ACI 14 «Лоджонг: развитие доброго сердца», занятие 7

Lojong, Developing the Good Heart
Class Seven
GMR
June 18, 1998
Transcriber: Su Hung
Edited: Llysse Velez

Side A

We’ll start, okay. Last time we were half way through the lojong called {b:
Freedom from Four Attachments}. And we’re going to go ahead and continue
that one, all right. We’ve finished {tse di la shen na chupa min}. Say {tse di la}
repeat. Woo! {shen na} repeat. Woo! [Laughter, laugh] {chupa min}, repeat.
That’s nice. Okay. {Tse di la} means, this life. By the way if you’re a real lojonger
you don’t mind the heat, right? Just put up with it, okay, who cares? {Shen na}
means if you’re attached to this life. {Chupa min} – you’re no Dharma person.
And I think it’s very, very important that we don’t carry our Judeo-Christian
baggage to our Buddhism. You know, you don’t have to feel guilty or sinful
about drinking a nice milkshake; you don’t have to feel bad about seeing a good
movie. If you see a bad movie I think you should feel bad, okay. [Laughter,
laugh] and you don’t have to feel bad about Neil Young and stuff like that. But
Portershead… no…okay. Not like that, real attachment to this life, we talked
about it last time. As far as your … what you choose … your ethics, what you
choose to do, that’s the important thing and your ethics have to be driven not by
attachment to this life, but by your intelligence, by your wisdom and your
knowledge of karma and emptiness. So forget doing good things because you
always did them, because you were a good boy at school. Okay, forget doing
good things because your school teachers told you that was good or that was
bad. And forget doing good things because your … of what your parents taught
you. Forget doing good things because of what you heard at church or what
you didn’t hear at church. Forget doing good things because of what your
culture says which changes every year or two. Forget it … doing good things
because of what your peers think, okay. Because that will change as you get
older also, okay. Every year goes by it changes. You need to learn not to have
attachment for those things. You have to do what’s good because of the laws of
karma and emptiness, okay. And a lot of that overlaps with what you learnt in
school. I’d say, you know, eighty percent of it overlaps. And what you learnt
elsewhere about what’s right and what’s wrong. The other twenty percent is
very delicate, okay. The other twenty percent is very important. It’s very
important to realize that what you do is right or wrong not because there is
some person keeping track. Because there is no person keeping track. What
you do that’s right or wrong, has to be … only be driven by what’s bad karma
and what’s good karma. What will hurt other people and yourself in the future.
What will keep you in this world, what will keep you in the condition of dying,
okay, that should be your decision. What keeps you and the people around you
in the condition of getting old and dying. According to Buddhism this world is a
mistake. And to live in this world is an error. It was a mistake that you got here.
It’s a boo boo to be here and if you live in this realm the way you were born in
this realm, if you’re not a deity,- okay, I don’t know, there’s probably a few
hidden here, all right - but if you are whom you seem to be, you came to this
realm because of some negativity in your mind and that will kill you. That will
make you get old and die. And you will lose every good thing you ever find in
this realm. And you have to try to figure it out before you die. And you have to
change realms before you die. That’s the … your morality has to be driven by
that and that alone. And often times what you heard earlier in your life is wrong
according to that standard. You know, it will not protect you from dying. It will
not get you out of this realm. It doesn’t even talk about things like that, you see
what I mean? Not at all. So your whole personal standard of how you live your
life as a Buddhist and as a lojong person, forget what you ever heard in your life,
you know. Go after the things that will get you out of this realm, that will get
you out of death. And they really do take you to a thing call heaven. You really
can go to a thing call paradise but there isn’t any system that exists in your
Western culture that does that, right now. And you have to learn it and you
have to get good at it. And you don’t have much time. So to be attached to
what you heard before, to be attached to what your family is saying, your
teacher said, your culture said, they didn’t talk like this. They’re not getting you
ready for that. You didn’t get the information there, okay. And you have to not
be attached to what you knew before. You have start thinking for yourself.
The second part of that which I didn’t cover last time is (tu sam gom sum). Say
{tu} repeat {sam} repeat {gom} repeat. {tu}repeat {sam}repeat {gom}repeat. {Tu}
means, learning; religious learning, spiritual learning. That decision too has to be
made now independently. You have to think for yourself. You have to find a
path that works in this lifetime. And you have to do it only because it works and
not because somebody else said something. You see what I mean? You … each
person in this person is going to die. Each person in this room has very little
time to do something. Each person in this room is surrounded by other people
who are dying. You personally have to figure out what’s going on and you have
to do something about it. And you have to decide what path is going to work.
