ACI 11 «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы, часть II», занятие 7

Class Seven: Contemplations on the Perfection of Meditation, Part One
August 5, 1997
transcribed by: Amber Moore



Prayers: [short mandala]
Prayers: [refuge]

Now in case you didn't notice, we finished the effort chapter, so since every one
has effort, we'll go on to the next perfection, which is what? Meditation, okay.
And I'll just write the name of it here. {Samten}, say, {samten}, [repeat],
{samten}, [repeat. There are many words in Tibetan and in Sanskrit for
meditation, this is the name that they give to the perfection of meditation. It's
hard to translate them all differrently and to get the differreent flavours of each
one. I'm not going to get into that tonight, that would take like a half hour and it
would take us off the subject. It's in the fifth course if you are interested, we
went through all the words for meditation and.. {Samten in thes case means, "the
perfection of meditation" and I'm going to read you some verses in Tibetan and
then I'll explain them roughly. We didn't have time to finish the translation.
We've been working very hard and staying up late hours and we're caught up to
the last class. So you'll get that after, after the class tonight, but it's just alot to do
and alot of people are working very hard in it and, but we just couldn't catch up.
So we're gonna, you don't get Hector, you get me, okay. {Detar tsundru kye ne
nyi, yi ni ting nen dzin la shak, tsem nyi nambar yeng be mi, nyomong chewey
tra na ne, lu dang semnyi emba yi, nambar yangwa min jung-ngo}. {Detar
tsundru kye ne nyi} means, "now that you all have the perfection of effort",
okay. {Yi ni ting ngen szin la shak}, "You should put your mind in to one pointed
concentration, okay. I used to wonder what one pointed meant, you know.
Like I was thinking about cone heads on Saturday Night Live. [laughter] Like
one pointed must mean that your head is kind of pointy you know. And I
finanlly saw in some scripture, it said, {Yul chik la}, {sem say chik}, means {yul
chik la}. It means one pointed concentration means simply to be one minded, to
have one mindedness. So, you know, like my boss has, has, {tig ngen dzin}.
He's one mindedly focused towards money and that is {ting ngen dzin}, you
don't have to be Buddhist to have {ting ngen dzin}, you know, baseball players
have {ting ngen dzin. You know, if you watch a good baseball player, and they
do the slow mo of the ball coming into the bater and the guy is standing there
and if you watch his eyes, sometimes they close, close up on his eyes, and it's and
the eyeballs, you know the, the, everything opens up wider and like the, the
concetration is very intense. And it has to be to get a Dwight Goodon ninety five
mile an hour fast ball, your concentration has to be intense and that is intense
and that is concentration, that's not Buddhist concetration, so we distinguish
between Buddhist concentration and, and other concentration, They do have
concentration, {Yini ting ngen dzin la shak}, so Master Shantideva ssays, "Get
concentration." {Tsem nyi nambar yenbe mi, nyomong chewey tra na ney} He
compares the mental afflictions to some kingd of horrible monster. like a bear,
like a grizzly bear,okay. And he says, "picture the mental afflictions as haveing
their mouthe open." And he says, "A person who is allowing their mind to
wander, if a person doesn't have one pointed ness, it's as if their head was in the,
between the grizzly bears teeth. The word {chewa} means, "fangs", like that
long. So he says, "A person who is allowing their mind to wander, has their head
between this, inside the mouth of this creature. And, and the connotation is that
the creature's about to close his mouth, like you kow you're not dead yet, but
he's, you've got your head nicely fit between his fangs, like that. And, and he's
about to just crush you, and he is the mental afflictions. So he's talking in term of
mental afflictions. So his introduction, his first words about meditation are, "If
youalow your mind to wander around, then your head is right there between
the fangs of a minster like a grizzly bear, and he's about to kill you". What does
that mean? And he goes into two, two differrent meanings of that. He talks
about two funtions of meditation and I think through the whole chapter, you'll
see that relly he's talking about two differrent kinds of meditation. And that
ultimately they're connected together. One is, that if you don't keep yiur mind in
a meditative state you will start to have mental afflictions. lMental afflictions will
start to destroy you like a big animal. You know, as long as you don't have your
mind in a meditative state them mentalafflictions will crush you and they will kill
you. And he's connecting that kind of mental stant to mental affliction. And if
you read through the whole chapter, it becomes obvous that he's talking about a
state of mind that you have ot have all day long and that's important. He's
talking about medittion as a state of mind that you maintain from the time you
wake up to the time you go to sleep ang if you are practicing {nelnjorma}, then
even in the sleeping hours,okay. So then he's saying that you have to, you have
to look at meditation not as something that you do with your legsfolded. In fact,
I was looking through the whole chapter. He never talks about how to get down
on your cushion and how to cros your legs, he never gets to that. He never
mentions it at all. He goes through a whole chapter emphasising the meditative
state of mind, oaky, and we'll talk about that. Okay and so he's talking about the
perfections of meditation more as a kingd of meditative state of mind as you
walk through your whole day. I used to call it office meditation. And then he
also gets into deep meditation. He starts to explain deep meditation. And he's
distinguishing between the funtions of the two and we'll get into that. If you
think about general mediative state of mind that you have all day long that's
very usefull so that you don't get mental afflictions. Youknow, if your mind is in
this very good place between the two extremes, what are the two extremes?
Classic, you know, when they talk about the meditative equipoise, you know,
{nyamshak}, {nyam} means, "In an even place between two extremes." Yeah,
one is agitation. One extreme is agitation. what is agitation, it's very simle, it's
not very complicated, what it, baybe it's a bad translation, it just means,
"Thinking about alot of stuff, that's all. So on one hand there's this extreme of
your mind going from object to object, you know, flipping around. You know,
you see something, you get something to eat. Food is very bad. You see
something you like. New York is probably the hardest place in the world, or
one of the hardest places in the world to avoid this. So on one hand you have
your mind skipping around from object to object, desire objects, you know.
Colours, smells sound touches, food and your mind is skipping between them
and jumping between them. What projects you have to do. What work you
have to do and in Tibetan that's called {gupa}, and in Tibetan, for example, the
word for a chimpanzee is {mirgu}. You know, it's a human {gupa}. So {guupa}
means that, you can remember that. {Gupa} means, "your mind jumping around
to different objects. And on the other hand is {chingwa} and {chingwa} is
"dullness", it's how you feel after a big meal. Try to meditate after a peice of two
boots pizza. You know I did it today, it was really good. Youknow go out and
have two peices of realy good pizza and then sit down right away and try to
meditate, it's a joke. Youknow and you'll see what {chinwa} is, it's not just like
sleepiness of dullnes or you know some kind of very subtle mediative state. It's
just plain old, stupid, lazy mind that comes from eating or being sleepy, by the
way, try to meditate with no sleep, it's the same thing. If you want to achive
{chinwa}, if you want to know what {chinwa} looks like, you know don't get
enough sleep and then try to meditate. Or eat something that's too much for
one person and then try to meditate right after that and you'll see what
{chingwa} is. So he's, he's saying,"The whole object throughout your life,
through out your day, is to keep your mind focused i between. I like to call it
brigh eyed and bushy tailed. It's a mind that is clear, focused, interested you
know it's avoiding this extreme and it's avoiding this extreme and it';s just like
when you're relly into something. I like to say it's like when you're watching a
really good movie or reading a really good book. Or, Sal knows, if you're
playing a good song, and if you're really into playing the music you just start to
slobber or if you're into a good movie, you're on the edge of your seat. Or, I
went to see a flamenco thing with some of the students here and they're all like
on the edge of their seat. You know. that's meditatice concentration, it's between
thinking about too many things and, and being stupid or lazy or dull on the
other hand. Okay and it's just this king of, and you have it when you're
interested in something and that's the kind of state of mind that you want, and
it's like, you know it's like that, it's bright happy focused and you can have it all
day long? The trick is, how do you stay there all day long and then how do you
get into d
eep meditation, so Master Shantideva is talking about both. That's gonna be the
subject of this chapter. There's gonna be this one theme of how to stay in thay
state of mind from the time you wake up till the time that you go to bed. You
know, how do you stay in this bright, happy, focused, intellegent state of mind.
