ACI 14 «Лоджонг: развитие доброго сердца», занятие 6

Geshe Michael Roach
Course XIV: Lojong; Developing the Good Heart
Class 6: Freedom from Attachment
June 1998
Transcribed by Angie Overy

Okay, couple of announcements, ah, don’t forget Khen Rinpoches birthday, ah
it’s a lot of fun every year, and ah, very sweet. So try to come if you can. What
day of the week is that? (audience: Sunday). Sunday. And ah his classes on
Sunday have been amazing. Last time we went, this Sunday, it was really cool
because the whole bus was people going to his class. The whole bus; it was
really nice. They asked us what it was and we said it was a Star Trek convention.
(laughter) (laughs) And they looked at us and said, ‘yeah, probably.’(laughter)
But it was really nice. In fact, I think three or four people on the bus ended up
coming to class, other people. Ah, there’s been a really sweet class. If you intend
to request the ah, the initiation in August you have to come to those classes
okay. It’s at two o’clock on Sundays. If your not sure how to get there talk to
one of the Sangha people, they’ll probably know.Okay. Ah you will be doing the
preparatory initiations and the vajrayogini initiations together, so it’s like a
three-day shtick, or something like that. So it’s very convenient for people,
okay. If you don’t know about it talk to one of the sangha people okay. July
eighth I think, fundraiser. Ah July eighth ah, again somebody has offered us to
sponsor a fund-raiser for us.       We didn’t have anything to do with it. One..
somebody..one of our sponsors is doing all the work and they’re arranging to
get all the proceeds from a flamenco performance are being donated to our
nuns, the nunnery up in Godstow. So I’d appreciate it if you could buy tickets
for that. You can talk to the nuns also about that. It looks really nice. I heard
yesterday that Phillip Glass is going to be the announcer, okay. So that sounds
nice. What else? There’s a bodhisattva in the audience. I mean many, but one is
special. He’s worked with this Institute for the last twenty years or so, and
selflessly. He helped start the computer centers overseas, the first person there.
And doing all the course work, all the grading, all the record keeping,
everything. Quietly, free … well almost, anyway (laughter) but really beautiful
man and I’d like to welcome Dr Taylor (laughs) (applause) (laughs) He’s here
from Washington, okay. We’re eating popcorn together in the evenings. Okay
we’re going to talk about … we didn’t finish last time. There were eighteen
advices from the {b: lojong dun duma; seven-point lojong}. I thought I’d just go
over them with you because they’re not very clear sometimes. What page they
start on? Page, yeah. Page eight of readings four and five. Page eight…it starts
at the bottom with ‘Keep to the Three Laws’, okay. We’re just going to finish
that off because we didn’t get through that last time okay. And I’ll repeat the first
three. There are eighteen different pledges. The first line has three of them in
them and then they have fifteen more lines, so you get eighteen. The first law is
never contradict what you have committed yourself to and this means once you
have started lojong behavior…lojong behavior means you’re supposed to be
like crazy yogi, who gives up all their things for other people, who doesn’t need
anything for themselves. Acting totally backwards: whatever other people need
they take care of that first, whatever they need they do that last. And they’re
acting totally opposite to the way the world acts. But in the progress…in the
process of that activity, the first law is you cannot disrespect your other vows.
Okay, like a monk who’s a crazy yogi lojong practitioner can’t break any of their
monk’s vows okay, monk or nun. You can’t break any of your lifetime vows.
You can act in a special way, but you’re never allowed to disrespect your vows.
Your Morality vows, your Bodhisattva vows and your Secret vows. Rule
number one is you can act as crazy as you want about taking care of other
people first and taking care of yourself second, but you cannot break , you
cannot use it as an excuse to disrespect your other vows. They should be going
in harmony. They should be working , okay. Number two: ‘Don’t place
yourself in danger’ Okay, like, lots of people get all excited about this idea, ‘okay,
I’ll just work for other people, I won’t do anything of what I need, I’ll spend all
my money, everything on other people.’ And then they get sort of… I don’t
know, the word ‘cavalier’ comes to my mind. They get cocky and they put
themselves in danger. You’re not allowed to do that. Your body is very
precious. Your life is precious. You need a nice place to stay, you need a nice
place to study. You and I cannot go out and live on the streets and practice
Dharma well. You can’t meditate on the streets, it’s dangerous. Things like that
you know. You should have a quiet, modest, cheap little place where you can do
your practice well. And you shouldn’t ever like hurt your body or do some kind
of practices that actually put you in some kind of danger you know. You can’t
walk in a dangerous area at night and say, ‘Oh I’m a crazy yogi, you know it
doesn’t matter whether people beat me up or stab me or something like that.’
You can’t think like that. Your body is very valuable. You have to leave it
behind later, but in the meantime you have to use it and you’re not allowed to
endanger your body. You need it, okay. Rule number three, law number three.
It says you can’t discriminate in your Dharma practice. Like we’re supposed to
be patient with people, we’re not supposed to get angry at people. And the
tendency is to be very, to act very much like a bodhisattva with your friends and
then act like a creep with the people you don’t like, okay. And you see that,
especially in a Dharma group, you know. With each other we’re very kind, and
when one person has a mental affliction attack all of us are very supportive and
‘you’re all right, you’ll be okay’ and we put up with each other very sweetly.
And then when you get to work someone you don’t like has the same mental
affliction attack and you go after them. You hate them, you talk bad about
them, you feel bad about them, just because they’re not in your Dharma group
or something like that, okay. You can’t discriminate between people. Law
number three. Number four says, ‘Change your Mind and Stay the Same’. This
is a Kadampa rule of practice. Inside, your mind has to change. You have to
understand that in this life all you have to look forward to is dying. All you have
to look forward to is losing everything you love and everything that’s close to
you. And you have to think like that and that everyone’s in the same problem.
And that you can stop it. That there’s a special way that you can stop it. And
you have to think like that. So inside your whole attitude, you whole world has
to change.
  ‘Stay the same’ means on the outside you should stay the same. People
shouldn’t guess that you’re trying to save the world. You act like a normal
person, you look like a normal person, you have a normal job, you wear normal
clothes, you don’t do weird things. You know all people know is that you’re just
a really sweet nice person and you keep helping everybody. But you don’t
advertise the fact that you’re working on it, Like, you could be doing it at work
for years and no one would ever guess you were a Buddhist. They just are the
beneficiary’s of your anonymous goodness you know. And that’s the concept:
anonymous goodness to other people. They don’t need to know; they don’t
have to know what lineage you are, they don’t have to know how many books
you memorized, they don’t have to know how many courses you’ve completed,
they don’t have to know you’re a Buddhist at all. And you just take care of
everybody around you. Just slowly the sphere of your influence of taking care
of people around you spreads and spreads. And all they know is that they like it,
okay and that’s all they need to know. The Kadampa’s said it should be like a
butter lamp inside a big pot, a big clay pot. And on the inside it’s burning and
hot and sweet and on the outside no body knows, okay. Now we get into the
ones that we didn’t reach last time, okay. And you can look…you can follow
with me on your … I think we’re on page eighth at the bottom, okay. It says,
‘Speak Not of What was Broken’ – It means don’t worry about other people’s
Dharma mistakes. You will observe other people around you… it’s almost
universal that people run up to me, I teach a class in some other state and four or
five people run up to me and say, ‘I’m moving to New York.’ And I say, ‘Okay
but be aware of one thing; the people that I’m with and I myself, as you get to
know us more and more you will see faults. And you will think that …the initial
honeymoon is very exciting. ‘Dharma Honeymoon’s’ are very exciting. The first
few weeks everything’s incredible and then your nature reverts to what it
always ahs been and you start to see things in the same old way. And then these
people who seemed to be so wonderful, due to your own minds, start to go back
to normal. And, and I just warn people that’s going to be the same. Don’t judge
other people’s practice. There’s only one person’s practice you can be sure of and
that’s your own, okay. Does that mean if you see some guy out on the street
mugging somebody you shouldn’t help them? No, you should help them, you
have to help them, your bodhisattva vows say you have to help them. But it
means you can’t judge them, okay. Maybe they know that this guy is going to
be the next Hitler in the world and they’re mugging him so he’s two minutes late
to this appointment where he would have been introduced to the A-Bomb
secrets or something, you know. I mean you don’t know. You can’t judge
people. You can’t judge other people’s minds. You can judge their outward
actions. You can say, looks to me like you’re mugging somebody I have to stop
you. But don’t judge them. Don’t be sure you know why they’re doing what
they’re doing or like that. There’s only one person you can be sure about and
that’s your own… your own mind. I don’t know that any other person in this
room is not a tantric deity. I really don’t know. And you have to try to act like
that and think like that. You can judge their behavior and say you’re hurting
people, you’re getting angry at people, I know that would be wrong for me to
do and if you hurt other people I’ll try to stop you, but I don’t judge you, you
know what I mean. Very important, okay. So number five means, don’t talk
about other people’s mistakes in the Dharma, you might make a big mistake.
There are many, many stories in the scripture. We talked about one before the
Logic class. People…the Buddha told His disciples about this guy who was
judging this bodhisattva who was going to town to teach normal people, and
looked like he was messing around and they spoke about it and talked and
talked and talked. And they guy who was doing the gossiping ended up being
reborn as a dog for five hundred lives and being in hell for thousands of lives
and like that. And then at the end of the story the Buddha gives the punch-line
which is; that was me. So don’t do it. I’m speaking from experience. I did it. I
criticized some guy, I judged some other person and you don’t make the same
mistake. So he’s actually describing something that happened to Himself, okay.
