comes up in
your mind and He, Shantideva, says, "Look, when are you gonna do {powa},
you know, you're gonna be crapping in our own pants." He says, that you
know, he says, 'You're gonna be scared to death and, and your gonna be totally
in terror and your gonna be like a crazy person, you know and you'll be
begging not to die. And what are you gonna do? Are you gonna go into a deep
state of meditation then? You know are you gonna do everything then? He
says, 'Forget it." He says, "Ridiculous." What do you think you now, what are
you thinking about? It's the last, it's the most terrifying moment of your whole
life, it's more terrifying than anything that ever happened to you. All at one
moment. They say, {ne chu kyi dukngel}, {ne chu kyi dukngel} means that as
you die there's a special kind of pain, a very sharp pain, of having, of like having
your chest crushed, crushed by something. And, and it comes in your body as
you die, there's this incredible pain that comes in your body as you die. And
they say, "What do you think? You know, are you gonna go into some deep
state of meditation at that moment?" That's the last possible moment , it's the
least likely of every moment in your life that you can do anything then. It's
impossible. So we're gonna, I'm gonna, this is on your homework, four
things ....[silence] process of death, what it feels like to die. Say, {rangdik},
[repeat], {trenbey}, [repeat], {dungba}, [repeat]. {Rangdik}, [repeat], {trenbey},
[repeat], {dungba}, [repeat]. {Rangdik}, mean the bad deeds that you did during
your life. Buddhism says that as you die, you start to see the events of your
whole life go before you. You know they say, it plays... what do they call that?
It plays your whole life before you. What do they call that?

students: [unclear]