And you have to very critical, even of what you hear in this room. You have to
decide for yourself what you hear in this room and elsewhere; is it going to help
you to escape death and suffering? Will it help you or not? And you have to be
totally critical, even of what you hear in this room. You have to say, ‘I’ll check
that out. I hear him talking.’ But it doesn’t matter if I’m up here saying it or
somebody else or some great lama, or … doesn’t matter who. You have to be
very critical. Your life is at stake. Your happiness is at stake. You have to decide
what makes sense. What works. Who’s talking about dying? Who’s offering
something to fix it? And you have to … attachment to this life, in this lojong,
means your spiritual practice has to be a personal, spiritual journey that runs off
of your own free decisions and thinking. And you have to give up attachment
for what you heard before. Even what I say, even when a person says, you have
to be very critical of it, you have to decide for yourself what’s right or wrong.
There’s a Bodhisattva vow that says you break the vow if you’re attracted to the
teacher and not to the teaching, you see what I mean? Like you don’t accept the
teaching just because the guy looks convincing or he’s nice or he seems to be a
good person or he seems to speak well or something like that. Forget it. Does
the message work? Does what the person says work, no matter who gets up
and says it. You see what I mean? It’s a mistake to be attached to or attracted to
a person and not be attracted to what they’re saying. And you have to judge for
yourself if what the person is saying is correct or not. And the only way to find
out is to try it and does it stop your suffering? Does it change your life? Does it
change your world? And everything has to be like that. Drakpa Gyeltsen is
saying … Holy Lama Drakpa Gyeltsen is saying you can’t be attached to
anything, even Buddhism; you have to check it out. You have to be very critical.
You have to check out what the person’s saying and not just because it’s this
lama or that lama. You have to … everything is at stake. Your life is at stake.
You have to examine everything they teach and you should do only the things
that you find to be logical. And the things that check with your experience. And
not because you’re attracted to the person but rather to the teaching. That’s {tu
sam gom}. You meditate on those things. Your whole idea of the way to spend
your life; how many hours do you give to meditation. You know, students often
come to me and say, ‘Is forty-five minutes okay, I don’t have an hour?’ or, ‘Is
thirty minutes okay, I don’t have forty five minutes.’ Forget it, I mean, frankly
you need two, three hours a day. Maybe five hours a day, I don’t know, and
you should stop once a year, three or four times and go into a month’s
meditation, maybe. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to mislead you,
probably you do need two, three hours a day, okay. You can’t do it in a normal
job, I know. I worked a normal job for sixteen years, you know. I know. You
have to make a deal. You have to be a businessman, a real businessman, you
know, meditation businessman. You have to go and … you have to go and …
you know, I always tell people keep the job that you have now, and then go find
a job where you can responsibly spend half the day working on your spiritual
life because you probably need that much. And you’re going to have to do with
less, and that’s okay. It actually helps your spiritual life if you have no money,
okay, or little. It’s actually more … it’s very conducive to a spiritual life, it’s not a
problem for a person to have less things because some part of your mind is
always keeping an inventory. Two percent of your mind is worried about what
possessions you have, where are they? If I ask you, ‘Where is your car, right
now? Is it parked on the right side of the street?’ No, you … those of you who
own cars have to keep that in your mind or you get a hundred dollar ticket, I
know I got one, okay. Hundred and thirty. And that takes up a certain
percentage of your mind. And then the more possessions you have, the more
things like that, you see. So, you know, if I ask … if you ask me where my car is,
I say, I don’t have a car, you know. I don’t have worry about it. I don’t have to
remember which side of the street it’s parked on and things like that. So it’s not
problem to have a … Maybe the priorities of this world are wrong, probably
they are. Maybe the priorities of American culture are wrong. Maybe spending
eight hours a day is wrong. Maybe spending fifty weeks a year, ninety-eight
percent, ninety-six, sorry, ninety-six percent of your life working and four
percent of what you want to do, you know, does it really take ninety-six percent
of your time to have four percent of your time back? I mean, is that a good
deal? You know what I mean? Is that a good business deal? I don’t know. They
get you to work in business and they teach you to think like a businessman. Is it
fair to … is it good business, is it a good deal to give ninety-six dollars to get four
dollars back, you see what I mean? Is it good deal to give ninety-six percent of