And then on the other hand, what are the conditions under which you should go
into deep meditation, I mean, suppose you go into deep meditation. I mean
suppose you want to go into really deep meditation. And if you think about it,
the first kind of meditative state of mind, which is the one that you take around
all day, keeps you out of the mental afflictions mouth, okay, it keeps you away
from being angry, jealous. You know, of your mind is focused and happy, you
won't tend to get angry or jealous. If you haven't had enough sleep, if you are
overworking on your computer, if you just ate too much pizza and ice cream,
then your mind is a very fertile feild for meditation. It's like you're setting
yourself up for a mental affliction. Like, it's not a mental affliction yet, but you're
just like geting a nice cheir readdyy for mental affliction, you know, like you're
saying, you're gonna invite mental affliction into your mind because you're,
you're already acting sloppy, your mind is already sloppy. You ate too much
your mind is into some desire object too much. And you're just setting your
mind up to have a mental affliction. So he's talking about avoiding that on the
one hand, and that's the kind of mental state that you have to maintain all day. If
you are on the other hand, working, you have too many projects going on,
you're letting your eyes wander around the street, you're picking up magazines,
you're surfing chanells on the tv or on the internet, and and that's {gupa}, that's
setting your mind up for mental affliction and if you keep doing that, then you're
gonna have a mental affliction within ten or fifteen minutes, and you can't
protect yourself because you mind is not clear, it's not focused ,between. So he's
talking about that as one big theme and then he gets into another theme of deep
meditation you know, using deep states of mediation. That's what you classically
think of when you think of deep states of meditaion. How does that relate to
menta affliction? We're gonna talk about that today, but the main thing is, you
need to be able to get into a deep state of meditation to see emptiness directly.
You must be able to get into a deep state of meditation to see emptiness directly,
and we're gonna describe that state of meditation and we're gonna start working
on it. And then you can see emptiness, when you can see emptiness, you have
destroyed the basis of the mental afflictions, you've destroyed the roots of the
mental afflictions, okay. So there are two kinds of meditations and they are
destroying mental afflictions in two differrent ways. The first kind of meditative
state of mind that you have from morning until evening, and you have it mostly
at work. It's profalactic. It's preventing mental afflictions from coming. It's like
saying, I'm gonna put myself in a place where it's hard for me to get a mental
affliction. But the other kind of meditation, deep states of meditation, focussed
on profound objects like dependant origination or emptiness is going to rip the
fery foundation of the mental afflictions out and then you'll destroy them
completely. So you need both states of meditation, one to protect yourself from
mental afflictions from moment to moment during your day. And you need the
other one to eventually rip out the foundations of the mental afflictions, which is
to see things as self existant. It's to misunderstand reality and you need both,
you need meditation for both. And that's it. Those are the two themes that will
be going on through out this chapter. We'll go onto the next verse. By the way,
he says, {lu dang sem nyi wem ba yi, nambar yangwa min jun ngo}. If you can,
{wemba}, {wemba} is, I'll write it for you. Sometimes in Tibetan it's pronounced
{wemba}, say, {wemba}, [repeat]. Okay and sometimes it's pronounced {emba},
okay, it depends on what part of Tibet you're from. {Wemba} means, it's a
difficult word, and it means "isolation", "isolation", and Master Shantideva says,
in the opening verse,"In order to avoid distraction, you must acheive isolation."
Okay, what does isolationa mean? He says, "physical and mental isolation",
okay, physical and mental. Physical, as he is going to describe is isolating
yourself from two things. I mean isolating yourself physically, from the world,
kay, and that means going on retreat basically, or, or entering a monastery
which is you know, the required ten miles from the nearest town. Physical
isolation, you know, get out of the physical environment that, that contributes to
your mental afflictions, isolate yourself, go to. Like go to a place that is isolated,
like go out in the woods, go to Godstow for Nancy Kerins Lam Rim retreat, this
weekend. I sit this weekend. Anyway, she knows, is it this weekend?

student: Yes.

Isolate yourself, talk to her. [laughter]. No, anyway, get yourself out of the city,
physically, get youself out of physical distraction. that's the first kind of isolation
and that's more for the deep meditation type, because for the other one you
need to be in an office. You need to be in a meditative state of mind all day
long., a base state of meditation. It's acheived in a state of an office, or, or
everyday life. To acheive deep meditation. required to see emptiness, to acheive
deep meditation, you should get out of the kind of place that's that's distracting,
physically. I's very difficult to reach that state of meditation in New York city in
a normal life. It's probabaly possible, but it's very difficult. Mental isolation is
much more difficult and much more beneficial. And by the way, the other
physical isolation which he'll talk about is isolating yourself from the social
environment that ruins your meditation. And that means people around you
who don't support meditation and that means people around you who don't
support meditation. Meaning don't hang out with people who are going to ruin
your meditative state of mind. And the real demons here as the Lam Rim points
out are not going to come to you with horns and forked tails, you know, they'e
gonna be your friend who say, the real demons are the one who come over and
talk uselessly for an hour or two or three. You know, this is social distraction.
And social isolation just means, you just sort of excuse yourself, you know,
there's all sorts of excuses you can make, you know, like "I have to go to the bath
room.. You kow, like you know., " I have a TV show I want to watch".            You
know, [laughs], just excuse yourself, that's social isolation. Master Shatideva is
going to talk alot about not hanging out with people who are going to be
distracting to you. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't be compassionate to
them It doesn't mean you shouldn't be friendly with people. It doesn't mean
you shouldn't have social, go out socially with people and get to know them.
Especially your fellow students and stuff. But what it means is, don't put your
self in a situation which is going to be so distracting that it will probably ruin
your meditation. And I would say, one good long talk about gossiping,
gossiping about even Dharma subjects, you know , "Did you hear about this
monk?", "Did you hear about this thing?". And, and that's another kind of
distraction. He's saying you must acheive social isolation. And then finally
mental isolation, which is the most important one. You know, you have to gain
the ability, mentally to with draw from the things going on around you, and,
and concentrate. You know, You have gain the ability mentally, to bak off of all
the distractions, within your own mind and they may still be going on around
your. But you have to gain the ability to go back to the core of your mind and
park threre and not be distracted and just concentrate. And come within, and
come within. Come inside, withdraw yourself from the sense objects, sit down
and concentrate. And he's gonna talk about all those kinds of conetration. And
all those kinds od {weba}, isolation. Okay, we'll go to the next one. He tries to
lay out the causes of distraction. He tries to lay out the causes of, of, that ruin
out ability to meditatate and he divides them into inner and outer. Okay, inner
and outer causes. Say, {Dak dang}, [repeat] {dakyir}, [repeat}, {shenba la},
[repeat}, {tenne}, [repeat], {nang}, [repeat], {semchen}, [repeat], {la}, [repeat],
{chakpa}, [repeat]. Okay, now he's giving the causes for the distraction that's
inner, okay, inner distraction. And we'll talk obout outer distractio later and the
main cause is some kind of attachment, the whole hapter or much of this
chapter, especially this half is going to focus on how much attatchment ruins
your meditation.         The emotion of attatchment,how much it ruins your
meditation. Yu're attatched to sense objects, you're attached to friends and
relatives, you're attached to yourself, okay, and here he talks about the causes of
inner attachment, what causes attachment to yourself? Which is perhaps the
worst distration for someone trying to meditate. You know, what is the
attraction to myself orselfichness that so much harms my meditation. It creates
so much attachment, attachment to the world. It's kind of an attachment to the
world, attachement to me is a kind of atttachment to the world and it ruins yur
meditation, it hurts your meditation. So first he's talking about the causes or the
source of attachement t yourself, okay. And it's that attachment, you are the one
part of the world to which you're attached. The more you're attached to the
world the less you can meditate, you can't acheive isolation. Okay, you cannot
focus your mind inward if it's glued to other objects. It will not release from the
other objects, untill you can release it from the other objects, like food, sex,
thoughts about, lots of thoughts about other projects you know, and even your
concept of yourself, until you can withdraw from all those, you won't be able to
meditate. SO what causes an attachment inward? What causes your inward
attachment? He says, "{dak}". {Dak}, means, " the self nature of me". The "self",
nature of Michael, the "self" anture of Tessie, the self nature of Micheal Wick,
whatever. But that kind of attachment to that thing being self existant. A beleif
that that thing is self existant. A beleif that that thing exists out htere on it's own
independnt of my pprojections. That hing, by that way doesn't even exist. You
know that thing never existed, never will exist, And as soon as you undertand
that you wont have it any more because as soon as you understand that it
doesn't exist, then you won't get attached to it. Do you exist? Does Marvin exist?