Your whole life flashes, they say that's true. That, that you have this very clear
memory of the major negative things in your life, that they start to play back.
Okay, and that you're aware of them. {Trenbey} means that you remember
them, okay. {Dungba} means, it torments you. You start to get into this
tormented state. It's very torment, like very seriously painful to be aware that
you have all this karma. Like you don't really think about it unless your life is in
danger. You know, at the moment that your life is in danger, like if it's ever
happened to you. Like if you've ever been in a near death thing, I was in a plane
and the wheels didn't work and they told us that we might, that we might die.
And, and you really do start to review all the things that you did in you r life, it
becomes very natural to review everything you do in your life. And you
automatically start to see, you can't fool yourself anymore, you know, you know
it was wrong. There is no reason to fool yourself. You know at that moment,
you're very honest with yourself ad you start to know that you did all these
things wrong and you start to feel really bad because.... number two. Say
{nyelway}, [repeat], {dra}, [repeat], {tupa}, [repeat]. Say it again, say, {nyelway},
[repeat], {dra}, [repeat], {tupa}, [repeat]. {Nyelwa}, means, "hell realms", hell.
Long story, but Buddhism accepts the idea of hell, but it's either very hot or very
cold and extremely bad suffering. That's {nyeway}, {Dra}, means, "the roar", or
the sound of the hells. The hells, you know, according to Buddhism, if you could
hear a hell realm for like a minute, you would go crazy. You know, just beings
in constant, constantly killing each other and slaughtering each other and
cutting each other and burning each other and hitting each other. And like a
wild frenzy. Every being there trying to rip each other to pieces, with their
hands, you know and people, a whole world of people struggling like that and
trying to rip each other apart, physically with their hands. And when you're
born there you're just instantly concious, like you don't go through a hell
childhood. You are born there complete as a human and the minute you are
aware, someone is trying to rip your eyes out or rip your face off. And you just
spend your whole existence there furiously trying to rip their faces off before
they rip yours off and, and there's this sound if millions of beings doing that
together in this huge place. And, and as you die you get this premonition of it,
you can hear it. You know, it comes into your ear and you know that you're
going there and you feel this thing. What are the odds of going there, I mean
frankly, I don't say this in public very often. I would not get up and, and say this
in a public lecture. The Buddha put the odds at about a billion to one that you will
go there, or something like that, or millions and millions to one, that any given
person will go to a hell realm , the odds are something like a million to one or
something. Out of one person who doesn't go there a million will go there. And
that's the, that's the likelihood of it, I mean frankly. You know so when people
get into euthanasia arguments I'm just like, you think you're helping them, you
know you think, I mean the odds that after thirty seconds after you put them
out of their "misery", they will be in a hell realm ripping someones face off, or
being ripped, their face being ripped off, is, is about a million to one, so it's, it's
very serious and as you die you get a premonition of it. You feel it, you sense it,
And I think that's why subconciously people don't want to die, I think that's why
we deny it so strongly and that we fight it so strongly. I think, subconsciously,
you are aware that you've been there many times and that it's very likely that
you could go back and you just don't want to and you deny it, you know. Okay,
number three. Oh, so{nyelwa}, means, "hell". {Dra}, means, "The roar" of the
hells. {Tupa}, means, "to hear it". Yeah. It helps allot. The true attitude helps
allot, the words don't do anything, okay. He said, "Does taking refuge help?"
They say that taking refuge stops the doors to the hells. If you take it sincerely ,
it would stop the doors to the hells. If you see emptiness directly, no problem,
never again. Totally, absolutely, guaranteed, higher realm, beautiful perfect
lives, seven lives then enlightenment. You know, if you take these classes
seriously, if you study especially emptiness, seriously, if you learn to meditate
well, if you undertake either the open of the secret practiced for seeing
emptiness directly you don't have to worry about that at all, never again. And
you perceive that directly, you see your future. Very cool, if you could get there.
With the right training any one in this room could get to that, If you try, if you
try hard, if you try seriously you can reach that. Say {drakpay}, [repeat,
{mitsang}, [repeat], {lukeu}, [repeat], {drakpay}, [repeat], {mitsang}, {lukeu},
[repeat]. {Drakpay}, means, "out of terror", you know you hear this thing, you
have a premonition of what's gonna happen, you actually get some ,kind of
premonition of, of the sound of where you're going, {drakpay}. {Mitsang},
means, "poo, poo", shit, okay? {Mitsang}, means shit, and {lu}, means, "your
body". {Geu} means that you smear it all over your body, meaning that you're
so frightened that you just automatically defecate, okay, at that moment. It's so
frightening to hear that, that you just uncontrollably defecate at that moment,
okay. And then people tell me, you know, after a three hour lecture their gonna
do {powa} at that moment, it's, it's not fair to those people to say that. It's, it's not
fair to tell someone that. by the way, I don't mean to say that it's impossible, I
mean {powa} is a practice, it's an important practice, you can do it, it takes years
and years of training, it takes years and years of practice, and you should learn
how to do it. And it is very important to do. But you now, it's an extremely
difficult practice and it takes allot of training. But I don't mean to say it doesn't, it
does work, there is such a thing. But it would take years of dedicated effort, like
in retreat or something, to learn to do it. Okay, say {nyepar gyur}, [repeat].
Okay {nyepar gyur}, means you get totally insane. Okay, at the moment of
death you lose your ability to think clearly. This is partly due to the destruction
of what you would call brain cells. The physical support for the brain starts to
breaks down. The synapses start to break down, which is not the mind, but it
supports the mind, and as the synapses break down, there's allot of, I think you
would call it in the West, explosions of electricity in the mind, and they cause allot
of hallucinations. So as you start to die, especially after you look like you're dead
but you're still alive in your own brain, you start to go into some heavy
hallucinations, for all intents and purposes you are insane, you cannot think a
straight thought, it's impossible. Because the physical basis for the mind has
collapsed and, and is collapsing. So to think that you're gonna have a straight
thought as you die or that you will be able to direct your thought without
intense long tern training is not, it's crazy. You will go, for all intents and
purposes, at the moment of death, you become insane, you can't think straight,
okay, and those are the four... Those are Master Shantidevas argument for,
"Wake up! Don't kid yourself. If you're gonna do it, do it now." Okay, if you're
gonna do something, do it now. You're got X number of hours, X number of
months and years to get to your Buddha Paradise before the shit hits the fan,
okay? So take care of things now. You know, don't wait for some last minute
thing, you're not gonna be able to do it, it don't work that way. You won't be
able to do anything then. That's all I'm gonna say, That's the main point. Yeah,
alright, next one, I'm sorry we're running a little late, okay. It was your quizzes,
not me.

Hector: Contemplation, number eight, "Examine your expectations".

" You set your hopes on results, unwilling to make any effort, sufferings shower
down on those least able to bear them. Already in the kiss of death, you imagine
yourself an immortal and cry out when sufferings come to destroy you. You
give up the highest kind of pleasure, the holy Dharma, infinite number of causes
that bring you pleasure. Why is it you are attracted so much to causes for pain,
to business and the like?"