your time to feed yourself so you can have four percent of your time back. It
doesn’t seem to make sense. And I don’t think you really need to do it. You
have to evaluate your life like that. Maybe the priorities are wrong. If you are
already practicing dharma, maybe your priorities are wrong also. There’s a
thing in the Bodhisattva vows. In the Bodhisattva vows you break the vow if
there’s two spiritual activities to do and you choose the one that helps less
people, you see what I mean? It’s very interesting. There’s a Bodhisattva vow
against prioritizing your good deeds wrong. Obviously if you have a choice
between doing a bad deed and a good deed, I hope most people in this room will
choose the good deed, right? But now, once you’re into the dharma, Drakpa
Gyeltsen is saying, you have attachment to this life if you don’t choose the
dharma which is more powerful. You know, if you have a choice between say a
Bodhisattva activity and a non-Bodhisattva activity, you have to go for the one
that helps more people. And I think ninety percent of us who try to practice
dharma are lazy because we are attracted to this life. And I don’t mean
milkshakes. I mean the way of thinking of this life. It’s easy to give up
milkshakes. It’s easy to put on robes. It’s easy to go stay in a room and not
have a family, that’s easy. But to try to not be attached to the thinking that you
grew up with, that’s what it really means. To not be attached to the deal that
your culture is offering you, western civilization. To not be attached to that is …
to give that up is a lot harder. You know, to recognize that that doesn’t work is
lot harder. Putting on robes, agreeing not to drink alcohol, agreeing not to have
a family, that’s easy, that’s no problem, and that doesn’t necessarily get you
liberated by itself. It’s can you not be attached to the way of thinking that your
whole civilization has been doing for hundreds of years. Can you change? Can
you break off, can you break off your attachment to that way of thinking? You
know, that’s very difficult, you know, because it’s all around you, all the time.
And if you don’t, you will die. You see? According to Buddhism, if you don’t
break your attachment to that, you will die. And even if you’re practicing well,
you must prioritize the practice right. If you have taken empowerments, you
must concentrate on that. You must concentrate on that. If you have taken {kye
rim} and {dzog rim} activities, once you have mastered {dzog rim}, you must go
for {dzog rim}, you know, or you’re wasting your time. It’s the same as
choosing the worldly life as opposed to the spiritual life, you see. At every stage
you go in your spiritual career you have to keep going higher. And you see a lot
of people … most people never get into a spiritual path but those who get into it
sometimes get stuck on the lower spiritual path, you know what I mean? They
get attached to the … they get attached to this life in the form of practices which
are easy and they ignore the practices which are difficult or which take more
faith or more courage. And at each point you have to …you have to face those
decisions. And as much as you gave up the ideas of your civilization of western
culture. Then when you get into the Buddhist dharma you have to move up the
scale of ideas until you reach the highest ideas of tantra, okay, frankly, okay, and
you must go for it. You don’t have time. If you want to do in this life time
before you die, if you want to actually change your body and you mind into an
enlightened being’s in this lifetime, you have to give up the lower, more
comfortable practices as easy as you would give up the New York Times
standard of living. You see what I mean, and that takes courage. And that takes
independent thinking. And that’s what he is saying. Don’t be attached to this life
in the form of what they taught you and don’t be attached to this life in the form
of, you know, doing lower things that are more comfortable when you have the
strength and you’re ready to go on to higher things. And be willing to give your
time for those things even at the expense of lesser virtues. You see? Once you
get into the virtue business you have to go after big time virtue, that’s the point.
I tell the story of my boss. We started this company; three people. We started
the company with three people and he got offers from these jewelry stores, he
does diamonds right, we do diamonds. And he got offers to sell diamonds, like
ten thousand dollars worth of diamonds. So I said, ‘Well, should I go?’ And he
said, it’s just down the street and he’d say, ‘No, don’t go.’ I’d say, ‘Are you
crazy? You know, we had fifty thousand dollars at that time. I said, ‘It’s a ten
thousand deal.’ He said, ‘I refuse to do a deal on the fifty thousand. You know,
every single deal I do should be over fifty thousand dollars.’ And he made a rule
first day, we can’t deal with small … you know, what do they call it, small
change. You know, he said, ‘We got to go for the big time. I will not deal with a
company that cannot give me a fifty thousand dollar order in one shot.’ Now
we have a hundred and fifty million dollar a year company, nine hundred
employees, he’s still doing the same thing, you see. And that’s the way it goes.