Most of the Jataka Tales are very scary because it’s not some … you know in the
west they’re kids stories, which is very funny. They’re actually these horror
stories of the Buddha telling what he did in the past by accident, what mistakes
He’s made. And he’s trying to get His disciples not to make the same mistakes.
And usually He tells a Jataka Tale when His disciples are fighting with each other.
You know like, they jealous of each other or they’re misbehaving with each
other, then He’ll sit them down and say, look I did that before. I went to hell for
so many lifetimes. I’ll tell you the whole story. Now don’t do it, okay That’s
where the Jataka Tales are coming from. They’re very scary, okay. Number six:
‘Never Worry About What They Are Doing,’ is the same thing. Worry about
your own practice first. ‘They’ means other people, okay. And it seems to be a
pattern in most Dharma organizations that when…you know when people get
together to talk, oftentimes the subject is the other people’s behavior, you now
what I mean. Like, I saw this other person doing this, I can’t believe it or stuff
like that.    Or I saw this monk or this nun doing this. There are certain
organizations that I’ve been to where it just seems to be the theme of the
conversation. And you can almost tell the energy of a Dharma group by how
much of this they do, you see. Because there are some Dharma groups where
you don’t hear this stuff at all. And the energy is very pure and very good you
know. Each person is keeping their own book. It would be silly right, you
wouldn’t go up to some body in this class and say, could I have your book, I’m
going to write down one of your bad deeds for you. (laughter) I saw you doing
that. T hat’s what you’re doing when you gossip about them right? I mean that’s
what you’re doing when you talk about them. You’re…you’re assuming, you’re
being…what’s the word…you’re presuming to write their book for them. Do
you see what I mean? It would be crazy. Like, Winston I saw you do that the
other day, could you give me your book I’ll write it for you. If it’s not the vow
for today I’ll just put it down for you, you know. You wouldn’t even think of
doing that but all the time we’re talking and dropping hints about other people’s
practice, okay. This one means, worry about your own practice. Number seven
is very powerful. Identify your own worst mental affliction. It’s hard, okay. You
can identify your third worst mental affliction. You don’t even want to admit to
yourself number one and number two. People are very very good at confessing
to me their third worst mental affliction, you know (laughter) and me too. They
never mention one and two. There can be a group of five people and they’re
saying, I really have a problem with anger and everybody’s going, Yeah, but
what about the gossiping and the jealousy? (laughter) (laughs) But they don’t
see it you know. And everyone’s sitting there going, mmm that’s not really their
worst mental affliction. They’re pouring their heart out about this thing that
everybody knows is number three. Go for number for number one and to
admit number one is very hard. It’s very difficult. Be very honest with yourself.
When you’re in really good mood you know, like you had a Michael and Zois
milkshake and you can see yourself clearly, then write it down quick, you know.
And then later go back and look at it. When you’re in a very pure mood you can
find out, you can admit your worst one. Or when something happens that
endangers your life. Like, if you just about get hit by a car or something, you
know for thirty seconds your mind is really clear and, and very honest with
yourself. Oh, I nearly died with that on my conscience, you know. Write it
down quick before the mood goes away. Number eight: ‘Don’t Hope for Any
Rewards’ Okay, mmm the commentary here says you can hope for rewards,
you will get rewards, okay. There is no…we don’t believe there’s a divine being
who rewards people. We believe that the rewards come as automatically as
gravity, okay. Like you don’t get all excited when you drop a pen and it falls to
the ground, okay. It’s gravity, it’s a normal law. You can expect every time you
practice Dharma, you can expect wonderful things to happen. And they will
happen. The better you get, the more they’ll happen. People come to me they
either say one of two things. I get calls all day long right. Half the calls are: It’s
unbelievable, my life is unbelievable. People start crying, breaking down and
crying. People are throwing themselves down on the floor. My whole life
changed you know. Everything’s different. I saw this thing the other night, let
me tell you about it. These things in light and glory and wonderful things you
know. I say great. They say, I’m keeping my book and everything’s great and
I’m meditating regularly. And I’m like, Cool, you know. Then these other
people come to me. Nothing’s happening, I’m unhappy, nothing’s going well,
my life is terrible, I’m depressed all the time and blah, blah, blah.I say, how’s
your book going? And they say, Well you know I was going to start it, I was
really going to start it, you know… And I said, Just get out of here, don’t even
tell me about it. I sent this guy overnight mail, he needed the vows. He’s having
this terrible depression and I said, keep them. Whether you…whatever happens
you might as well keep them from now, I’ll send them to you overnight. A
week later he calls me up; I’m still depressed . I say, how’s your vows going?
Are you checking them every two hours? He says, Oh yeah I did get that thing.
And I’m like, but did you do anything? He says, No not yet but I’m planning. I
said I don’t even want to talk to you. I don’t even want to stay on the phone
with you. That’s how you get happy. It’s to check your behavior. It doesn’t
work otherwise. So you can get results but don’t expect instant results, is what
this one means. Karma don’t work that way, okay. And you will go through
some dark days even if you keep your practice well. Even if…even if instantly
you start doing everything right, which is impossible right. It takes time for
karma to change. Karma is a reaction to an effect…to a cause. It’s an effect to a
cause. You create goodness and it takes time to get the result. It don’t work
overnight but it…it always works. Number nine says, ‘Stop Eating Poison Food’,
okay. That one means when you do a good deed, when you finally get yourself
to do something right, don’t poison it with an attitude of watching out for
number one. They call it ‘self-cherishing’, okay. When you finally get around to
doing some good deeds don’t poison those good deeds with thoughts about ‘oh
what am I going to get out of it’ or ‘am I getting what I want’, you know, ‘am I
okay?’ The people around you are suffering, they’re depressed, ready to commit
suicide, don’t have enough money, major problems in their lives, and you’re like
worrying about yourself. And to mix those ideas with your virtues, poisons
them okay. If you do good karma it’s like eating poisoned food. That’s number
nine. Number ten says, ‘Don’t Let the Stream Flow Smooth’ This refers to when
you’re having a nice mental affliction attack, okay. I had one over the weekend,
Saturday night. It was great, lasted until Sunday morning. ‘Don’t let it flow
smooth’, means don’t be a pushover. Put up some resistance, all right. Don’t let
it just come out in an uninterrupted flow. You know at least put up a fight. You
have bodhisattva vows. If you took bodhisattva vows you have a vow that
says, if you catch yourself being angry you’re not allowed to let it go on. And if
you catch yourself having strong desire for something in a negative way you’re
not allowed to let it go on. And then in the scripture they discuss, we talked
about it in Vermont, they discuss well what if you’re just overwhelmed with this
emotion? Normally when you’re angry, even if you catch yourself being angry,
you’re going to break it, you can’t stop it. That’s one of the qualities of being
angry is it’s almost impossible to stop it while you’re being angry. And he says,
in the bodhisattva vows they say, Je Tsongkapa says, as long as you put up a
fight you don’t break the vows, okay. Just put up a fight. Then he’s talking
about how long does the fight have to be; a minute (laughs), two minutes, five
minutes. Does it have to happen during the mental affliction? Could it happen
later, you know? (laughs) And there’s all these debates about it, but the basic
idea is that when you get a mental affliction attack, even if it’s going to beat you
up and even if it’s going to beat you eventually, maybe in an hour or two
hours…maybe you. I mean there’s times when frankly, when you know and I
know, you can’t stop it. And you know you’re not going to be able to stop it. At
least put up a good fight okay. At least hold out, like the Alamo, okay. Like you
know you’re going to die but at least hold out for a while. And the virtue of
putting up a fight is very special. That karma is extremely powerful. Every
minute that you can keep putting up a fight is extremely powerful good karma.
It’s very good karma. So if you’re about to get angry and you know you’re not
going to be able to stop it, at least wait five minutes or two minutes or thirty
seconds, you know what I mean? Put up some kind of resistance. Don’t be a
push…don’t roll over, okay. Put up some kind of fight. That’s what number
ten means. Number eleven for those of you who know the bodhisattva vows
well, refers to what we call the Four Points of Virtue, okay, in the practice of
virtue. It means, ‘Don’t Pay Back in Kind’. When somebody criticizes you, don’t
just immediately criticize them back.         It’s a bodhisattva behavior when
somebody criticizes you to listen and see if there’s anything you can get out of it.
And it’s very un-bodhisattva behavior to just think about how they’re doing
some bad things and how you can criticize them back.                    Okay a real
bodhisattva… and it’s one of the interpretations of the first bodhisattva vow
{dak tu shen mu} One of the interpretations of that is…I’m sorry, {dak du shen
mu, chu nor mi ter shing, shak kyang mi nyen- shen gyi shak kyang} number
three, okay. It’s one of the interpretations of that, if people criticize you or give
you an honest suggestion, you break that vow if you don’t at least listen a little
bit, okay. I mean normally I can tell you from experience that when people
criticize me it’s always wrong (laughter) but there might be a little grain of truth
in there somewhere. So listen carefully and try to learn from the grain of truth
and don’t try to blow back, just blow them away. I mean, okay, ninety percent
they’re wrong, right. Try to isolate the 1% that might be true. And then just
accept it and try to change. The second part of number eleven is, if someone
actually does you physical harm or mental harm, you don’t try to do it back,
okay. If someone actually goes so far as hurting you in some physical or mental
way, you don’t try to do it back to them. It’s very, very hard if you get actually
physically struck by someone, to follow this one, okay. At that moment you
don’t pay it back. Just stop. Stop the violence there. It’s a cycle of violence.