Okay this is the last contemplations, that's the last part of the class. Master
Shantideva mentions, I think you could call it the role of expectation as you die,
okay, the role of expectations as you die. And he mentions three expectations
that you live with you know. Three expectations that people always live with,
presuppositions that people live with, presumptions. First one is this. {Drebu},
[repeat], {dewa}, [repeat], {topa}, [repeat}. There's just a few Tibetan here, {gela}
means, "goods deeds", okay, about good deeds. {Tsunmin} means, "you don't
make any effort". You're not trying to make any efforts, you're not spending
your life working on your good deeds. {Drebu} means, "result". {Dewa} means,
"happiness". {Topa} means, "You get it". What it means is; All human beings,
according to Master Shantideva are living under the presupposition, or their
expectation that something good is going to happen to them. Unreasonably so,
because they haven't done anything to deserve it, like okay, [laughs], You know,
like everybody in the world is thinking, "I hope I get money, I hope I get friends,
I hope I have a good life, I hop I die nicely." But you didn't do anything to make
it happen, so what do you expect? He's saying that you are crazy. You know,
it's like you're expecting that something to happen without doing anything to
make it happen. He says, "If you really examine your life, what are you doing
that's so wonderful that you should expect those things to happens." He says,
"You're crazy." You know, you haven't done anything of the things that are
necessary to make yourself happy. You know, you're not doing the things that
karmically make people happy. You are not caring about other people, you are
not doing virtuous things, you're not meditating allot, you're not even going into
retreats, you're not studying well, you're not thinking about Buddhism allot,
you're not thinking about virtue and you still sitting there thinking that
everything is going to be alright, and that everything is going to be fine.
Everything s going to turn out fine, and that some how, out of all the people in
the world, you're gonna die okay, why? There's an unreasonable expectation.
You have thins. In the back of, in the back of your mind you're thinking, "I'm
not such a bad person, other people I don't know, but personally I haven't been
so bad, and and those horrible things won't happen to me, they'll happen to
other people." I mean in the back of your mind you have an expectation or a
supposition that you make. And Master Shantideva says, "Based on what?"
What did you do that was for cool? Could you write down for three days, the
things that you're doing in your life, make a list of the things that you're doing in
your life and show me what 's so virtuous about it?" And why are you different
than the other oxen who go to the slaughterhouse. And what do you expect?
You're not doing anything. You're not doing anything special. And where does
the expectation come from that everything is gonna be okay in your life or that
maybe you're gonna be happy, and that you're gonna die well. He says, it's just,
"It's illogical." It doesn't make any sense to believe that cause you're not doing
anything special. [cut].... sweetly, and you get into it, and you get turned on by
it, you can expect those things and they do come and it is quite nice when they
do come cause you're just like, "Oh yeah, I collected those causes, and it's coming,
right on time." [laughter] You know, and you know, "I'm having all these
extraordinary experiences just like they said." You know and you can actually do
the opposite. You can plan it, you can plan your future paradise, okay? Two
more. This is another expectation or presupposition that people have. Say it
{hlanda}, [repeat], {yiring}, [repeat], {tsundu}, [repeat], {rewa}, [repeat]. Don't fall
asleep yet okay? {Hlanda}, in this case {hla}, means, "an immortal", a god, an
immortal god. {Hlanda}, means, "like an immortal." {Yiring} means, "long time",
long long time. {Yiring} means, "A long, long time. {Tsundu} means that, "you're
gonna live for a long, long time". {Tsundu} means, "live". {Rewa} means that you
expect that. I mean everybody in this room, in the back of their mind is
thinking, when I talked abut people around you dying, you said, in the back,
back, back of your mind, deep in your heart you're thinking, "Not me, maybe
those other guys, not me." But if you think about it, there will be the first person
in the room who dies. Some day, the day will come when you sit around and
you say, " Remember that guy who was n class? He died yesterday, really bad,
you know, it was terrible." Then there will be the second one and then there will
be the third one and then there will be the last three people who are still alive
and they will say, "God, you remember those classes back in ninety-seven?
There were all those people there, there was like eighty-five people there and
there are only three left of s." And there will come a time. And there will come a
time where no one remembers a single class here, they will all be dead. Dead
and gone and nobody will ever remember these classes were ever held. There
will come a time and that's the way we are, so on what basis did you think you
are still gonna be around for awhile? Why in the back of your mind are you
assuming that you are gonna live for awhile? It's unreasonable, okay, it's
unreasonable expectation, and Master Shantideva is saying these three
expectations, we got to number two, right? They're what make you suffer so
greatly at death, cause then you see that it was all wrong, You know as you die
you get this sudden knowledge that you had these three suppositions. That you
were not so bad, and you were gonna live awhile longer, and then suddenly
they are all exploded and suddenly it's obvious that you are gonna die right now.