You know, you have to … in the virtue business too there’s lots of good things
to do and you have to be willing to give up the lesser things for the higher
things. At each stage in your career, in your spiritual career. You can’t rest on
what’s comfortable. You have to go on. You have to go higher … when you’re
ready. Too early would make you fail and it would make you give up
everything. But when you’re ready you have to keep going up. It’s the same
decision that you made when you came to this class and you rejected the ideas of
your civilization. And now within the dharma you can’t be attached either. And
that’s what he’s saying. That finishes the first of the four. We were supposed to
be there last week. Second one. Says this; a person who is still attached to the
three worlds has no renunciation.
We’re going to talk about what the three worlds means. When Drakpa Gyeltsen
gets to this line, he says this is talking about the three kinds of pain. And the first
pain he defines this way. {ngan song gsum} Say {ngen song} [repeat] {sum}
[repeat], {ngen song} [repeat] {sum} [repeat]. He’s talking about the idea that
being attached to the three realms is to be attached to the three kinds of pain.
There are three kinds of pain, three kinds of suffering. First one is called the pain
of pain, outright pain, obvious pain. Say {du ngel} [repeat], {kyi} [repeat] {du
ngel} [repeat], {du ngel kyi} [repeat] {du ngel} [repeat]. It’s called the pain of
pain. Obvious pain. The definition in the scriptures is a backache or a headache,
okay. That’s call {du ngel kyi du ngel} first kind of pain. Drakpa Gyeltsen, Jetsun
Drakpa Gyeltsen defines it as {ngen song sum}.
Say {ngen song} [repeat] {sum} [repeat]. {Ngen} means, lousy, bad. {Song}
means, went there. {Sum} means, three. This is the Tibetan word for the three
lower realms. This is the Tibetan word for the three lower realms. In the
Tibetan tradition, especially lam rim teachings, I’m supposed to go into a long
lecture about the sufferings of the hell realms and the sufferings of the hungry
ghosts or the tormented spirits and the sufferings of animals. Two of those three
you can’t see. I’m supposed to give this long description about something you
can’t see and you cannot confirm. And you’re already suspicious about one of
them because they fed you that in Catholic school and you gave up the idea of
hell. You don’t want to hear about hell. You don’t like to hear about hell. I had
people in California actually threw something at me when I started to talking
about hell. Like not supposed to talk about it. And Buddhism teaches there’re
hells. Hot hells, cold hells, certain levels … all sorts of … if you ever read the
Inferno, it reads just like that. It’s just the same. It’s very, very similar to Dante’s
description of hell. Tormented spirits is not hard to imagine but I can’t prove it
to you. Beings who, because they were cheap and stingy and unhelpful to others
in their past lives, because they were very attached to money or houses or cars
or their possessions, that after they died their spirits are tormented. And they’re
almost like ghosts who travel around and can’t get enough of anything. So you
can meet that kind of personality in this life. You can meet human beings who
… you know, I remember my boss when he made his first million he split it up
with all of us. We all got a little bit of it, very little, but anyway … [laughter].
You know, and then when he got his second, we got another bonus but it’s like
smaller and then we got to ten million it was like tiny. And when we got to
hundred million, there was nothing. And this is like some kind of hungry ghost
mentality. And that’s … you can see it in human beings. Some people even said,
‘They’re not really such beings, this just refers to the mentality of that stinginess,
you know, of getting worse and worse the more money you have usually.’ It’s
not metaphorical, there are beings like that. I just got through asking you to be
critical, even of what I said. You should be sitting there and saying, ‘Maybe yes,
maybe no. I never saw them..’ Hell; same thing. Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s
not. I don’t trust you if you don’t think that way, because next week somebody
will get up here and tell you the opposite and for the same unthinking reasons
you’ll accept it, okay. You should be critical. You should say, ‘I don’t know.
Maybe there’s a hell, maybe there’s not. Maybe there’s a hungry ghost, maybe
there’s not.’ Past lives? Maybe yes, maybe no. Kedrup Je, Je Tsongkapa’s …
one of his best disciples, his tantric master disciple, he wrote this book and he
said, ‘All the Tibetan people believe in past lives. I haven’t met one who could
explain to me why they exist.’ They just believe it because their parents told
them that. They don’t understand it at all. I don’t want Buddhists like that
around me. You know what I mean? So I’m not trying to make you buy the
three lower realms. You can see animals … I think it’s more interesting to talk
about, could you become one of them? It’s much more interesting for me to talk
about the possibility of becoming one. What does it mean to become an animal?