Yes. Why? He works at a bank or whatever, he does things, he breathes, you
know, he talks, he shaves himself in the mirror every morning, there's
somebody there. He exists, he obviously exists, does the self nature of Marvin
exist? Does a seld existant Marvin exist? Does a Marvin exist which does not
depend on my own karma and my projections? No, that Matvin doesn't exist.
But as soon as I think that it does, meaning for me, as long as I think that I am
self existant, I cannot meditate, I will have desire and that desire will ruim my
meditation. Okay, and that's {dak}. {Dakyir}, {dakyir} means that, it's "me and
mine". {Dak dang dakyir means, "me and mine". Mine means my hand, my
arm, my head, my good looks, my strenghth, my health, okay, these are all
mine. So me and mine, me and mine's {shenba}. {Shenba} means, "to beleive in a
self existant me or mine". Okay, to beleive that there exists, a self existant me or
mine. {De la tenne} and because of that, due to that, {dey la tenne}, means, "due
to that." {Nang} means "inside you". {Semchen la}, means, "to the person,
meaning you, {chakpa}, you get attachment. And it ruins your meditation, okay.
So the first thing you have to avoid, if you want to meditate properly, is
attachment to number one. And that's an inner focus, it's focusing on "me", and
"my". My things, me. Okay, and that's actually, which meditation is going to
help destroy that one? The daily, you know, what I call office meditation? Or is
it what I should call, maybe, retreat meditation? It's the retret meditation, okay.
It's the deep stte of meditation, where you really have to be out in Arizona or
something, to really get into it for a month or you know, it really takes about
two weeks, to, to get near to thtat state of meditation, if you never meditate
more than two weeks straigh, you will never reach taht and you will never
know what that was like. It takes like that long to start, to reach a point where
you're close to it and this is more talking about that. Okay, you have to have
that kind of meditation if you're going to hurt this kind of attachment, which
means you have to start doing... it should be a goal of this organization that
everyone here is regularely doing long retreats twice a year or something. I
mean, I would put it up as a goal, asmuch as the classes or the correspondence
courses or anything we do, serving Rinpoche, it should be a goal of this
organization that each person sitting here, during the length of a year can do
two, two meditation retreats af about a minth each and we're trying to build the
cabins and there's a group of people working on that. And it should be like that,
you should think of it as a part of your spiritual goals. That, that you have to be
able to reach this point and he's gonna talk about it, okay, it should be part of
your lifes goals that you do that. You're gonna have to adjust your other part of
your life to that. and not vice versa, okay, alright. What caused the other kind
of distraction, theother kind of attatchment that ruins your daily meditation,
okay. Say, {chi nyepa dang}, [repeat], {sik su chep...}, I'm sorry, {koorti}, [repeat],
{sik su}, [repea
t], {chepa}, [repeat], {sog la}, [repeat], {sepa}, [repeat]. Okay, {chi}, means, "out",
outon the outside. We just finished on the inside. On the inside what's
destroying your meditation is a beleive that you are self existant. That's more
seriousk, that's the root of all evil. And then on the outside, what ruins your
meditation is an attraction to {nyepa}. {Nyepa}, means, "money, getting things,
clothes food house car, career". By the way. it's not bad to have a house, car,
career and clothes. You just have to, if you want to have them, you just have to
use them wisely, you know, they can be very useful. You know, the Dalai Lama
was the richest man in ibet and he used his money, well, very well. So it's not
wrong or bad to have them, but it is wrong and bad to waste your life to get
them and be distracted and hurt yourself chasing after them. Okay, there's a
difference. It's fine to have them and then you can use them for something
wonderful, but to waste your life running after them, and thinking that they are
self existant and doing bad things to get them therefore is just insanity. So {chi},
means , "outward", {nyepa}, means"material wealth", {dang} means, "and",
{koorti} means, "thi opinions of others, you know. Allot of what motivates, I
was talking to a head hunter yesterday, or a career advisor guy or something
like that and he was saying that in his experienceafter thity years of helping
middle age executives fond jobs, he says that people are more out after the
honour than the money. People, you know, if you give them a Vice Presidents
title you can pay them like thirty persent less and they don't care. You know,
people are out after the name or the repect that other people give them or the,
what do you call it? Or the confirmation they get from the world that they are
good people and important people, you know, that everybody thinks that they
are somebody important. And alot of times, that's woth more than the money
to people, is the approval of the world, and that's a, another distraction. Does it
mean that you shoud ignor other peoples opinion? No. It just means that you
shouldn;t waste your life struggling after a title so that somebody will admire
you, which you are going to lose anyway. {Sik su chepa}, means, again, "fame",
the praise of others. {Sik su chepa} means, literally, "verses of praise", odes of
praise. And that's another way to ruinyour meditation is to be overly concerned
with getting famous or having other people prise you. We're gonna read a verse
later, we'll remember, when we get to it it's kind of cool, so won"t tell you yet.
And then {sok} means "excetera". {La sepa} means, "to be attached to those
things. {Sepa} means, "to be attached to those things. If you want to ruin your
meditation, get distracted by the pursuit of money, fame or other peoples
approval. Okay, and that will ruin your life, that will ruin your meditation, okay.
Next, Shantideva says, {shine rabtu denpay hlatong kyi, nyomong nambar
jombar she che ne, topmar shine shelcha teyang nyi, jigten chadang mela ngun
ge drup.} {Shhine rabtu denpay hlatong kyi} means, you must reach a point
where you combine the highest form of meditation and the highest form of
wisdom. Okay, in Tibetan, they're called {shine} and {hlaktong}, I'll spell it. In
Sanskrit, the {shine}, is called {shamata}. {Shamata}, Sanskrit has an aspirated
dental and an unaspirated dental. So in transcription, you have to write, {t}, or
{th}. But when you write the sound it's not a [t], [h], because in English that's
[tha] and it's not [tha]. So, {shamata}, [repeat], {shamata}, and I've seen it
{shamanta}, or something, anyway. {Hlaktong} is {vipashana}. In Pali is
corrupted to {Vipassana}, or {Vipasana}, the Pali scholars would say that' it's
corrupted into Sanskrit. It probably doesn't matter. Anyway, the highest form
or state of meditation, the deepest state of meditation you can reach, is called
{shamata}. {Shi} means, "peace", and {ne} means, "to stay". It's been translated as
calm abiding, I hate that translation, it has nothing to do with being calm. It's a
state of peace between those two extremes of being too, too, you know,
jumping around too much or being too dull. And it just means that you mind is
in a very deep state of peace. In fact, I feel so strongly about all the weird words
that are going around that I'm going to give you a definition from scripture and
you can make up your own word. And then you will knw what it really is,
because there's allot on misinformation about these two ideas, I call them
Dharma rumours. Okay, so I like to call{shamata}, "quietude", or "medittive
quietude", meaning a state of quiet between, between being dumbed out, dulled
out, and being, what do you call, hyper. Between hyper and dumb, between
hyper and dull. Alright, and {hlaktong}, {hlaktong}, {hlak} means, "special".