They’re hitting you because you hit someone in the past. If you hit them back
you’re going to get hit again. And the idea of breaking the Wheel of Life, you
know, breaking it at the reaction point is very important, okay. When they hit
you stop the circle of violence there, okay and just stop it by not responding,
okay. Number three, in number eleven, within number eleven, ’responding to
anger with anger.’        You have to stop that; tit-for-tat is not a bodhisattva
behavior. Forget it, okay. Somebody told me there’s this thing in the Bible, if I
don’t repay them, who will? I mean there’s this misquote. I said, show me that,
it doesn’t sound like the Bible you know. It’s like, if I don’t watch out for myself
who will? I said, it doesn’t sound right, show it to me. And the whole line says,
if I don’t watch out for myself then who will and God knows that it’s the right
thing not to be concerned about yourself, so give me the strength not to be
concerned about myself. You know and they take it out of context right. It
means the opposite. So don’t get…it’s very typical that when somebody’s angry
at you, you get angry back. That anger is a result of your past karma. It has
nothing to do with your current behavior, okay. Nothing. If you can shut down
the cycle now, it’ll never happen again. So just shut it down. You may be doing
good Dharma practice, you may be following all your vows correctly, you may
be living a good life, still people will come and criticize you or be angry at you.
Just let it end now. And that’s the trick, okay. That’s all coming from the past.
You are creating your future. They’re not connected anymore. You have to
learn to divorce them. It’s ignorance to think that that’s a reaction to what
you’re doing now. That also applies to good deeds. I mean bad deeds, okay.
You may be well-off financially; you may be physically strong; you may be
handsome; you may be intelligent, that’s mostly coming from something that
was done a long time ago, you know. Don’t…you have to keep doing the good
behavior that created those circumstances. Don’t assume that it has anything to
do with what you’re doing now. You were born that way years and years ago.
You can credit your past life guy. It has nothing to do with the way you’re
behaving now. Most people who are powerful or very intelligent or very
physically beautiful or handsome, have this kind of pride or something,
arrogance, that’s coming from it that is the best way to prevent it from
happening again, you see what I mean. So you have to disconnect the good
things and bad things that are happening to you from your current behavior.
Your current behavior has to support the future okay, and there’s no connection.
Last one is, ‘Responding to a scolding with a scolding. Somebody screams at you,
just stop it and don’t scream back. It’s very, very hard. I work in a corporation.
I regularly get fried by the boss and it’s very hard not to respond, especially
when the scolding is undeserved you know. Some rare occasions it is deserved,
okay but generally it seems undeserved, right. Just shut up, okay. Just let it stop
there. That’s lojong behavior. That’s bodhisattva behavior.              And that’s
intelligent behavior because everything will change in the future if you do that.
At every given moment you have your future in your hands. At every given
moment you have the opportunity to change tomorrow, completely. I have this
student who is facing some court charges, you know so I said, here, keep these
bodhisattva vows, it will actually effect the outcome of the decision, you see
what I mean? Keep them very well. You can change it now. He’s got like a
month to work on it, so I’m like, keep these very well. You…your future
depends on your current activities because they are the result of your mind. So
if you change your behavior now, you can actually effect the outcome of the
court decision, so do it, you know. That’s the guy I sent the ones to that didn’t
do it, okay. Anyway, (laughter) that’s why he’s going to court, okay. Twelve:
‘Give Up Laying Ambushes’ This one means somebody hurts you and you’re
just waiting for a chance to get them back at them. You know like you’re
planning some opportunity to hurt them back. And when they get hurt you’re
very happy about it you know. That’s called ‘ laying in ambush’, so give that…
give up that kind of behavior, okay. Number thirteen: ‘No Going for the Jugular’
It means, the commentary says when you’re in a group of people, and someone
has made a mistake or someone’s been doing something wrong, and you have a
chance to criticize them and embarrass them in front of everybody you know,
like they will get very hurt in front of a group of people, that you go for it, you
know. It’s called {tsang dru wa/ tsang brus ba}, {tsang druwa} means, {tsang}
means an ant’s nest underground and {druwa} means to dig it up and expose this
person’s faults right in front of everybody, okay. It also says, I mean, it’s almost
not necessary to say it, but it also says if you’re a Buddhist you can develop some
special powers, even some negative powers like you could hurt certain kinds of
spirits. You know like…there are certain kinds of negative spirits or evil spirits.
You know, I don’t spend a lot of time talking about them because I can’t show
them to you and you cannot confirm it. So the rules of Buddhist logic say that I
cannot talk about it, but they are, there are. And at a certain point you can learn
how to hurt them and then at that time you have to be merciful, okay. So when
the time comes, you control them but you don’t just be cruel to them, you see
what I mean. And they have special influence on your spiritual life. And when
the time comes, you have to be forceful and strong, but not cruel, okay. And
that’s the other meaning for ‘going for the jugular’. I don’t think you have to
worry about it right now, okay.(laughter) But realize that someday it will be an
issue, okay. Number fourteen: ‘Load Your Own Truck. No Passing the Buck.’
People ask me, come on did Chekawa say that in twelve hundred? (laughter) It
says, don’t take the load off the girl-yak and try to dump it on somebody else,
okay. That’s the literal. It didn’t sound too good.        It means if you’ve done
something that’s wrong, don’t try to put it onto somebody else okay. In fact
there’s a monk’s vow. It’s very much a part of monastery life that… apparently
there was an art- form in the monasteries in the past where somebody criticized
you, especially in an open assembly, you tried to figure out a way to turn it
around back on them, you see what I mean. They criticize you for some kind of
behavior and you say, yeah but I saw you doing that and you get the whole
assembly to focus on the person who was speaking the truth about your
misbehavior. You know and you kind of focus it all back on them. This is very
much against bodhisattva behavior. If you have done something wrong, it’s
very good for a bodhisattva to just say, yes I did it, you know. I admit it. And
then you wait five minutes before you start exposing the other person’s
(laughter) okay. Also it says in general if something doesn’t work out, like if
you’re trying to do some activity and it just fails. We’ve had certain activities
that we tried to organize here that just didn’t work out. Then you just be happy
and take responsibility. Don’t try to say, oh that was all their fault, they didn’t
do what they were supposed to do. Just say look okay, I was part of that, we
tried to organize it, it didn’t work.       It was good that we it and I take
responsibility for that. You just admit it and go on, go ahead, keep going. Yeah?
(question) Jay says what if you didn’t really didn’t do something and you blamed
for it. Should you take the blame? I mean lojong behavior is very extreme, of
course you take the blame {gyonka ranggi lenpa dang gelka shenla bulwar
shok.} That’s the Eight Verses you know. You take the…whether it’s true or not.
Bodhisattva behavior is whether the buck is supposed to be stopping with you
or not, you take it. It’s called {hlaksam namdak}. When you develop bodhichitta
it is the final mental attitude just before you get bodhichitta: I will take all the
crap in the world and the buck stops here, you know.                 I take personal
responsibility to straighten out everything there is. I will not let it go on to other
people. Every thing…every kind of little hassle that’s coming to somebody else,
even if they deserve it and even if it’s supposed to go to them, I’ll take it on.
Come on, give me your tired and your poor, you know. Give me all the
problems that everyone else has to go through and I’ll take all of them. I don’t
want anyone else to have to face them. You know you just take them. I had
somebody come up to me immediately after that last class and said, but the
bodhisattva vows say, if someone talks bad about you, you’re supposed to clear
it up, you know. That’s true. If someone’s spreading very bad rumors about
you, it’s your responsibility to address them. If you’ve done something…the
text says, the scripture says, if you’ve done something wrong admit it publicly.
If you haven’t done anything wrong state that publicly and that’s part of clearing
up rumors about yourself. But it doesn’t change the lojong behavior, the
bodhisattva behavior that the buck stops here, you know. Anything that goes
wrong, any problems that people have, anything I can do to divert all problems
to me, I will take that responsibility. And that…that is the final step just before
you gain bodhichitta.          It’s called {hlaksam namdak}, it’s called personal
responsibility for the happiness of the entire world. And everything in your
sphere of influence that you can fix, you direct it towards yourself, okay. Yeah.
Loud. (question) He said what if you try to do something right and it fails and
you don’t know why. You have to study a bit more. But basically, every time
something fails that you’re connected with, it is your fault. It’s something you
haven’t … karmically you’ve failed in the past at some point. But we’ll talk
more about that.         I’ll get more into it. You’re not being noble, you are
responsible, okay (laughs) That’s important.