How could you become a roach? Was Kafka right or not? You just wake up one
and you’re a roach? How does it work? You know what I mean. Could it
happen to me? And I love this question. And to me if you talk about this, then
you don’t have to talk about the three lower realms. Attachment to the three
realms mean attached to pain and pain is the three lower realms. You don’t
want to go there. If they exist, you want to keep your rear end out of them.
Right? Now, do they exist or not? That’s the question we have to talk. I want
to read you a … you’re going to get tonight an addition to your past reading and
I want to show you one part of it. Hmm, where is that? I was going to write
the whole verse on the board but then Tessie would try to memorize it and she’d
be all strung out all week so I thought I’d just read it to you. {nyewar kor gyi
shupay do le} and this is a very famous sutra. It’s the sutra by Upali, requested
by Upali. If you studied in the Sri Lankan tradition and things like … Upali is a
very popular figure. {sem nyal jik pa nga yi tan ja ne, sem chen tong drak du ma
kyo kye kyang, gang dak shi pu ngan dror drak dro way, dro wa de dak nam
yang yu ma yin}– translate it for you. This to me is probably the most important
quotation in Buddhism. It’s from a sutra. Accepted by all Buddhist schools.
Lord Buddha is speaking in the sutra and He says the following. And you’re
going to get it in your reading so don’t worry too much about it.

When I taught you of the terrors
Of the realms of hell, many thousands of those among you
Were frightened and dismayed.
But I tell you now,
That those people who die and travel
To these terrible realms of pain
Don’t even exist at all.
That’s his first, opening line. ‘I taught you about hell and you all freaked out.
But now I’m telling you the people who go to hell don’t even exist.’ Typical
Shakyamuni Buddha, okay. Next verse. This is a {lung} okay. {gang dak ral dri
da chen tson jin pay, nupa chupa yupa ma yin te, tokpay wang gi ngan song de
dak na, lu la bap tong de na tsen cha me}.

There is no-one to hurt you,
No-one to cut you with a sword,
No-one to thrust a spear through your body;
Everything that you see happening to you
Within these realms of terror
Is only a projection;
There are no instruments of pain there.

So He’s saying when you go to hell you do get your body chopped up. And the
thing about hell, just for you information, okay; you can’t die. There’s a problem
dying there. I mean, if you get your body cut up and die it’d be all right. One of
the karmas of being in hell is that no matter how badly you get cut or burned,
you can’t die. You keep feeling it, the feeling never stops and your body just
keeps regenerating itself. Then He goes on to say, everything there is a
projection, everything there is a projection. ‘There are no instruments of pain
there’, He says. Okay last verse. {na tsok yi dak me tok ka je ching, ser gyi kang
chok bar wa yi ong wa, di na de la’ang je po ga me do, de dak tok pay wang gi
shak pa yin, tok pay wang gi jik ten nam tak te}.
Translated:

Flowers blossom in a rainbow
Of pleasing, elegant blooms;
Mighty structures crafted of pure gold
Steal your heart away.
But here too no-one ever came
And stopped to do construction;
All of these were also built
By the single act of projection.

(Then there’s the punch line, okay)
The whole world is but a creation
That comes from your projections.

And that’s … that is used in Madhyamika, that is used in the highest school of
Buddhism to describe the lower realms. This is how Je Tsongkapa describes the
lower realms. He says, ‘No problem, it’s your projection.’ That’s my last world
on hell. I’m not going to go through describing to you how the dogs with iron
fangs chase you up trees of knives, which is true. Okay. It’s a projection, no
problem, right?
It is a problem because it’s a projection, okay. Got it? That’s what I ... See I
wanted you to get in that mood. If Acme Construction Company went down
underground, below Utah somewhere, and built hell, you know, that’s silly.
That sounds crazy to me. If you say there’s a beautiful, all loving God in the sky,
and He has a special box where he sends bad kids and girls to go and He makes
them … He tortures them down there if they ate meat on Fridays or something
like that. Then you could say, ‘That’s silly to me. I don’t buy it.’ Now you have
Buddha saying, ‘Don’t worry about hell, it’s just a projection’. Actually He’s
trying to make you feel worse. He’s trying to convince you why they do exist.