{Tong} means, "to see". I translate it as special vision, I'm not trying to sell those
translations.    I think there's probably about ten good translations, there's
abviously no English word to cover them because we don't know them, we don't
know what they are. Anyway, just so you know what we're talking about,
when I say meditative quietude, I'm talking about {shamata} which is the highest
tate of meditation. And when I say special vision or something like that, I'm
talking about {vipashyana} which is the highest form of wisdom. Okay, it's a
very high form of wisdom. The last subject we'l cover this year wil be the
chapter on wisdom, which is very profound and very difficult. That will be the
chapter on {vipashyana}, we'll be talking about {vipashyana}. This chapter that
we're on now, we're talking partly about shamate. remember e're talking partly
about office meditation, which is not shamata, but we're also talking about that
deep level of meditation, which you must be able to reach in order to what? In
order to see emptiness directly. You must be on that platform in order to see
emptiness directly. That is the primary and erhaps the only important use of
meditation, of deep meditation. You want to reac a point, where you can see
emptiness directly and then your suffering, all samsara begins to end for you at
that point, when you reach the point of seeing, the path of seeing, if you can
reahc this state of meditation and see emptiness directly, then you can say, your
sufferring is ggoing to end, you're called a stream enterer. You're on a track
which has an end. You know, within seven lifetimes, typically, or within that
lifetime, you will finish all your sufferring and that's the purpose to study
meditation. I mean, that's the primary purpose, it's not to be calm in this life,
what are you going to be? Calm untill they take you to the nursong home and
calm untill they cut your guts out when you get cancer? You know, what's the
use of being calm? If you think about it calmness in innapropriate. You know, lfe
is very violent and very bad and calmness is, is, its' weird to be calm when you're
in the middle of that kind of terrible sufferring, and when you ahve nothin to
look forward to but death and disease and old age, what are you going to be,
calm about it? [laughter] That's not he point of meditation. The, the main point
of meditation is to see emptiness directly. On the day you see emptiness directly,
your sufferring begins to stop, clearly, purposely, and you don't have and major
problems after that. ANd you will become enlightened and you will reach a
Buddha Paradise and none of this will be, will mean anything to you anymore.
And thats the point of meditation. It's not t get calm, or, what's to be calm
about? Watch your breath, watch your breath, watch it while it stops? It's crazy,
that's crazy. [laughter]. That's as bad as going to work and trying to make a
thousands of dollars, that's the same thing, your just counting time until you die.
That's not the goal, the goal is to reach a deep state of meditation, see emptiness
directly, that stops your sufferring. Your body will change, your mind will
change, your world will change, and you don't have to be like this anymore, and
that's the point, of meditation. I'm gonna define for you, {shamata}, and
{vipashana}, ther's so much misinformation about it, that we're gonna take this
straight out of a scripture and you have to memorize it, okay. And I'm not, I
would be breaking a vow if I critisised the groups that call {vipashyana} wisdom,
or knowledge, or something like that. I'm not, I mean, the groups that call
{vipashyana} meditation. That's not why I'm doing this, that' snot the point,
those groups are fantastic, they have excellent programs, they turn out excellent
people, they do excellent compassion meditation, so those groups are fantastic.
So I'm not, I'm just saying that you should know the real, the classical meaning of
the thing, so that you can acheive your own goals. And here they are. First, the
definition of {shamata}. Anybody puts [t], [h], on their homework gets ten
points off. {Shamatha}, [laghter], okay. {Ranggi}, wake up, {ranggi}, [repeat],
{mik pa la}, [repeat], {tse chig tu}, [repeat], {nyambar shakpay}, [repeat], sorry,
{nyambar sha}, [repeat], {top kyi}, [repeat], {shinjang}, [repeat], {kyi}, [repeat],
{dewa}, [repaet], {kepar chen}, [repeat]. {simbay}, [repeat], {ting ngen dzin}.
{Ranggi mik pa la}, means, "towards it's object". Like you know, if you are
visualizing a Buddha immage or a Je Tsongkhapa image, that would be {ranggi
mik pa la}. And in the Buddhist ... you know, in Buddhism, that's an internal
object, it has to be an object of the conciousness of the mind and not of the sense
obje
cts. Okay, Je Tsong khapa goes into a very long shpeal about that in his [b: Lam
Rim Chenmo], he says, that there are countries, like, I don't know, in China,
where they would practice staring at something to develop meditation. And he
says, he goes into a long description of why that's not correct. He says, it means,
{ranggi mik pa la}, means it a, it has to be a mental image. You know, like you
can go look at an image of Shakyamuni buddha nd get everything straight, and
then you go, close the door and go into your meditation and sit down, but when
you visualize, it's a visual, it's a mental conciousness, he's very adamate about it.
You don't sit there and stare at a picture on Shakyamuni or something, he goes
into a long thing about it. {Ranggi mik pa la}, towards the particular object of
focus, {tse chig tu}, is what? Means what? One pointed, which means what? One
object, okay, if it's money, stick to money, don't do girls, cars or food. You
know, [laughs], {tse chig}, {ting ngen dzin} is defined as {tse chig pey sem} , one
pointed concentration. By the power of that thing, through the force of that,
{shinjang}, {shinjang}, is a very difficult word to translate, {shin} means, "very
much". {Jang} means, "agile" or, it's the agility which results from practicing
something over and over again, like if you are a dancer and you practice the
same steps over and over again, you get {jang} about it, {shin jang}. If you're in a
circuis and doing tight rope, you get {shinjang} about it if you do it over and
over again. If you're a meditator, and you keep focusing on the same object
well, you get jang about it, {jang} means, you get very, very good at it. It
becomes second nature, okay, {shinjang}. When Rinpoche talks about {shinjang},
he always talks about gymnasts. You know, olypic gymnasts, who are just, you
know, they can do anything. And, and {shinjang} also implies a kind od control
over your body and mind. {Shainjang} means that you can sit down on you
meditation cushion and talk to your mind and say, "I want you to stay on this
object for two hours, I'll see you later, you know, and you leave. The mind is
there and the mind, you have complete self command it's called, self control.
You can tell your mind, we're gonna meditate about a Buddha image today, get
it straight, got it and stay ther for two hours and I'll check in with you later, and
the mind just stays ther. And the same about your body, {shinjang} about your
body means, you can sit down your body in meditation, you can go into a very
good, proper posture and you can say, don't move I'll be back in two hours later,
you know. It's where you body obeys you, it's where your body and your mind
obey you, it's called {shinjang}. {Shinjang} has a certain effect on you and it's
called {dewa kepar chen}, dewa kepar chen}, means, so by the way, shinjang can
be mental or physical, okay. Mental {shinjang}, is you can command your mind
to stay on that object for two hours and it will obey, because it's done that so
many times before. You know, it's just done it. So jang means, "it's just done it
so many times that I can do it." Physical {shinjang}, "you can command your
body to stay still for two hours and it will stay still and it will obey you. And
from {shinjang}, you get {dewa kepar chen}. {Dewa kepar chen} means, {kepar
chen} means, "extraordinay". {Dewa} means, "good feeling". You get a rush.
When you get good at meditating, you will feel some kind of physical well being
and some kind of physical happinesss, I don't know how to say and then
mentally, you'll feel great. And that's {shinjang kyi dewa kyepar chen}. {Dewa
kepar chen} means, once you reach that point in your meditation, you get a very
pleasant feeling of body and mind and that's why thay had to make a
bodhisattva vow about what?

student: [unclear]

Do not consider that an important spiritual achievement. That's what the
wording is in the vow. Don't get distracted by that, that's not the goal, okay? It
doesn't matter if you feel good and your mind feels good if you're gonna end up
with cancer, in a nursing home somewhere. Okay, it's not the goal and allot of
Buddhist schools, it seems to be that they get distracted by that and that becomes
the goal, you know, that's not a goal. If your body is still getting old and you are
still eligible for death, then that doesn't count for anything. You've got to use it
for something, that's not the goal, it's a means to reach the goal. And as you get
better at meditating your mind will feel great and you body will feel great, and
say, that's nice, I'm going on to see emptiness. That's the real golden fleece,
whatever

student: The golden light in the dark tunnel?