Number fifteen: ‘Don’t Get Fixed on Speed.’ This does not refer to any kinds of
drugs (laughter). This is where in any circumstance there is some kind of profit
to be made by a group of people, or there’s some kind of opportunity, and you
direct the best things to yourself, okay. They order a Thai dinner, there’s those
big yummy tofu chunks and there’s not enough to go around, and you make
sure that one of them gets on your plate before everybody else has had a
chance, you know. Or you just thoughtlessly drink somebody’s Speed shake all
the way done to the bottom and then when you hear the sucking sound it occurs
to you that they didn’t get any. I did that to one of the students. That’s a
confession, okay (laughs) (laughter) you know, something like that. ‘With
speed’, means you try to re-direct the thing to yourself before anybody else can
get it; ‘with speed’, means let’s make sure that I’m in the front of the line so that
when Ora’s birthday cake runs out, I’m not the person who’s the next person,
you know what I mean. Like let me make sure that I’m…I’m up near the front
there. Like that. And in any kind of situation that might produce some benefit
or profit, you are watching out that you can carve some slice out of it and
quickly divert it to yourself. That’s what this one means, okay. Bodhisattvas
should be last. We had a children’s class in New Jersey and we used to bribe
them to class by giving them these huge cakes from the {tsok} offerings. And I
had the most popular children’s class in the whole town. But when the dessert
time came it would be this huge, it would be like an Indian line if you’ve ever
been in India. It would be this mass of kids squashing up against the cakes and
stuff, so we made a rule that the kids closest to the cake would get it last. It was
called, ’last is first’. And so then they would run across the yard (laughter)
(laughs), over near Andy’s house and wait out there. We’d call them in, okay
you’re a real bodhisattva, come on. Last is first, okay, for bodhisattvas. You’re
supposed to be last. Sixteen says, ‘Don’t Feed the Wrong Face’ I’ll just quote it
directly. It says lojong is supposed to starve your tendency to cherish yourself,
okay. Lojong is supposed to starve your tendency to take care of yourself first
and not worry about others, but instead you take lojong as another opportunity
to look good, you know; ‘I know lojong really good. I can teach it really good. I
memorised all this lojong.’ You know you use it to feed your pride and you use
it to feed your plain old mental afflictions. You turn lojong into one more
opportunity to act out your favourite mental afflictions, okay. If you have a
problem with jealousy then you get mad when you hear that somebody out in
New Jersey is teaching lojong, you know what I mean.                  It’s one more
opportunity to take one more object in your life and cheapen it and prostitute it
with your mental afflictions. Something pure, something holy, and then you’re
parking your plain old, your usual mental afflictions, and you’re turning
something beautiful into something bad, okay. And that’s feeding the wrong
thing. You’re supposed to use lojong to starve your mental afflictions and
instead you’re using this holy Dharma to feed it. And that’s very dangerous for
people who are getting serious about study. You know you have to be careful
about that. How will people look, you know, if they know I memorized … I’m a
Geshe. What if they find out, you know. And that becomes your concern and
not … The Dharma becomes something to feed your mental afflictions rather
than starving them, okay. Seventeen says, ’Don’t Turn the Sweet Angel to a
Devil’ and that’s the same concept. The lojong is the sweet angel; the practice of
watching out for other people first and taking care of other people first, is the
angel. And you corrupt it and you turn it into a demon by putting your… by
doing lojong with the same old mental afflictions that you did everything else in
your life with. You use it as another opportunity to act out your jealousy or
your desire or your anger or your pride. And that’s turning the angel into a
devil. Same with all Dharma. Okay eighteen and then we’ll go to today’s class.
It’s kind of late. This is a little strong, but I hope you don’t mind. It says, ‘Don’t
Look for Crap to Make Yourself Happy’. It’s the last of the eighteen so it must be
important. What it means is all of us tend to derive a certain amount of pleasure
from bad things that happen to other people especially people we don’t like.
You feel justified in your opinion of others if you find out that they’ve had some
kind of trouble. You know if you don’t like a person, if you don’t like the way
they act or the way they talk, and then somebody tells you, ‘Oh they went
bankrupt, or they got divorced, or they got thrown out of their job,’ then you
feel some sort of confirmation of your opinion of them. That’s great. That
proves I was right. And you get some sort of satisfaction out of that. And you
feel good about that. That’s what they’re talking about okay. Someone you
don’t like, something bad is happening to them and you’re taking it with some
kind of glee. And you know you don’t jump up and down normally, maybe
when you get home, but you smile within yourself, you know, like Oh, that’s
terrible you know. And within yourself you’re saying I never did like this
person and now their crappy behavior is making them get hurt and that’s just
about what they deserve. That’s such a common human trait that the Buddha
made it one of the top ten bad deeds. That’s bad deed number nine, ill-will. It’s
the ninth of the ten commandments of Buddhism. Number nine is … apparently
it’s a very strong human tendency to do that, especially with people that you
never did like, when you hear that something bad has happened to them, okay.
Those are the eighteen. Now we’ll go onto the real class. Those of you in the
Friday night class have heard this lojong, okay. We’ve been doing it every
Friday night, but I want, you know those people who are not coming to Friday
night, I wanted you to at least get one night of what I consider the greatest
lojong and the greatest lojong writer of all time, okay. That’s a hard call. That’s
like best rock ‘n roll song you know. (zhen pa bzhi bral} say {shenpa} [repeat] {shi
drel} [repeat], {shenpa} [repeat] {shi drel} [repeat]. {Shenpa}, means attachment
okay attachment. I know when I first became a Buddhist, attachment was very
much one of the things they talked about. That Buddhists are not supposed to
be attached. And I don’t know about you, but I grew up … Buddhism wasn’t a
big theme in Phoenix, Arizona, okay. Still is not, I checked, okay. (laughter) You
read in a book, maybe…I used to read a lot and maybe out of a hundred books
there’d be one that mentioned he was as stoic as a Buddhist monk and then I
had…you begin to form this mental image, {dun chi} right, {dra chi} sorry, of a
Buddhist monk, and you know and very, you know, like handsome, strong and
knows karate and is… and is imperturbable and is attached to nothing. You
know like any bad thing can happen and they’re just … still just, they look like a
marine, you know. And this was kind of my vision from al the reading I did.
That was the kind of the vision – no attachment. Free of all attachment.
Definitely would not walk across Manhatten to get a Michael and Zois shake,
okay, you know, wouldn’t do it. And don’t have any attachment to anything.
Don’t care if they have any money or clothes or anything else. Probably
walking throughout New York with no money at all. Somehow their robes are
still clean and stuff, and totally happy. No attachment at all.
{Shenpa} means attachment, and we have to explore what that word means,
okay. The purpose of tonight…tonight’s class, and I’m sorry we only have one
class on this lojong, is to explore what is the meaning of attachment. {Shi} means
four different kinds of attachment, okay. This book is going to talk about four
different kinds of attachment. {Drel} means free of them, freedom, freedom
from them, okay. So this famous lojong, very, very beautiful lojong, is called
Freedom from Four Different Kinds of Attachment. Okay Freedom from Four
Attachments. Say {shenpa} [repeat] {shi drel} [repeat], {shenpa} [repeat] {shi drel}
[repeat]. repeat Very famous lojong. I want to tell you this story of how it was
written. I’ve got to get all these names straight, hang on. When Buddhism
started in Tibet it was just like this, just like these classes. Everything was just
like this. It was just like when the first lamas came to the United States.
Everything was the same.         These lamas, gurus, from India are showing up,
they’re climbing over the Himalaya mountains and it’s hard for them to get …
it’s like travelling all the way from Dehli or something. They’re coming into
Tibet and the Tibetans are, like, who are you? They’re wearing strange clothes
and they’re speaking a strange language and they’re talking about really strange
ideas, you know. And this is a country of yak-herders, right. They’ve been
raising yaks … I mean even when I met the first refugees in Dharamsala, the first
thing they ever tell you is how many yaks they used to have when they were in
Tibet, you know. ‘I was in a fourteen yak family. We were hundred and
fourteen-sheep in our family’. They’d be like….they’d watch your face to see if
you were impressed (laughter) (laugh) and it was like that you know. That’s all
there was in Tibet really. And then here comes these guys talking about
advanced philosophy; emptiness, karma, death meditation. And they’re like,
wow and they’re having these first… things are going on.               So people start
building little Dharma centers all over Tibet, okay. We have this person named,
{Kun Konchok Gyalpo}. He was born in 1034. And he’s starting a Dharma
center. He’s just like somebody in this room, you know, David Sykes, ‘Hell’s
Kitchen Dharma center’, you know, starting his little Dharma center. And this
happened all over Tibet. Don’t believe that on the second day Buddhism got to
Tibet there was a million monks. It wasn’t like that. It was just like here. And
you can bet on it, you know it had to be like that. So he starts a little Dharma
center. He chooses this hillside that’s got this dirt, it’s kind of special, it’s kind of
grey, whitish-grey, like chalk, chalky dust there. And he decides he’s going to
build his little Dharma center there. And they start building this little Dharma
center there. He has a son called, {Josay Jampel}. Okay Rinpoche would say,
‘Jose can you see’, Jose Canseco … something like that. (laughter) Anyway, his
name is {Josay Jampel}. His son takes over the Dharma center from his dad,
okay. And he starts… he starts, he’s like, practising pretty well and the Dharma
center’s getting stronger and stronger, okay. And still there’s no monks or nuns
okay. These are still all lay people and they’re building a Dharma center like
that. He has a son called, {Kunga Nyinpo}. And I’ll give you his name here,
where is it? {sa chen kun dga’ snying po} This son is born in 1092 and eventually
passed away in 1158. {Kunga Nyinpo}. And there’s another character in this
drama, okay. His name is {Bari}. Say {Bari} [repeat], {Bari} [repeat], {Bari
Lotsawa} [repeat], {Bari Lotsawa} [repeat]. {Lotsawa} means, master translator
and this was a very important…a very important phenomenon that was going
on in Tibet at that time. There were all these people learning Sanskrit, just the
way people are learning Tibetan now days. And the task fell on them, the
responsibility fell on them to get all the books translated into their own
language, okay. And it took seven hundred years for them to finish. It was
many generations of people, {lotsawa’s}. We owe everything to them. They got
everything translated into Tibetan in seven hundred years. And it will be very
similar in the United States. We need hundreds of {lotsawas}. We need people
who…who take on the responsibility to get it all converted into English, okay.