A Buddhist would say this. Somebody asked me, ‘Does hell exist?’ I say, ‘Yes.’
‘Do you know for sure? Did you see one?’ ‘No.’ ‘Well then, how do you know it
exists?’ ‘Because everything is a projection.’ So hell exists. Hell is very, very
real. Hell does exist. Hell is not a metaphor. Why? This ... everything He says,
the whole world is but a creation that comes from your projection. Everything
around you is a projection of your own mind. We talked about it … we had it,
you know, the famous thing, okay. What is this? Nobody in Central Park can
answer. What is this? Student: [Unclear] That’s true, I can’t deny it. What is it?
Come on. It’s a pen. The kids, the kids taught us that, right? Where’s Sammy.
Where is he? Sammy, what’s that? He said, a chewable thing, right? Smart kid.
Okay, the adults here who don’t know anything, would say, ‘That’s a pen. You
have a pen in your hand’. And Sammy because he went to Sunday school that
we had on Saturday, said, ‘That’s a chewable object. That’s something to chew
on’. And we taught in the children’s class. We had it in children’s class.
I can hold this up and you’ll say it’s a pen but in reality what is it? It’s a blue and
white cylinder and you can’t deny that. It’s a blue and white cylinder. If you
happen to be human sitting in a chair here, you’ll say that blue and white
cylinder is a pen. If a dog walks in here, Rob has this great dog, we checked it
out. All she wants to do is to chew this thing. She does not cognize it as a pen.
She does not have a conception of it as a pen. To her this is blue and white
cylinder which is something very fun to chew on. And that’s all. Who’s right?
The human or the dog? Both. Equally valid. You can’t say ultimately that it’s
either one. There is no ultimately anything. You can say validly, it’s a chewable
thing, or you can say validly, it’s a pen. I saw this neat ad on Houston. There’s a
lady dressed in … on a building, huge, in a … one of those things you use for a
seat cover, auto… I don’t know what you call them, and it says, ‘From fashion to
automobiles’, so she’s wearing this automobile thing as a dress and the point is
that it’s functioning as both, you see. It’s one thing … if you look at the picture
one way, it’s something to put on your car seat. If you look at the other way, it’s
something to wear, you see, and how you see it only depends on your mind,
what mood you’re in, what mode you’re in. How you see this cylinder only
depends on your mind. That’s the emptiness of this cylinder. Get used to it.
That’s the emptiness of this cylinder. From a dog’s point of view it is validly
something to chew on. From a human point of view it is validly a pen. It is
ultimately neither. It is independently neither. It is from its own side, neither. It
is self existently neither. It is by nature, neither. It is both depending on who is
looking at it. It is one or the other depending on who’s looking at it but from its
own side it is empty or blank and that is the meaning of emptiness. Every object
in your life is the same. Every single object in your world is the same: your head
is the same, your nose is the same, your ear is the same, your mind is the same,
New York city is the same, the sun is the same, everything is the same as this
pen. What it is only depends on how you look at it, how your mind is looking at
it. The only other thing to say is, do you have a choice how you see it? Not
really. Okay, I mean, a dog comes in here, no matter how much we wish, the
dog is not going to pick it up and write you a letter. Can’t. They don’t … they’re
being forced by some kind of energy, some kind of power is forcing them to see
it as something to chew on. Bring a human in here … most humans, they’re not
going to like spend an hour chewing on it, I mean, just to chew on it, you know,
because their mind is forcing them to see it as a pen. The word ‘forcing’ is very
important. According to Buddhism that’s your past karma forcing you to see it
one way or the other. It is empty from its own side. You are perceiving it one
way or another but you’re being forced to do that by your past karma. You
don’t have a choice, okay. You can meet a person coming into the Quaker
House that you don’t like and you really don’t like them. And they seem to be
hurting you and they are. That’s real. Your mind is forcing you to see the
person that way. Buddhism doesn’t say they’re not a bad person. They are a
bad person from your point of view. But if you watch television every time
some guy shoots ten people and they interview his mother, it’s like, ‘No, not my
son, he couldn’t have done that.’ You know, she’s being forced to perceive the
son differently, right. She’s honestly, sincerely doesn’t see him as a mass
murderer. And that’s valid. She’s seeing it that way. She’s being forced by her
relationship to see him that way and it’s the same with every object in the world.
It’s the same with heaven and it’s the same with hell and that’s what the scripture
means, okay. The raw mater… the world around you is raw material for heaven
or for hell or for a little bit of mix of both called human realm, the human world.