No, I mean, the real, prize, you know, anyway. {Kyepar chen gyi somba},
{simba} means, "you're full of that, simba means, it just imbues you, okay.
{Simba} means, it's like an aroma that permeates you al the time. Okay, {simba}
is a very difficult word to translate, inbued with, filled by. And by the way I've
tried to translate this into English. It's not in your reading, even if yu had gotten
your reading, so, I'm gonna have somebody write it out during the break and I'll
put it up in English, because you have to memorize the definition. {Simabay},
{ting ngen dzin} means, defined as "the ability to focus on, one pointedly, one
pointd concentration, meaning one object. If it's gonna be food, concentrate on
food, don't gat distracted by music or TV or anything else, you know, that's one
pointedness, alright? Okay. You guys want vipashyana? Or you guys want
food? [laughter] Let's take a break, let's take a break, try to come back in ten
minutes, we've go alot to do so, in ten minutes okay? [cut] Here's the definition
of {vipashyana} and then I'll give you the English translation of the other one
Okay, this is the definition of {vipashyana}, which I think has come to be
conenectd in the Wes with different types of meditation and it's actuall
something quite different, it's as, well, you'll see the definition. {Ranggi ten}
means, " it must have s it's foundation. Okay, it rests upon, { ranggi ten} means"
it rests upon", {shine}, what's {shine}? {Shamata}, oaky. It rests upon {shamata},
you must get {shamata} first, there's a big debate in the Lam Rim, in the Gom
RIm and other tests about; "which one do you get first? You know, do you get
{shamata} first or do you get {vipashyana}? You have to go after {shamata} first.
First you develope the ability to meditate very, very deeply, and only later,
based on that you ge a wisdom which can perceive emptiness, okay, you have to
have the platfrm first, to stand on, the foundation. So {ranggi ten} means, "it's
basis", {shine}, {shamata}, "quietude". {Latenne}, based on that {latenne}, {ranggi
mig pa la}, "the object to which it is focused", by the way classical types of
meditation, it could be three different types of objects, right? In {jogom} or fixed
meditation, it would be, like a picture of the Buddha or something like that. In
{chegom}, it would be a problem that you're trying to solve, a spiritual problem
that you're trying to solve in meditation. And in {shargom} in would be a typical
series of steps through which you take your mind, like, like mental excersises,
you take your mind through the out line of the Lam Rim over and over for
example. Those are all {ranggi mikpa}, those are all the object on which this
meditation is focused, {mik pa la}. {So sor che}, {so sor che}, so sor che means, "it
analyzes that object", it analyzes that object.         If for example, you were
meditating on emptiness, you might go through four stages of {so sor che}, four
stages of analysis, In stage one, by the way, this is Kedrub Je's methid, very
powerful, in stage one you go through visualizing the object as you normally do,
in your day. In stage two, you try to visualize it as self existant, although it could
never be. In stage three, you try to visualize it as dependantly originating, which
is the wat it really exists and that you never understood before. And in stage
four, you try to imagine what it would be like if the self existant aspect was
never there at all. And then you reach emptiness, but those are {so sor che},
those are, you go through four different modes of examining the true nature of
this object. {Kyi}, {shinjang kyi dewa}......[cut]

Interesting.... {shinjang kyi dewa}. {Shinjang} means, "that very pleasant state of
being very, very much in command of your body and mind". You sit there for
two hours, you focus on that for two hours, {shinjang}. {Shinjang kyi dewa
kepar chen}, means, "that extraordinary good feeling that you get when you can
able to do that." when youj've practiced meditation over and over again and
your finally abley to do that, you get this very, very pleasant feeling in your
body and this very, very pleasant feeling in your mind. Okay, and you have to
build up to that. Master Shantideva will say over and over and over again,
"Anyone can do it if you build up gradually", and if you make these big efforts
on the forst day, you're gonna poop out. So just build up very slowly, very
gradually and you'll be able to do it for two hours. If you do it everyday if you
do it every day, build up very slowly, very gradually, you 'll be able to meditate
for two hours and command your body and mind to sit ther. And he says, any
other way will never work. Very heartfelt, great efforts every three days, for an
hour and a half or three hours in which you're like, you know. It doesn't work
that way. Every single day, at the same time, build it up slowly, start with five
minutes, get to six minutes, build up to seven minutes. You know and then you
will be able to meditate for three hours straight, perfectly. But you have to do it
that way. {Kepar chen kyi}, {simbay}, means, "just imbued", covered with kind
of a bliss of body and mind. {Sherab}, {sherab} meas wisdom}, that's the
definition of {vipashyana}, which Margie is almost finished writing. In English
please, [laughs]. Here, here, okay, we'll go on, [laughs]. I'm gonna throw up
one more thing, so that's what, {vipashyana} is a high state of meditation, in
which you are analyizing that object and understanding the emptiness and it
must be based on {shamata}. {Shamata} is a tool and not a goal. {Shamata} is the
ability to meditate deeply, which you must get if you're gonna see emptiness
directly. There's a certain, there's a very, very specific meditative state that you
have to be able to reach in order to see emptiness directly. If you do not see
emptiness directly, you can never stop your mental afflictions, permanently,
impossibe. If you never see emptiness directly i this life you must suffer more,
you must continue to suffer. Untill the day you see emptiness directly, it's
absolutely certain that you will continue to suffer mentally and physically, no
question. If you want to know if you 're gonna have any pain going on , have
you seen enmptiness directly, because if you ahven't you are doomed to pain,
you mest have pain, and if you do see emptiness directly, you get out of that
pain, so it's very important. You must be able to reach a certain state of
meditation in the [b:abbidharmakosha] it describes that state. And I'm gonna
writh the name of that stte, okay. It's very short, okay. Say, {samten}, [repeat],
{dangpo}, [repeat], {nyertok}, [repeat], {michog me}, [repeat]. {Samten}, [repeat],
{dangpo}, [repeat], {nyertok}, [repeat], {michog me}, [repeat]. Allot of the
veiwpoints of the Abbhidharma school are not accepted by the highest schools,
but this one is, you can take this one to the bank. {Samten}, in this case does not
refer to the perfection of meditation. {Samten}, in this case, itrefers to one of the
four dyani levels, these are four levels of mediation, that is you are able to reach
them in this life, and if you practice them contsantly in this life, you will be born
int o another realm, and it's a realm of suffering, and it's like a Paradise realm, a
little temporary paradise realm called the form realm. Okay, if you want to get
to the form realm, this is how you do it. We consider the form realm a big waste
of time, because there's not much Dharma there, why? Because people are
having too good of a time and you're just kind of in a, it's just kind of like you
were taking heroine for your whole life. To live in that realm, as a karmic result
of doing this kind of meditation for your whole life, frequently, is like a waste of
time. Because you burn up all your good karma and then you drop to a lower
realm. This is like a flow chart and this is considered a very bad rebirth, this is
the desire realm, it's very good for Dharma practice, because you have a very
good mix of suffering and intellegence. But the form realm is like considered
aterrible mistake. And you get there by doing a useless meditation, frequently
for your whole life, like if you just focused on your breath as, as the only content
of your meditation, or if you just tried to blank out your mind and not have any
thoughts, or if you just tried to follow your thoughts as a practice, over
manyyears, that would lead you to a birth in the, in the form realm. And that's
what we call, meditation, without meningful content, and, and hat leads to that
kind of rebirth. And in classical Buddhism, this is considered a real serious
mistake and I'm afraid that many people are doing this. Ninety nine percent of
the population have no interest in meditation and one percent of the population
are meditating on nothing. And that is the only cause to be born into this realm
and it's a wasted life. Why do you get born into such a pleasant realm? Because
you have taken {samten gyi domba}, you have taken the vowed morality of
{samten}. What does that mean? It means, if you are sitting there meditating on
your breath or emptying your mind, you can't get angry, you can't commit
adultery, you can't lie. Automatically, you get a nice result, which is a nice
rebirth, just because of default, by default, because you were't walking aroud
New York City and collecting all these bad deeds actively, which is what we're
doing. So, you know, based on that, you get a good rebirth, but it doesn't last
and is has not meaning. It's a very great suffering, towards the end of that
rebirth, it's considered a mistake, a serious mistake in, in Buddhist practice and
I'm afraid it's very common in Buddhist countries. So {samten} means, in this
case, what we call a causal meditative state in the form realm. If you did it over
and over again, as alone, with no content, it would cause you to be born into the
form realm. The form realm has what we call four levels. Okay, so {samten
dagpo}, is what we call the first meditative level, the first concentration level.