And that those expectations that you had, they cause you more suffering than
before. If you didn't have those expectations, you wouldn't suffer so badly as
you die. Okay, next one and then we're done. {Dunkngel}, [repeat], {mang},
[repeat]. {Senchung},[repeat], {dukngel}, [repeat], {mang}, [repeat]. {Senchung},
is a difficult word in Tibetan, but it means little ability to withstand pain. I don't
know what you would call that in English. {Sen} means, "the ability to withstand
pain", you know, i don't' know what you would call it. The ability to put up with
suffering. The ability, specifically the ability to bear when you are hurting, you
know, to endure pain. The ability to endure pain s called, {sen}. {Senchung},
means that ability as you get older starts to dissolve. You know, the older you
get, the less able you are to put up with pain. Okay, the longer you live,
normally, you get less and less able to withstand pain and to put up with
problems in your life and to put up with unexpected problems like that. The
older you get, the more your mind foss... sil... what's that called? Fossilizes?
Something like that. [laughter] Ossifies. And you literally become less able to
handle change, less able to handle ambiguity, less able to handle pain. And the
longer you live, the worse it gets, until, when you get to be old, you can't stand
anything, you can't go outside in a slight breeze cause you might catch cold. You
can't stand it if it's a little too cold, you can't stand it if it's a little too hot.
Somebody puts a little too much spice in the food, you get sick. You're whole
body is {senchung}, {senchung} means, you're whole body and your whole
minds starts to become less and less capable of withstanding pain, and don;t
think that you're different, you know, everybody in the room is thinking, yeah,
but I'm a little smarter than that, forget it, you know, Trijang Rinpoche, these
Great Lamas, when they get older you start to get affected like that, you know
you do, you do, you do get weaker and weaker, and smaller and smaller things
start to hurt more and more. And even just to sit on a chair, I mean, I know
older people who say just to sit on a chair is great suffering for them, but that is
the best thing that they can do because everything else hurts worse, okay.
{Dukngel} means, "sufferings". {Mang}, means "many". As you get older your
ability to withstand sufferings is less and everything hurts more. And He says
that that's a third condition that makes death worse and worse, so every year
that goes by you are more affected by death, okay, if you die young, apparently,
it's a little less painful then if you die old, because you are much more sensitive to
pain by the time that you are that age, okay? So three reasons why to die is so
much suffering. One is; in the back of your mind, you thought that you weren't
that bad, you thought you were pretty good. Number two; In the back of your
mind you thought you were gonna live a little longer, a long time. Number
three; Your natural ability to withstand pain gets less and less and the death gets
more and more painful. Last question on your homework is, "How does Master
Shantideva describe our priorities and our perception of what is happiness?"
And in the root text, which you are not gonna get tonight because you
know, we stayed up, we slept one hour last night and we couldn't finish it. He
says, the Dharma is the Ultimate source of happiness. Just meditating, doing
retreats, studying, controlling your own mind, keeping a watch of your vows.
You know, carefully tracking them, "Am I keeping track of them, am I keeping
my vows today? Am I doing my vows?" That is the source, the real source.
And people push that away, the real thing that can bring them happiness, they
push away and they go after all these other things, and he makes a list. He says,
doing bad deeds to get what you want. Can I close this Diamond deal tomorrow
if I charge the guy tax, or will he back out? Seriously, it came into my mind and
I'm like what? What's wrong with you, you know, [laughs]. It's a bad deed. You
think it's gonna make money or something, forget it it's a source of suffering.
This is actually a source of suffering to, to lie, to cheat, to hurt someone is gonna
actually cause you pain, it's not gonna make you any money, okay? Number
two, called {dundzi}, {dundzi}, you have to study, {dundzi}, means New York city
hustle and bustle.          Hustle and bustle, like you are attracted to it. It's like
sophisticated, it's like stimulating, okay and actually, it' gonna cause you
suffering, it makes your mind busy. It, it doesn't allow you to meditate properly,
being around too much stimulation is destructive to you practice, you go after it,
you are attracted to it. The tendency of your mind to skip from object to object,
like I like this, I want to do this, oh, now I want to do this, I want to do this now,
oh I want to do that. You know, and , and then your mind keeps going like this,
boom, boom, boom, like a fly and landing on different things, that's called
{guppy}. He says, "Those three, those tendencies to think that those three things
are happiness; business, to live in a, in a what you call, stimulating place. And
then the third one of doing bad deeds because you think you're gonna get
something good out of it are all lies". So the are the three lies of happiness, they
look like happiness but they are lying to you, and instead of embracing what is
really happiness, which is really happiness, you reject it and you go after those
other things, and that was what that one was about. Okay, we'll do some
prayers. [cut]
... so you will get the homework and you will get the reading on Thursday,
unless I die tomorrow, or tonight. Okay.

prayers: [short mandala]

prayers: [dedication]

[cut]
970724-1.aaa

Geshe Michael Roach
Course XI: Guide to the Bodhisattvas Way of Life: Part II