By the time of Je Tsongkapa, which is three hundred years later, nobody knows
Sanskrit. I mean Je Tsongkapa knew Sanskrit well, but very few people knew it
by then. By the time the Chinese attacked Tibet, nobody was learning Buddhism
in Sanskrit. Buddhism has to be translated into English and you guys have to do
it. We need {lotsawa’s}, okay. And back then the {lotsawa’s} were a very
important part of the Dharma center scene, okay, and {Bari} was one of the
greatest. So here’s {Bari Lotsawa’s} hanging out at this little Dharma center on
this dusty white hill, okay. It’s not such a big deal yet. So this kid is born,
{Kunga Nyinpo}, 1092. By the time he’s 12 years old he’s hanging out with {Bari
Lotsawa}. And {Bari} says, look your father’s a big man; he owns this Dharma
center. He’s the son of the founder of this Dharma center and you have to do
him proud. You know you have to show what a great Buddhist you’re going to
be, so you have to develop Wisdom you know. You’ve got to develop wisdom,
you have to know the scriptures, you have to understand emptiness. He said
I’m going to teach you a secret teaching to make contact with the enlightened
beings who can help you. So the kid is twelve years old, {Bari Lotsawa} is
secretly teaching him this method to enter another realm and learn special
teachings on wisdom from these enlightened beings, okay. It’s like … what’s
that children’s book? A Winkle in Time, … they go into the closet. No, that’s
C.S.Lewis, anyway it’s like, it’s like that (laughter). So he goes into the closet and
enters another realm. That’s basically what’s going on. He’s teaching this kid
secret methods, called tantra to make contact with these beings and improve his
wisdom, okay. And he teaches him, it’s called {Arapratiasani} practice, very deep,
profound practice to reach Manjushri. So he’s giving this kid these practices. The
kid enters serious spiritual difficulties, okay. It’s not like everything goes well.
He reaches an impasse, very serious and then he starts teaching him another
tantric practice called {Achala} to overcome the obstacles. So, it’s like, the kid
makes contact with the wrong beings and very powerful negative influences,
and instead of freaking out or going the wrong way, he teaches him more
powerful practices to overcome those okay.
In the middle of this, twelve years old, suddenly he has a vision of Manjushri.
This twelve year old kid goes into this extraordinary vision of Manjushri. And
he’s flanked by two bodhisattvas and he’s talking to the kid. And he grants him
the teaching called {b: shenpa shi drel}, on the spot, right there. And that’s where
this teaching came from. Later on he became a very great lama. And he became
called, {sachen}. Say {sachen} [repeat], {sachen} [repeat]. {Sachen} means the
Great Sakya. And the Tibetan word for a dusty, white, chalky hill is {sakya} {sa
skya} . So they start naming the Dharma center {Sakya}; {sa} means earth, {kya}
means whitish, grayish. And they start calling the place Sakya Dharma center.
And later on he became head of this institution which became {Sakya Gunchen},
the great {sakya} monastery, which still stands and one of the greatest libraries in
Tibet. It was not burned. It was one of the only libraries that wasn’t burned. It
was hidden and it’s still there, the great {Sakya} monastery is still there and it’s
returning to it’s glory. And the {Sakyas} in India are doing very great; {Rajpur}
and {Dehradun}, other places, they’re doing really, really good. So this tradition
is continuing, okay. {Sachen}. He got the teaching and he passed it on to …{rje
btzun grags pa rgyal mtsan} I’m sorry, this is his son, okay. The beginners of the
{Sakya} tradition, the great {Sakyas} in the beginning were not monks. okay.
Say, {jetsun} [repeat], {drakpa} [repeat], {gyeltsen} [repeat]. So he’s the son of the
person who had the vision when he was twelve years old. And he passes it on to
his son. He passes on this knowledge to his son. {Drakpa Gyeltsen} becomes,
later, one of the greatest figures in the history of the {Sakyas}. And becomes, for
us, one of the most important figures in the Vajrayogini lineage. So if you are
studying Vajrayogini, or if you have taken that initiation, he is one of the
greatest lamas of that lineage. Jetsun Drakpa Gyeltsen. It’s in the lineage, in the
{dak kye}, people who are reciting the {dak kye}, all right. By the way, in
between classes, we’re going to have a …people who have taken that
empowerment, we’ve asked Gene Smith, who’s a great Sakya scholar - he is a
great lineage holder of the Sakyas, to give us a teaching on the lineage, as it
began from the Sakyas and came down to us. He’s very, very knowledgeable
about that and, and… it’s difficult to get a good teaching on that. He’s agreed,
during the break, to gives us a teaching for people who have that
empowerment, on the great figures of that lineage, okay.
Drakpa Gyeltsen writes….{Jetsun Drakpa Gyeltsen} writes a commentary on the
{b: Freedom from the Four Atttachments}. And you’re going to get that
commentary tonight. We translated the whole thing and you’ll be getting it
tonight. And we’re going to base our discussion of this lojong on Drakpa
Gyeltsen’s commentary because of his position in the Vajrayogini lineage, okay.
He passes it onto his nephew, who’s the Sakya Pandita. {sa skya paNDi ta kun dga’
rgyal mtsan}. (1182 – 1251). Say {sakya} [repeat], {pandita} [repeat]. In Mongolia
they can’t pronounce ‘pandita’ properly. And Rinpoche and I were once reading
a Mongolian thing, it described the great ‘bandito’ lama (laughter) (laughs).
Anyway. {Pandita} means, the English word ‘pandit’, came from that. {Pandita},
means ‘great wise man, great scholar.’ Sakya Pandita is one of the greatest lamas
that ever lived in Tibet. Wrote many, many books, great logician. His logic
books, those of you who studied in the last course, much of it was influenced by
the Sakya Pandita. He was a great Sanskrit scholar. He translated, many books
in the {b: Tengyur} are by him. He memorized the eight thousand verses in
Sanskrit. It’s a thousand wood-block folios long and he would just walk around
all day reciting it from memory, okay. Towards the end of his life he was the
greatest lama in Tibet and in those days the Sakyas were the most powerful
tradition in Tibet; they covered Tibet. And up to that time, Mongolia hadn’t
attacked Tibet yet.
Mongolia at that time …I don’t know if you know, Mongolia under Genghis
Khan, reached Vietnam, took Vietnam, took down into Burma and Cambodia;
took the Middle East, took Moscow, took Korea, took China, reached as far as
western Europe. In one day killed 400,000 Austrian troops outside of Vienna you
know. I mean they were powerful. It took three years to send a message from
the capital to the front lines, by foot. And that’s how big they were. That’s how
big that empire was. They reached into Hungary. The Hungarian language has a
lot of Mongolian in it. And if you go to Russia, everyone looks Mongolian. They
captured Moscow and kept it for a long time. They were very, very powerful.
But they never attacked Tibet. And this is the story. I mean the Tibetans met
them at the frontier and said we’ll pay you every year, a certain amount of
money, and you just leave us alone, okay. And they said, okay. And that was the
deal, all right. They kept that deal up until Genghis Khan died. As soon as they
heard Genghis Khan was dead they stopped paying (laughs) and this other
prince came to collect. His name was Godan, and he reached the eastern borders
of Tibet and he started to get a little interested in Buddhism, okay. And then
there’s this very famous letter, that we still have, he wrote it to the Sakya Pandita
who was living near Lhasa at the time. And he’s…which is you know three
months walk away, and he said, I know you’re the greatest lama in Tibet. He
was already very old. I think he was….almost sixty, which in those days was like
twenty years older than the life-span. He was almost sixty at the time and he got
this message from Godan, Prince Godan, that said, I’m interested in Buddhism
and I really want you to teach me Buddhism. And I know since you’re the
greatest lama in Tibet, and all lamas care for all living beings, and I’m a living
being, you must come and teach me Buddhism out of the compassion of your
heart. You are required to do so and if you don’t, I’ll burn all the monasteries in
east Tibet (laughs) (laughter). And we have this letter, you know. So the Sakya
Pandita , he’s very old, he had two young nephews and he took them with him
and he started to walk to east Tibet. He was very old and people kept stopping
him. He was so famous people kept asking him, stop and give us a weekend
teaching, you know. And he kept getting hung-up. He got nervous that Godan
would start destroying monasteries. So he…out of good will…as a good… act of
good faith, he sent his nephews ahead. These are like teenagers, right and he…
he sent them ahead to meet King Godan, Prince Godan. The story is that by the
time the Sakya Pandita reached Godan, he had already been converted to
Buddhism by the two nephews. The nephews had already been so convincing
and they had presented karma and emptiness so well that the prince had already
become a Buddhist and they stopped the warfare they had been doing, you
know.

They had been sacrificing animals and stuff like that. They stopped. The Sakya
Pandita taught them to offer little doughnuts shaped like those animals. And
even in New Jersey, you can still see the Mongolians offering these things that
the Sakya Pandita taught them.
The nephew’s name, which you should know, is Chugyal Pakpa. By the way,
I’m not just boring you to death with lineage. You are in this lineage. I thought
you might want to know your family line. {‘gro dgon chos rgyal ‘phags pa}. This
nephew was actually nine years old when they set out to meet the prince.
Sometimes they just call him {Pakpa}.        If you want cheap out on your
homework, you can just put {Pakpa}, okay. It means ‘realized being’, right.