{Nyerdok}, {Nyerdok}, is a very specific concept, vary difficult concept in the
books on meditation and what it means is, it's called the preliminary stage of the
first concentration level. The preliminary stage of the first concentration level,
okay. The preliminary stage of the first concentration level. What's that like?
What happens to you in meditation when you reach {nyerdok}? You start to
lose attraction for physical objects, for sense objects, and that's {nyerdok}, okay?
You start otlose attraaction for gross physical objects, which meand that you're
overcoming your desire for food, you're overcoming your desire for sex, you're
overcoming your desire for music or, or things like that. Your minnd is reaching
a higher level, your mind is miving beyond that level. You actually, at certain
levels, lose the ability to taste and smell. In those realms they don't have, as a
result, they don't have the smell conciousness or the taste conciousness, there's
no funtion there, because they are so gross and so rough that you have gone
beyond that. So it's like where you are able to put your mind in a very fine state
of meditation and where you are actually withdrawn from all the sense objects.
You're not aware of colors you're not aware of sounds, you know, people could
be talking nest to you an you wouldn't hear them. You have that ability to
withdraw your mind inwards and that's the {nyerdok}. And some people
mistake tht for, for nirvana or something and some people get into that wich is
another mistake, they think that because it feels so much better thaan food or
physical pleasure, they think that they've reached some kind of nirvana or
something like that. That's another error, that's a byproduct of this state of
meditation. It's just a, a pleasant byproduct. It's not the goal, Why? You can't
stay there, you always come out, when you come out you are three hours later
and you body is three hours more painful. [laughs], You know and you keep
that up and you just die. There is no meaningful result of that. You die a nice
meditator. And that's not the goal. So that's {nyerdok}. {Nyerdok} is when you
first reach that ability to go beyond the objects of the sense, of the desire realm.
{Mikog me} is just the name of this level, {Michok me}, {michog me} means it's a
very weird word, it means, "no lack of time", "no lack of time". Now don't, I
don't know why it's called that, I haven't seen an explaination. {Chok} means, to
have time to do something. Do you have time to go out tonight tonight after
the class and you say, "{chok gu du}". "I have {chok}". You know, {mi chok}
means, "I don't have time." {Mi chik me} means, "I don't have no time." [
laughs] So it's no lack of time, double negative, {mi chik me}, that's just the name
of that level, {mi chok me}, okay. I haven't seen a good explaination of why it's
called that, anyway, you must be able to reach this level if you want to be able to
see emptiness directly, and the implication is tat you have to be so good at
meditating that you have to be able withdraw from the completely from this
realm. And the day that you see emptiness directly, you will actually have a
feeling of being in a higher realm. Before you actually see emptiness directly,
your mind rises to a higher level of existence, like some like of different realm
and when you stop seeing emptiness directly and that experience is finished you
have a sensation of desending from that, of coming out of that meditation, of
coming down out of that meditation. But you must be able to get to that state if
you want to be able to see emptines directly. That taes about an hour to two
hours of practice a day, period, every day. If you want to disqualify yourself
forever from seeing emptiness directly and thereby waste your whole life, and
ruin the chance that you hve in theis life of ever getting out of this sufferring
then don't meditate for an hour a day. Find some excuse to not do it. You're too
busy, you know, you have to do other things. But the day that you die, those
other things become totally meaningless, you can't even remember what they
were. It's like last weeks Sunday Times. You know, and it won't mean anything.
You must be able to reach this state. You must have it as one of your lifetime
goals. Really, this should be one of the most important goals of your life. Really,
you should have like three goals in your life and this is one of them. To be able
to get into this state of meditation. That's {shamata}. That form of {shamata},
that particular level of {shamata}. And if you can't do it, you'll never see
emotiness directly and you will have wasted a human life. Okay, okay we have
the English, the {shamata} definition. Can you read that okay? Yeah. That's a
translation of what yuo already had in Tibetan. "That single mindedness which is
imbued with the exceptiona bliss of", I call it practiced ease, okay. It's a good
feeling that comes from practicing all the time. "Practiced ease, okay, due to
deep single pointed meditation on it's object. I don't mind if you guys find a
better word for {shinjang}. {Shinjang} means that you do it so much, you
practice it so much that you get really good at it, okay. I'll say it out loud, okay.
Definition of {shamata} in English; "That songle mindedness which is imbued
with the exceptinal bliss of practiced ease due to deep single pointed meditation
on it object." Definition of {vipashyana} or insight is; "That wisdom which is full
of the exceptional bliss of practiced ease by power of the analyisis of its object
and which is founded upon quietude, or founded upon {shamata}, okay. This is
more talking about the kind of meditation that you need to see emptiness.
That's been our theme. Let's go on to the other one. I like to call it office
meditation. This, the presentation that I'm going to give, which is a four minute
presentation, about, is based on the bodhisattva vow which says what? You
break this bodhisattva vow if you don't? {Samten drippa pong mi cha}. If you
don't eliminate, if you are not working actively during your day to eliminate
these five obstacles to meditation, you have broken your bodhisattva vow. It's
very interesting, okay. If you are not actively trying to avoid five aabstacles to
meditation, during the day, you have broken that bodhisattva vow, okay. And
that's where they get the presentation. Where do they get these obstacles,
there's five obstacles, they were presented to somebody by {Ludrup}. What's
{Pakpa Ludrup}? Nagarjuna, okay, sometimes called the second Buddha. The
first early Sanskrit writer, okay, third century, two hundred AD. He was called
Arya Nagarjuna, aparently, he saw emptiness directly and he wrote a book
called [b: Shedring]. [B: Shedring] means, "[b: A letter to a friend], his friend who
was a king. And this was the relationship that great Buddhist philosophers used
to have in India. I think, because of the karmic connection, you know. One
person has seen emptiness directly, the other person had done this kama to be
the wealthiest person in the country and those two kinds of karma are similiar in
a way and they attract each other. Some of the greatest teachings of ancient
India and especially the tantric teachings occurred between people who were
attracted i that manner. A person who had great wealth would be attracted to a
person who had seen emptiness because of the similiar karma required and, and
they would start to interact. And out of that interaction came some great
teachings that we still have. They are in a separate section of the {tengyur}.
They are correspondencce between these figures and also personal teachings
that were given. Like Milind Pinda is the questions of King Manendra, a Greek
king of Kashmir who met a Buddhist pandit and, and the interchange between
them. It's a very beatiful process and tantra rose through this process. Anyway,
in this letter, which Art has translated and it's been published, there's a verse
about the five obstacles and I'll tell you that verse. And that's the last major thing
and then I'll tell you a few stories. Okay, you should memorize it. Okay this is
Nagarjunas letter to his friend, King Udaibada or something like that. Say {gyu
dang}, [repeat], {gyu dang}, [repeat], {nu sem}, [repeat], {mukpa}, [repeat],
{dang}, [repeat], {nyi dang}, [repeat], {du la}, [repeat], {dun dang}, [repeat],
{tetsom}, [repet], {de}, [repeat], {drepa}, [repeat], {ngapo}, [repeat]. Okay, {gu} is
the one we talked about tonight about chimpanzees. {Gu} means your mind,
this is your main problem this is what ruins your meditation. It's when you sit
down and for me, it's going over all the projects I'm gonna do today. Like, I
have an appiontment at such and such a time, I have to meet such and such a
person. And it's you know, it's your mind jumping around to things that you
like, you know, I have t do this. I'm gonna, oh man am I gonna, I get to translate
that vrse today, and then I'm gonna go over there and work on the computer
thing and then I'm gonna go over and meet these nice people for lunch and then
after that we'll do this and .... That's {gupa}, {gupa} is your mind jumping around
and I like to call it "restless desire". Okay, it's a restless state of desire, it's actually
desire, it can be virtuos objects like translating and meeting your Dharma
friends, but it's still ruining your meditation. By the way, rule of meditation,
once you have chosen an object, if you switch to another odject during that
meditation session, uncontrollably, even if that object is virtuos, it's a bad deed,
okay. Like if you start thinking about all the nice things that you're gonna do for
Rinpoche, while you're supposed to be visualizing, you know, Vajrasattva or
something, even though, that's an extraordinarily virtuous thing to think about,
it's a bad deed when you are meditating. [crash] Wow, [laughter] okay, okay,
it ruins your meditation, okay. Maybe he'd say it's the same thing, I don't know.
Okay, [laughter], {gyu},{gyu} is counted with {gupa}, okay, they are joined
together. This is one obstacle. {Gyu} and {gyu} are joined together. Okay, so
that's really obstacle number one is {gu} plus {gyu}. {Gyu}, means, normally it
means regret, for example, the second of the four powers of confession is called
{gyu}. But this has nothing to do with {gyu}. It's a translation of a Sankscrit
word that means to daydream about the old days. Okay, "Oh, I remember this
girlfrien Ihad, I remember when I used to weightlift, you know, I remember
when I had all my hair, you know." And not to be here now, okay, but to live in
the past, or to live somewhere else. Your mind is outside wandering around,
missing something. "Oh, you know, I wish so and so was here with me. And
that's a very typical kind of distraction. It's very, very typical. If you try to
meditate, if you try to do a long term retreat, you'll find that this comes up
automatically. You start to live on the outside, you start to live again, the last
five years of your life. And thinking about the things that you did or the people
that you would have liked to have seen, and movies you saw and stuff like that.
That's called {gyupa}, in this case, only in this case, okay. {Nu sem}, which is this
one, is said to be less frequent and much more destructive. {Nu sem} which is
this one, is said to be less frequent and much more destructive. {Nu sem} is, is
malice. Okay, how did we do that, let's see, thatks, okay, thak you... okay, pen,
thanks okay. {Nu sem} we translated as feelings of malice. Thinking that you'd
like to hurt somebody. It's like anger. Like it's not as frequent as desire. Desire
ruins your meditation about eighty percent of the time. Anger, or pure thoughs
about wanting to hurt someone else, thinking about the husband you divorced
last year, okay, just totally ruins your meditation. Okay, just a few seconds of
this one, although it's muchless frequent, destroys your meditation much less
frequently. If you're in retreat, and I can tell you, cause I did it all the time. It
ruins your meditation sometimes for hours and even for days. If you get
obsessing on someone you don't like during your meditation it will destroy your
meditation totally even though it's much less frequent than thinking about all the
projects you like.
t's just a kind of dullness. And it's like that, sugar is good for that, you know, eat
a couple cookies before you meditate, speaking from experience. Okay, {nyi}, is
"drowsiness", classically, it means, "to sleep". But in this case it means drowsiness.
You cannot meditate if you do not get enough sleep, forget it. You;ll never be
able to meditate if you do not get enough sleep, you have to get enough sleep.
It'll ruin your meditation, you just can't do it, it doesn't matter how much you
want to do it, or how good you are at it or, or how good the circumstances are,
or the place can be beautiful and wonderful, but if you didn't get enough sleep,
you cannot meditate. And it won't won't work, I'm very good at that too, {nyi}.
{Dupa la dunba} means, "an attraction to the objects of the senses". Okay, {dupa
la...}, here it's {du la dunba}, okay, typically it's {dupa la dunba}, he's trying to
make meter. {Du la dunba} means, "An attraction to the objects of the senses. If
you're thinking of music, if you're thinking about food, if you're thinking about
sex, you can't meditate, it will ruin your meditation and that's those are all
classified as attractio to objects of the senses. And if you are living in that realm
and the more you live in that realm, and the more you concentrate on that
realm. You know, the more you think about food, the more you think about
those other objects, it'll ruin your meditation. You just won't be able to go into a
deep state of meditation, can''t do it, okay. That's number four and number five
is {tetsom}. {Tetsom} means, "doubts", "doubts". Now, in Buddhism, there is
good doubt and bad doubt. Good doubt is; you've been up there talking about
future lives, you've been up there talking about hell realms, you've been up
there talking about why god doesn't exist. I, I think your arguments are prretty
good, but I'm not convinced yet and being a good Buddhist, I'm going to wait
untill it, untill is seems reasonable to me, so I choose to put that on the shelf.
That's the instructions of Maitreya. That's perfect. A good buddhist shouldn't
accept anything untill they have figured it out clearly, themselves. And then
there is this other kind of doubt, where you just don't feel like accepting that
kind of thing. You know, somebody presents it to you very convincingly, very
properly, you know you're supposed to be meditating for an hour a day and
you wake up in the morning and you are like, "I don't know if I have time, I just
don't, gee, I don't , I just can't, gee, I don't know if I should do it, you know, I, I
don't know." That's just crummy doubt. That's the obstacle to meditation,
{tetsom} here, is crummy doubt, alright. I't just wimpiness, or not being able to
make up your mind that you, of course you should do it and it's not because of a
philisophical problem that you have with meditating. It's because you're lazy
and so you're not sure if you should get up early in the morning and do it. And
that's {tetsom}. Those five are and obstacle in meditation. What kind of
meditation? Very clear in Je Tsongkapas explaination of the bodhisattva vows.
He says, I ain't talking about deep shamata meditation as much as I'm talking
about maintaining a level of... a meditative state of mind during the day . And I
think you see it in business. Like certain business executives I've seen in
business, they have meditation. They have the ability to have a meditative state
of mind all during the day, I've seen it. My boss is sort of like that. And
although all the jokes I make about him, I have never seen him raise his voice at
an employee. And we tlked about it the other day. We had dinner the other
day. I've never seen him really angry. My little boss comes in and screams at
me. That's the one that we're doing the emptiness on. But the big boss, because
he is the big boss, I guess, I mean, that's why he;s the big boss. I've never seen
him get angry. I mean, he has the total ability to avoid {nu sem}. And is
absolutty focused single mindedly on money. He doesn't care about girls,
doesn't care about golf, you know, doesn't care about being famous. Just want's
money, you know, single pointedly. Gets enough sleep, I guess. {Dupa la
dunba}, you know, is really not attracted to food or other objects like that.
Could care less. You know, I've seen him go twenty-four hours on little cubes of
sugar, you know. And, and doesn't have any doubt about what he is doing, I
mean, he, he he beleives that what he is doing is what he wants to do and mean,
that's, what he's doing is what he want's to do and I mean that's ... what I'm
trying to say is that you seek seconarily, to maintain a state of meditation
through out the entire day. It mean that you can never have so much pizza that
you cannot meditate.        Not just meditating.      Nagarjuna's very clear, Je
Tsongkapa's very clear. We're talking all day long. You know you have to avoid
these five obstacles all day long. And you have keep you mind bright eyed and
bushy tailed from the moment you wake up untill the moment you go to sleep
and that's very hard. You know, that's very hard. But, learning to do that, your
mind to do that, when you go into meditation in retreat and when you go nto
your deep meditations you pop right into it. By the way, this one is also very
good for problem solving, at work. And it's also very good for just plain sucess,
I mean if you have to ability to focus you mind like this, it's good for you and
you can do anything. You can do any project you want to. You can do anything
you want if you have this state of mind. You must avoid these five things all
throughout the day If you've taken bodhisattva vows, you're under vows to do
that, and you god dam better well know them. You know, you're supposed to
know those fove, you're supposed to be watching them all the time. And, and
when do you report that you've failed {tundruk}. If you don't know what
{tundruk} is, don't worry about it. If you are reciting {tundruk}, stop reciting it...
no, I'm kidding, okay, and start thinking about it, okay. And acourding to
{tundruk}, your supposed to watch these five, how many times a day? {Druk},
{tundruk}, you're supposed to be checking in on these, five six times a day, okay.