Someone who’s seen emptiness directly. So {Pakpa} starts wandering around
Chinese border, ends up in Beijing as the lama of {Kubla Khan} okay and is the
private lama of {Kubla Khan}. He meets this crazy Italian guy named Marco
Polo. And in Marco Polo’s records there are writings about {Pakpa}. He gets to
Mongolia and gives them an alphabet. He invents an alphabet so they can
translate Buddhism into their language, okay. The Mongolians start spreading
Buddhism all over. The front lines, people on the front lines out in Europe
eastern Europe are studying Buddhism after awhile, okay. And as the empire
shrinks, some of them get stuck there. And apparently the Mongolian word for
‘getting stuck there’ is something like {halmuk, halmuk}, okay.              And in
particular, there’s a night, right around the American revolution, 1770’s, when all
the Mongolians are directed to go home, they write to the Dalai Lama of Tibet,
of the time, and they say, what would be a good night for us to go home to
Mongolia from Eastern Europe. And he says, such-and–such a night. Go on
such-and-such a night. So they’re like camping on both sides of this river.
Suddenly, there’s a warm spell and the river gets unfrozen and everybody on
the western side gets left behind. Everybody else gets in these wagons and goes
home, okay. And by the way, dies on the way, most of them. But everybody
on the western bank of the river gets stuck there and some people say that’s
where the word {kalmuk} comes from, okay. So there’s this huge group of
Mongolians left there called {Kalmics}. After world war two, they escape to this
country called America. They go to Howell, New Jersey. Actually, they go to
New Mexico; they can’t stand it. They come back to New Jersey, okay (laughs)
and they start these temples and their monks are very, very old and they start to
die out. And there’s one named Geshe Wangyal. He teaches these crazy
Americans called Jefferey Hopkins, Robert Thurman and some other people
from Harvard; these geeks (laughter). And they become great holders of that
lineage. And then there’s another temple in Howell. There a lama gets old and
he’s blind and they write to the Dalai Lama, and he loans them Geshe Lobsang
Tharchin for three years. Then all these American students come and tie him
down and he never goes back home. And this is your lineage, okay. So you can
trace your lineage directly back to Drakpa Gyeltsen and to Sachen. You are that
lineage, you are in that lineage, okay. That’s why I spent so much time on it.
That is your direct lineage. You are one more family member now. Hopefully it
won’t end with you, okay. I mean, your responsibility now is to pass it on. And
then somebody will tell this story in Brazil someday, about how Buddhism
reached America and through the Mongolians, and we’re going to study the
‘Freedom from the Four Attachments’ today, you know, like that, okay. And
should be your lineage. You should be the grandfather sometime, like that. So
this is the lineage you’re in. We’ll start talking about it … also if you’re in the
Vajrayogini lineage, this is a direct teaching of your lineage. This is an extremely
important teaching for you lineage, okay.Take a break and then we’ll do the
‘shenpa shi drel’ when you get back, okay. Try to make it short, five minutes or
something. Okay, we’ll start again. This is on your homework. I forgot to give
it to you, okay.
This is on your homework. That’s the guy on the...bus driver out to Howell,
“Sunnyside drive” (laughter) {sa skya gong ma rnam lnga) Say {sakya} [repeat],
{gongma} [repeat], {nam nga} [repeat] {Sakya}, means {sakya}. {Gongma}, means
{gongma} (laughter) (laughs), that’s a famous joke in Tibet you know if someone
doesn’t know how to explain something, he says gongma means gongma.
(laughter) {Gongma}, means patriarch, okay, patriarch. In…when they say {gya
nak gong ma}, it means the emperor of China, but in this case it means the
patriarch of the sakyas. {nam nga} means the five great patriarchs, okay. These
are the five people who helped start the Sakya tradition and I just gave you four
of them. The four lamas you had: Sachen, who had the vision at twelve years
old; and then you had Jetsun Drakpa Gyeltsen, in our great Vajrayogini lineage,
very important; then you had Sakya Pandita, who got Buddhism to America,
right and his nephew, Pakpa, who converted the prince and met Marco Polo and
taught the Mongols. I didn’t tell you about Sunan Tsemo and I’m not going to,
but he was the other fifth one, okay. He’s in the Vajrayogini lineage. Sunam
Tse, is in the {dak kye}, okay.(question). Do you want Sunam Tsemo? 1142 to
1182. You don’t have to know all five, but I thought you should that they are
called the ‘five great patriarchs’. So it’s a whole little mafia, okay. Dharma mafia,
who got the Dharma to America, eventually, all right.
Here is the text of the {b: shenpa shi drel}, and I’m not going to try to finish it
tonight. We’ll do a little bit next class also. 1) {tse ‘di la zhen na chos pa min}. Say…
By the way, very, very holy verse. You have to remember it. It’s on your
homework, okay. Say {tse di la} [repeat], {shen na} [repeat], {chupa} [repeat],
{min} [repeat]. Okay and I…I officially excuse you from finishing your
homework this time okay because we’re not going to finish it tonight. I don’t
want to rush it, okay. So you’ll get your homework, fill in as much as you can
and there’s more next time, okay. Say {tse di la} [repeat], {shen na} [repeat],
{chupa} [repeat], {min} [repeat]. {Tse} means lifetime. {Tse} means lifetime. {Di}
means this lifetime. {di la} means to this lifetime. {shen la} means if you’re
attached to this life, okay. If you’re attached to this life. {Chupa} means a person
who’s practising the Dharma, Dharma practitioner, Dharma person is {chupa}.
{min} means you ain’t no, okay, all right. In plain English, don’t call yourself a
Dharma person if you’re attached to this life, okay. So this four instructions,
Manjushri’s already laying a very heavy trip on this twelve year old kid, okay.
This kid is having a vision of this tantric deity and the first thing he has to say to
him is, if you get attached to this life don’t call yourself a Buddhist, okay, don’t
call yourself a Dharma person, okay. It’s a very, very powerful first line. What I
want to talk about tonight and that’s all I’m going to talk about tonight, is what
does it mean to be attached to this life, okay. And I think the most important
thing to say at the beginning is that he is talking to Dharma practitioners. This
guy is the grandson of the founder of Sakya monastery, okay. Remember?
That’s why Bari Lotsawa, the great translator said, get your rear end into tantric
practice at twelve years old, you know, we want you to be a great lama. You’ve
got to get working now. They are grooming this kid to be the head of all the
Sakyas. And the first thing he needs is wisdom. So he’s doing his practice and
the first thing that the deity of all wisdom’s has to say to him is, if you get
attached to this life, don’t call yourself a Dharma practitioner, okay. And…so
he’s already talking to people who think they’re into the Dharma, which makes
it a good lojong for us, you see. He’s not trying to convince some Christian guy
or something, that they should become a Buddhist. It’s not what he’s doing. He
thinks you’re already a Buddhist, or he thinks you think you’re a Buddhist
already. And he says, by the way if you’re attached to this life, you ain’t no
Buddhist, okay. You’re not a Buddhist. You’re not a Dharma practitioner, okay.
So then you start to have this Judeo-Christian guilt complex thing, (laughter) like
oh gee, maybe I’m a bad person. My self-esteem was low enough already and
now you tell me if I like anything I’m a bad person, you know. And this is a rich
goldmine of low self-esteem for many American Buddhists (laughter) you know
like… they’re always feeling like they’re not good enough. Why? They enjoy a
movie; they like music on the radio; they like to eat something, you know. I
happen to like café latte’s and croissants, you know. So I must be attached to this
life; I must be such a bad person. And you meet … American Buddhists carry
this baggage into their Buddhism from their past practices, you know the
practices they grew up with. And they bring this baggage in that you’re not
allowed to like anything and if you do you’re a bad person and you’re attached,
you know. So you’re supposed to sit their and not be attached to anything and
they even go to the extreme in some traditions, it seems like, that you can’t even
want to be attached to reaching nirvana or something, you know. You’re not a
good Buddhist if you want to save all sentient beings. If you say, I desire to save
all sentient beings, you’re already a bad person, you know. And people think
like that. And it becomes a kind of schizophrenia because you can’t … well, what
are you supposed to do? You know…I mean are you supposed to just sit and
stare at a wall or something? I mean, what are you allowed to do? What’s not
attachment, you see? And it becomes like some kind of obsession with people,
you know. I don’t want to be attached. I know this guy didn’t want to take a
parking space when it was freed up in the east village, you know; that’s
attachment. (laughs) I’m attached to parking spaces. It’s not like that. It’s a very,
very profound thing. It’s a very, very, very, life or death matter that you
understand what attachment means, okay. What is the goal of your Buddhist
practice? Is it that you can reach a place in your mind where you don’t care
about anything? Is that what no attachment means? And it’s very, very serious
that you get this straight because this is the whole goal of your Buddhism.