That's hard. But anyway, let's do it. What i'm trying to say, is get ino a
meditative state of mind all day. And when you sit down go into a deeper one.
And avoid these five things all day long. That's what Master shantideva is
talking about. The whole chapter is about how to maintain meditation twenty-
four hours a day. And, and that's what the goal is. Alright, a couple of light
things, and then we'll stop. Master Shantideva gets into. There's a long section in
this cchapter on men and women. Relations between the opposite sexes. Which
he considers and which is one of the major distractions that ruins your
meditation. Okay, it ruins your ability to meditate. And he goes into this long,
ong analysis on, is this something benegicial or not?          Does it help your
meditation or not? What is the whole thing about? And, and I chose one rather
long verse which will be in your reading when you get it and I kinda like one,
one section he has. The homework question says, " Relate five ways that Master
Shantideva describes for courting those of the opposite sex. And then, describe
the attiude that might be appropriate once you have "suceeded" in courting those
of the opposite sex. So he describes the five methods okay. Number one; go
and beg them to have a relationship with you. You know, keep going to them
and asking them, you know, "Please go out with me, you're the most beautiful
person I ever met, and I must go out with you." Go and make a fool out of
yourself, okay. Number two; avoid no bad deed in seeking to attract them, you
know. Avoid no bad deed in seeking to attract this person, you know. If you
don't have enough money, do something bad to get the money, that you need,
you know. Do whatever bad deed you have to to get this person. You're
getting, this is negative advice. Go after these people and don't worry about
what anyone says. Number four; engage in any kind of reckless or dangerous
behaviour to get them, okay. I don't know what that means, but I guess,
showing off in your car or something. She said, "AIDS." That's true too.
Number five; use up all your money and other resources, in order to capture this
person. Okay, like waste all your money on buying them nice things and stuff
like that, in order to attract them. Them he describes the attitude you should
have after you get them, okay, and it's very, very beautiful, and it's a direct
traslatio, prett much a direct translation, I'll just read it, okay. "She finally comes
to your house, as you lift the silken veil from her face and look into her gentle
loving eyes," by the way, if you're a woman you can switch it, okay, we're not
being sexist here, "think of how the same face is going to lie rotting under the
death shroud and the birds of prey will come to burial ground and lift the veil
that she so gently lifts for you now and
then you will know how she really looks and you will run away as fast as your
legs can carry you, [laughs]. And it means this, I mean, you go hrough so much
to get this person, and, and when they reveal their beatiful body to you. You
know, finally, here's the day, you know, and, and when you look at it, if you're
smart, if you know what you're doing, you see the dead body and you see the
maggots crawling on it and you see the flies eating it and, and really, seriously,
all those effeorts, wasting you time, wasting your life, wasting your money,
wasting your reputation, you know, wasting your pride, you know, what's the
benefit, you know, what's the goal? What's it that you've finally accomplished?
It's a skeleton, it's a dead body. It's a body which is rotting. You know, it's gonna
sit there and rot in the cemetery. And you kow, the guy that Shantideva's
talking to, Master Shanitdeva, they object, they say, "Okay I knoe that she's
gonna die in twenty years or fifty years or something, but right now, she's warm
and nice and smells good and everything. And then hegoes into a long analysis
of whether that's true or not. But basically, it takes alot of imagination and it
takes alot of brainwashing from your culture and fromthe Madison Avenue
executives, not to see that this is the truth. That this is a normal, old, mortal,
dying, suffering, peice of, bag of flesh. And it takes constant brainwashing from
television and movies and Calvin Klein to, to imagine that it's anything else and
to be attracted to it in that way. It takes allot of, you have to buy allot of special
clothes and cosmetics and stuff. You have to do all sorts of weird things to
package it so it looks attractive, cause it's not, and it's gonna die, and it's
sufferring. And they're sufferring while you're looking at them and you're
suffering while you're looking at them. And try, Master Shantideva says, "Cut
the crap and go after Nirvana." You know, both of you. Just stopthat kind of
behaviour, it doesn't help anything, and, and try to get enlightened and then
you'll both be very happy. And that's the bottom line about rlationships and he
goes on about it. It doesn't do any good to have this kind of relationship about
another person. They are going to suffer and you are going to suffer and not
because it's evil or bad or dirty or anything like that. Just because that's the
nature of the body. And they are dying and you are dying, so do something
meaningful. You know, why you're with them, you know, go meditate with
your girl friend and acheive enlightenment with them.              And then that's
something meaningful. You know, that's something helpful. The rest is just
fooling yourself and it's too people who are dying, just wasting each others time.
Okay, like that. Last thing he talks about money, ha has a long section about
money, okay. And there's a cute verse where he says, if you don't dedicate your
younger years to the pursuitof money, you won't have any big amout to enjoy
when you get older, okay. Like you have to start around, twenty five twenty
five to thirty, if you want to make big bucks, normally. I mean if you happen to
be a movie star or something that's an exception. But a normal buisiness person
who wants to make some serious money you have to start twenty five to thirty
and you have to put ten to twenty years into it, of your heart. Eightteen hours a
day. Must and don't think of anythig... That's how you suceed in business. I
mean, the rest is all fantasy it doesn't exist, you know. It's hard work for ten to
twenty years. And then he says, "If you do spend your younger years to the
pursuit of money, then you'll be too exhausted by the time you get it, to enjoy it.
And, [laughter], and you can observe that in real life. Who has the lincolns? It's
these old guys who can't apprecialte them or can't do anything with them and,
you know. And if you don't go to work like that when you're young, you won't
get the Lincoln. So you get the lincoln to impress the girls, butby the time you
get it, you're too old and, and exhausted to do anything with it, you know. And,
and I used to think that all the time and then Shantideva... there's a verse like that
and he describes it, you can read it. I'll read one more verse okay, then, we'll
stop. English for the five obstacles are... I'll have somebody write it out. And it'd
be nice if you, if on your homework you memorized the verse okay. I'm sorry,
did you do it? Three lives of verse, okay, one line two lines, threelines. This is
actually the, the second half of the line before, okay. The other thing's a long
story and I'll think we'l leave it, but basically, theres a beautiful couple verse
about.... he describes the life of a working man. You kow, and he says, "You
want money for your house and your morgage and you go out and you work
and you spend your precious body and you waste your precious body and then
you come home and you flop it into bed like a corpse. And it goes like that and
it just very well decsribed my corporate life, ad, I'll translate it and I'll have it for
you next class. So you can do that. So basically, thinking about the chapter on
meditation in those terms. meditation throughout the day, don't think it has to
be sitting on a cushion. It's to maintain a bright bushytailed attitude all day and
it's your resposibility to do it, which means that you can't eat badly. You have to
get enough rest. You have to try to avoid objects of the senses and you have to
make up your mind that't that's what you want to do and you have to avoid
thinking about other people in an angry or a bad way. And, and that way you'll
be able to steer your mind throught day, avoiding those two extremes of getting
too hyper or getting too dull. And your mind has to go between them and yoou
have to      remain in that state of meditation all day.            It's a bodhisattva
responsibility. And then, when the time, everyday at a certain time and then in
long term retreats, you have to undertake deep meditation. The first kind of
meditation prevents your mind from getting mental afflictions that will screw up
your life. The second state of meditation, which is the deep one, removes the
cause of he mental afflicions, which is seeing things as self existent. So you need
meditation for both. So the point is that yore going to be meditating all day
long. And then in retreat or in your morning sessions or evening sesions, you
have to go into deep states of meditation and that's going to be the subject of this
matter, of this chapter, Okay, Phuntsok's gonna recite.

Prayers: [short mandala]
Prayers: [dedication]

[cut]
970812a1
Geshe Michael Roach
ACI Course XI: Guide to the Bodhisattvas Way of Life, Part two