Theoretically, you’re going to spend the rest of your life trying to get
enlightened. You’re going to spend the rest of your life trying to not be attached
to things. Well what does it mean not to be attached to things? And I’m afraid
that many American Buddhists already are thinking that it means, I can’t enjoy
anything. Forget it. I was at Washington DC. I went to see His Holiness at this
fundraiser. Harrison Ford was up there. Rinpoche said, ‘ I know that guy, that’s
Indiana Jones.’ (laughs) (laughter) First he said, I think it’s a senator. I said, no,
guess again. He said, it’s Indiana Jones; I said, that’s right (laughs) (laughter)
And His Holiness was there. Ritchie Haven comes on, you know, he’s playing …
if you’re from my generation, he’s playing this thing that sends a chill up your
spine, ‘free-dharma’, and His Holiness is like (demonstrates stamping feet) that,
and he’s obviously … and then I went to a dinner afterwards and He’s like
enjoying it, obviously He was having a good time. He giggles constantly. Tell
me He’s attached? Is He attached, you see? Is He attached? Are we allowed to
giggle? Are we allowed to listen to music and stamp our feet, you know? Or are
we different? You see what I mean? What’s attachment mean? Is His Holiness
breaking some vows? Or is He being unusual? Or can a Buddhist enjoy
something? And what is attachment? Can I have a family you know? People
came up to me after class one day, you know, I was kind of… you know I’m
kind of embarrassed to tell you, but I was thinking about having…you know
getting married and having some kids some time. Am I attached? I said, no,
that’s not the point (laughs), okay. It’s not the point at all. What does
attachment mean? Because if you have attachment, then whatever you do in this
class, says Drakpa Gyeltsen, is not dharma. The Sakya Pandita already wrote a
commentary on this text and he said, if you have attachment to this life then all
the study you’re doing, all the meditation you’re doing, all the thoughts you
have about Buddhism, all your attempts to be a good person, are not Dharma,
okay. I mean that’s…we have to figure out what is attachment. We have to
figure out what attachment means. And first he says you have to figure it out
about your choice of your life choices. What do you choose to do with your life
is an indication, it’s a barometer of your attachment, okay. So when you make
your life decisions about what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s a good thing to
do and what’s a bad thing to do, that’s the first test of whether you’re attached to
this life or not. So we’re going to go through a list of attachments, all right. And
these are what the attachments mean. And they don’t mean rock ‘n roll,
milkshakes and lattes, okay. Phew! (laughs) (laughter) No, really, it doesn’t
mean that. And the goal is not to reach some place where they don’t exist, or
something like that, or where you don’t care about them anymore. That’s not
the point at all. A Buddha paradise, like it or not, is total bliss. Every object
there, every atom of every object, every electron of every atom of every object,
creates a totally satisfying, enjoyable, blissful ecstasy in you, okay. A milkshake
is a tiny reflection of that kind of thing. Of course it’s a wonderful thing. It’s a
little bit of beauty in the world. A sunset or a child’s face, of course it’s … you
think a Buddha paradise is some place with people sitting around not enjoying
anything? You know is that the goal? Do they look like that in the thangkas, like
they’re not enjoying anything? When you see a picture of Tara, Drolma, does
she look like she’s having a neutral time? (laughter) You know what I mean?
Really, okay. The joys of this life are a tiny indication of what’s possible. And…
and the real thing is much better. So it’s not like you’re rejecting it. They’re a…
they’re a tiny indicator of what could happen on a million-fold level. And that’s
not the point, is not to enjoy them. You just want to make them go on for ever,
okay. Okay? Big difference. And don’t feel guilty that you’re doing it, okay. It’s
what you’re supposed to do. It’s what a human being was made for okay.
You’re supposed to reach total ecstasy. That’s you goal in life. That’s the ultimate
evolution of all human life. It’s to reach total bliss, okay. To do that, you might
have to give up your attachment to certain smaller pleasures. The Sakya Pandita
said, {dewa chung na trakpa yi dewa chom pay che me si kepa lopay duna du}
Say, {kepa} [repeat], {lopay} [repeat], {duna} [repeat], {du} [repeat]. {dewa}
[repeat] {duna} [repeat] {kye me si} [repeat]. First thing Rinpoche ever taught us.
It was at Robert Taylor’s house in 1974 or ‘5, I don’t remember, my brain is you
know … (question) Sakya Pandita. In his house in Maryland, okay. {kepe lopay
duna du} means, Dharma students who want to become masters of Buddhism,
during their student years have to suffer. (laughter) (laughs). {dewa duna kay
me si} you want to be a good teacher of Buddhism or a good practitioner of
Buddhism, you’re going to have to s… you can’t be attached to small pleasures.
{dewa chung na trakpa yi} and he made us memorize it. People who are
attached to smaller pleasures {dewa chom pay che me si} could never achieve
great ecstasy. You see what I mean? You’ve got to give up small pleasures to
get big pleasures. It doesn’t mean giving up milkshakes. It doesn’t mean that.
Let’s see what he’s talking about. In this case, he begins by talking about your
life choices. What are the choices that you make in your life, you know.
Everyday in your life you have to make choices; I’m going to do this or I’m
going to do that. I’m going to be doing this kind of activity; I decided not to do
that kind of thing. Making the right choice is freedom from the first attachment.
This is attachment number one and making the right choices is freedom from it,
okay. Specifically, with what you decide to dedicate your life to, okay. Making
the right choice is freedom from attachment. On what basis do you decide what
to do with your life? You know what’s the good thing to do and what’s a bad
thing to do? I’ll make you a list. 1) {bag chags} Say {bakchak} [repeat], {bakchak}
[repeat]. Why don’t you … you know I went to work, I called in (coughs) sick
today (laughter) (laughs) but I didn’t (laughs) go yesterday, I mean I did go
yesterday. But you know, I got yelled at and the boss came back from his two
week trip and made my life miserable then, you know. And I did not pick up the
diamond scale and crush his head with it, okay (laughter), you know what I
mean? Something held me back (laughs) No, think about it, you know what I
mean. It would have been nice maybe to just drop it on his head or something.
You know what I mean? Then he wouldn’t be there any more. That’s the
theory, right. What kept me from doing it, you know? Why didn’t I do it?
Seriously. I mean, suppose someone in the street bothers you, what keeps you
from just stabbing them on the spot, and I’m not kidding? Okay. What keeps a
normal American person, what holds you back? What restrains you? What
keeps you civilized? Why do you keep your morality with regard to killing
people at work who bother you? (laughter) You know, and I’m not kidding.
Why is it that you laugh? Why is it that you think it’s weird or funny? There are
countries in history where if someone insulted you at work you would kill them
or duel with them or something like that. You know, why is it that in modern
America you don’t kill your boss, literally, when he bothers you? What holds
you back? You know why do you keep your morality? Why do you make the
choices you make and decide not to crush his head with the scale? Why? The
first thing is {bakchaks}. {Bakchaks} means instincts. It feels wrong to you.
Something is inside you. You know Westerners call it conscience or something
like that, or there’s another word for it … what’s it? (comment from student)
What’s it? No, it’s the hesitation to do a bad thing. Some kind of instinct; it’s like
conscience. You know there’s something in you; moral fibre that doesn’t allow
you to just kill your boss when he irritates you, literally. There’s something that
stops you called {bakchaks}. You meet certain people who … I remember when I
was a kid growing up. We lived in Phoenix, Arizona. We had palm groves all
over my part of Phoenix and we would go playing in the palm groves. And we
would find bird’s nests. I remember some of the kids thought it was cool to
shoot the babies and they knew the mother wouldn’t fly away. The mother
would stay on the eggs no matter what. You could just touch the mother and
she wouldn’t move. You could shoot her with a Bee-Bee gun and she wouldn’t
even move. She’d just die there. And they thought it was a lot of fun to do that.
Then we were like freaked out that somebody would do that, we
couldn’t….there was something in us that said this is really terrible. You know
these kids grew up to be, they went to jail eventually. These are the kind of kids
that grew up to be really bad people and ended up in jail and, you know. I mean,
our parents didn’t teach us that. They just taught not to do that. And we didn’t
feel like that. That’s called {bakchak}. Don’t think it’s self-existent. Don’t think its
in you through some miracle of god or something, okay. Of course it had a
cause. Of course there’s a reason why some kids are nice and some kids are bad.
It’s a {bakchak} from their past lives. Don’t think it’s just an accident. Don’t
think it’s just a DNA accident, okay. Don’t think their mother didn’t drop them
or something. It’s nothing…she didn’t eat tofu spicy or something you know. I
mean, forget it. These tendencies are coming from a lot longer ago than that and
those are {bakchaks}. The thing that Drakpa Gyeltsen says about {bakchaks} is,
don’t trust them. Don’t trust them, okay. You may have good {bakchaks}, you
may have bad {bakchaks}, but do not trust your future happiness to the instincts
you came into this life with. That is attachment. Got it? You see? We’re not
talking Michael and Zois milkshakes, we’re not talking movies, we’re not talking
rock ‘n roll. It’s are you attached to the instincts that you have about what’s
good to do and what’s wrong to do, because you cannot trust them, okay. A lot
of them may be very, very mistaken. And he says, don’t trust them. Don’t trust
… We all have some missing instincts, okay. And those of you … in school,
Winston is a very nice boy you know he never blah, blah, blah. I have still
report cards from Fourth grade. Except for the civil war baseball card things, the
teacher said, Mikey’s very nice; pleasure to have in class you know and stuff like
that. You begin to believe that that is your in-born, god-given nature. It’s not.
It’s also impermanent. It’s also a left over from your past life and if you don’t
take good care of it you will loose it, you see. That’s how you meet people, you
get into the wrong crowd, you get influenced by wrong people and the morality
you had, the ethical standards you had, just slide, like that. You cannot trust
your instincts. You cannot leave your future lives and the decision of what’s
going to happen to you in the future to your past instincts.

And I’m talking especially to the people who are good people, you see. You get
around some bad people …I went into the business world and I started to think
it was cool to figure out ways to extract money from the vendors and stuff, you
know what I mean, because they taught me that, you know. You come in and
say, I just made another 100,000, 113,000 dollars in the last four minutes for you.
The guy says, fantastic, lets go for another one, you know. You’re like, yeah,
let’s go for another one. Then at some point during that exercise, like in the
second year, the third month, fourth day, you cross the line of what’s moral.
You see what I mean? And you don’t even notice because it’s so exciting and it’s
so cool. And you’ve always been moral and you don’t worry about it and at
some point you slide because of the people around you. Do not trust your
future life and your future happiness to your instincts. That’s the first lesson,
okay. That’s attachment you see. It’s not whether or not you could sit in a
corner and stare at a wall without thinking about a girl or a milkshake, okay. It’s
not that. Are you attached to your idea of what’s right or wrong because of
instincts and not because of what’s really right or wrong, you see. Don’t trust
your instincts. 2) {tsor ba} Say {tsorwa} [repeat], {tsorwa} [repeat]. {Tsorwa}
means feeling. Does it make me feel good or does it make me feel bad? You
know. Does it make me feel good or does it make me feel bad? I was in India,
1970 whatever, and I was in Dharamsala and I read in the newspapers oh no… I
was trying to learn how to cook, because I didn’t know how to cook. I was still
in college. And I found out that real people have to learn to cook for
themselves, (laughter) (laughs) and I’m there and I’m trying to cook on this little
turpentine… it looks like a lantern, and you’re trying to make a whole meal on
this thing and if you don’t figure it out you go hungry that day, you know. And
I’m like trying to figure it out. And I say, where do you get the kerosene? And
they say, they giggle at you, Oh kerosene, you know. You’ve got to be there
when the truck gets into town. Well, what time does it get in? Yeah, it comes
every other month if you’re lucky, you know. Well, where do I have to be?
They say, be here at 6am. I say, what time does the truck get there? They say,
noon. But if you aren’t there at 6 o’clock you’re not going to get any kerosene
and you won’t be able to cook. So, you’re like down there and you’re shoving
and there’s this mob of people and I was literally in a … Do you know what a
‘(?)- charge’ is? You’ll find out in India. It’s a bamboo stick, they’re not allowed
to carry guns. So they lay into the crowd with these sticks you know. They
hurt. Like they break your arm, you know, these bamboo sticks. And there was
a lati - charge, and we’re all trying to get our kerosene you know and I said, this
would never happen in America. We’re civilized (laughter). Our morality…you
know our morality is different. I’m ashamed by this behavior. Then I went back
to the US. I went to visit my brother in Hawaii. There was the oil crisis and
people were standing in line and people in the town I was in shot people to get
oil, to get gas for their car. And it dawned on me, it doesn’t matter where you
are. When you need something your morality goes out the window, right.
That’s the second kind of attachment. It’s where your ethical standards are
dependent on what you need or what makes you feel good, okay. And the
minute the need … Americans are civilised, why? They’re eating up 90% of the
world’s resources, okay (Laughter). Put us in a normal environment in the world
and we won’t be so civilized. But a Buddhist … you are attached to this life and
you’re not a Dharma practitioner if your morality bends according to what you
need or what makes you feel good or bad, okay. And that’s very difficult. Now,
it’s becoming some kind of independent thinking you have to have. You have to
keep your… you have to obey the laws of karma, not because they feel good or
bad, and not because you were a good person from the time you were a kid or a
bad person from the time you were a kid. You have to respect them because
they…they run your world, okay. But that’s another … we’re not going to get
there yet. How about this one? 3) {lugs srol}. Say {luksul} [repeat], {luksul}
[repeat]. {Luksul} means the customs of your country, okay {luksul} means the
customs of your country, where you live. Okay the customs where you live,
okay. And we talked about it on Friday night. You know…I lived in Phoenix,
Arizona right. I told you that. There’s south Phoenix and there’s north Phoenix
okay. We never went to south Phoenix. Only bad people lived … it’s literally a
railroad track and buckeye road and anybody south of that is a really bad
person. They are poor, they’re the wrong color and we’re not supposed to talk
to them and they’re very violent and we shouldn’t ever go there, you know.
And the parents are telling us that. We say, what’s so bad about south Phoenix.
They say, they do bad things; they smoke marijuana and they… they run
numbers, you know. And we’re like, what’s running numbers mean? And they
say, oh, they are horrible bad people you know. They, they get in a dark room
under a house and there’s this one light coming down. And there’s a big
cardboard box everyone writes a number on a piece of paper and they all throw
the number into a hat and then they all have to give $10 to the main guy. And
then he mixes up all the numbers and then somebody ahs to reach into the box
and pick out a number. They win all the money. And those are really bad
people and that’s called running numbers. And it was very illegal all over this
country. Now it’s called ‘the lottery’ (laughter). And now it’s run by the
government, you know and now it’s okay. In 1920, owning a bottle of alcohol
would get you in prison. Federal offence, a crime against the constitution of the
United States to own a bottle of alcohol. Now, it’s all over the place. Now it’s
okay and the government takes most of the tax money from it. And everything
like that. Abortion was illegal; it was murder 20 years ago. Then 15 years ago, it
was okay. And now they’re not quite sure. What it means is, your morality
can’t be dependent on your culture, on the whims of your culture at a particular
time, because they will go backwards and forwards okay. The whole movie
industry, the whole entertainment industry, is based on sex and exciting sex,
exciting adultery stories and stuff like that. Then the minute you do it, you’re
like illegal and you’re bad and Clinton’s in big trouble, you know what I mean.
(laughter) Like no…you’re brainwashed from the time you’re a kid that this is
romantic and wonderful and exciting and then the minute you do it, you’re evil
and you should go to jail. And …and it’s just something crazy. You can’t trust
your civilization to decide you what… for you what’s good or bad. They can’t
even make up their own mind, okay. And you’re a product of it. Your whole
value system was drilled into you by whom? (laughs) There’s this lady, teaching
first grade, Phoenix, Arizona, Mrs. Melvin. She’s got this beehive hairdo
(laughter), she’s got these glasses like that, you know. And I imagine she was
watching the equivalent of Oprah Winfrey, every chance she got she is
determining my idea of what’s right or wrong. She is teaching me what’s good
to do and what’s bad to do. And she’s my ultimate authority. And my parents,
okay. Where I lived in Arizona, in high school they gave us two weeks off in the
fall. Free. No classes, no homework, no exams. You can leave. Why? It’s deer
hunting season, okay. And I learned at age 12, I got licensed to carry a 270
Remington. And my father is teaching me killing these animals is the greatest
thing you can do, you know. This is a wonderful thing. And the school is like
telling you, go you know. Be out in nature you know and, and learn these
things and this is a good thing, you know. And many things like that. You can’t
trust your culture, okay. In 1770, in this country, in the United States of America,
there were debates going on between the founding fathers, whether or not black
people were humans or animals. That’s your culture. And don’t think the same
things are going on now. You know you say, oh no we’re smarter than that;
we’re not like that. You’re just like that. Half of what you believe in is some silly
thing that your parents taught you and you haven’t checked it. You’re living
your life by that. And that’s attachment to this life. That’s what attachment to
this life means. It becomes much more serious than milkshakes and rock ‘n roll,
okay much, much deeper. This kind of attachment is going to be very difficult to
overcome. You’re going to have to go against your whole civilization. Your
civilization, right now, is wrong. Why? Because they don’t give you two months
off a year to do your tantric retreats, okay (laughter). And they don’t do they?
And you laugh. I say it’s crazy to work six days a week so you can have another
day to rest and was your clothes, so you can go back and do it again. I say that’s
crazy. You know that… that should be illegal. That should be abnormal. That
should be immoral to spend a human life like that, you know. Two weeks off a
year, are you kidding me? What are you going to do in ten days with your life?
How can you live a human life in ten days a year? What are you going to do
with ten days a year? I did it for sixteen… I know, you know. What are you
going to do with that time? How are you going to reach any spiritual goals in
that… it’s impossible. It’s out of the question. The only effective… the
civilization you grew up in, is to create people who die with some possessions
that they can’t use. And that’s the only thing they taught you how to do. And
that’s wrong. You can’t go to your civilization…you can’t believe what your
culture is teaching you, okay. I mean, {b: shenpa shi drel}, freedom from the first
attachment, is to examine your life and be free of the ideas your culture is
feeding you. Forget it. You know as a Buddhist you’re now, you have to think
independently. What’s the right thing to do, what’s the wrong thing to do.
You’re not going to get much help from the television or the New York Times or
anything else. You’re not going to get help from them. And it’s very hard to
against the stream. It’s very, very hard. It will sweep you along to your death.
And you’ll die with the required possessions: a house, a wife, a washing machine,
couple of kids, you know, and some money in the bank. And then you’ll realize
you spent your whole life doing that. And that it’s over. And that it doesn’t
mean anything. So, attachment to this life, is that. It’s examining your behavior
against the standards of emptiness and karma and not against the standard of
what your culture told you or what your mother told you or what your school
teachers told you or what your instincts are or what feels good to you. And it’s
very difficult. This one’s hard. It’s deciding for yourself what’s the right thing to
do with your life. And that’s very, very difficult in this society. You have to
pretend you just got here from Mars, okay and does it make sense to live like
the natives are living here in New York City? Or do you want to fix it and do it a
little bit differently? Frankly, we’re experimenting with an office where you
practice till one in the afternoon. You meditate, you do your prayers, you recite
and you do your altar until 1 pm. And you do your study until 1 pm. Then you
go to work for three or four hours. Then you go to class. Then you meditate.
Required two months off a year for tantric retreats. I’m not kidding. We’re
trying to design a schedule like that. It should be like that. We should try to
head towards that, you know. I mean, think about it, it’s your life at stake, okay.
It really is your life at stake. There’s no reason why we have to do what we did
before. There’s no reason. It’s America. We’re free, you know we can make a
new one, you know. We have to think about it, okay. That’s the freedom …
and you feel the freedom, right? You just felt a little (laughter) you know,
freedom you know. That’s freedom from this life, okay. Something like that.
We’ll do the other three next class, okay.
[prayer: mandala]
[prayer: dedication]