The same raw material, the same white and blue cylinder can be something
wonderful, something terrible or a mix of both. And you’re experiencing it as a
mix of both right now, okay. If you straightened up your karma you would be
seeing it as something wonderful. If you’re sloppy with your karma, the event
of death will trigger new perceptions of this same raw material as what? As hell,
okay.       If hell is a projection of your mind, you’re in trouble. Then hell is
possible. You know, your heart told you when you were twelve years old that
it’s unlikely that an all-loving being would go down underground and work so
hard to build this big box to torture people, it doesn’t make sense. But if I say,
this little room here, now it’s lucky we got put underground. This little room
here that you perceive as a basement in the Quaker House, you could perceive
as a chamber in hell, really, if your mind perception shifted slightly, slightly.
How long does it take? About three minutes and I’m not kidding. If you believe
what I said about the pen you must eventually accept that you could perceive
this room as a hell chamber and be burnt here for years and years. You have to
accept that if you accept what I said about the pen. Going to hell is no big deal.
You do not take a hell body. That’s a bad way to say it. Your perception shifts
slightly and the same place becomes a hell and I’m not talking a metaphorical
hell, I’m talking a real one. You can go to hell and it takes about three minutes.
And it’s a shift in your perceptions and we are all eligible. And it will be forced
on you. Now hell becomes very serious. And hungry ghosts, things like that,
they do exist. You don’t go there, your mind shifts. It wasn’t built by a
construction company says Lord Buddha, it’s a projection. Now you’re talking
something real. Now you’re talking something dangerous. Now you’re talking
somewhere you and I can go in three minutes. Don’t want to do that. By the
way, what does ‘going there’ mean? Your perceptions shift. They just shift
slightly. You know they can shift in five minutes. You can go from not knowing
you had breast cancer to knowing you have breast cancer in one minute, right?
It takes one minute for that shift to happen. Don’t think you’re not eligible for it.
Of course you’re eligible for that. It takes one minute to go from a healthy guy
skating down this street to the last accident where some car hit him. And he’s
like broken his legs and how he can’t think any more. Something like that. You
know what I mean? That’s how the world happens, it a shift of your perception.
You didn’t get hit by a car. It was a shift, it was a slight shift of perceptions, it
happens in a minute. It happens in three minutes. You could be in … you will be
in another realm within three minutes of after you die by the nature of all things.
By the thing that makes this a pen, you can go to hell three minutes after you
die. You don’t want that (laughs), I mean, I don’t want any person in this room
going to hell, okay. You got no excuse to go to hell. You really don’t. You
know everything you need to know. You must stay out of that. You must go
beyond that.
There’s a certain stage called {jor lam supa}. In your understanding of emptiness,
if you get there you cannot be born in a hell. If you reach that spiritual level it’s
impossible to take a lower birth. And I hate the word ‘take a lower birth’. I
mean for your mind to shift into a lower birth.
What makes an animal an animal? What makes a dog a dog? Because it looks
like a dog to a human? That’s what you’re always thinking, right? Externally,
independently from his own side, he looks like a dog so he’s a dog. That’s not
what makes a dog a dog. A dog is a dog because the dog sees a chewable thing
when I hold this up and that’s all a dog is, you see? To say you can take birth as
a dog three minutes from the time you die, only means three minutes from the
time you die you can start seeing this as something to chew on. And that what
makes a dog a dog. That’s what a dog is. It’s a collection of experiences. It’s a
collection of perceptions. It’s not something furry. It’s something which sees its
skin as furry to itself and that what makes a dog a dog. We can become dogs in
three minutes. That’s all. Now it’s possible to go to a lower realm. I don’t have
to stand up here … I hate it when they stand up here and describe, this such and
such a spear they poke you with or such and such a fire they burn you with, it’s
all self existent. Go to the Buddha, go to the sutra, okay, He said it’s all a
projection. Now you’re in trouble. If it was made by some construction
company we could all giggle when they talk about hell. If you say it’s your
perception the same way this room is your perception now, then you’re in
trouble. Then you got to do something about it, you know what I mean? Then
you really have to do something. And He says, ‘Don’t be attached to your idea
that this world cannot change’. Okay, that’s the second kind of attachment.
Nobody should have it any more. How do you stay out of hell? Keep your
vows. Keep your book. There’s a method, it is taught in the highest tantric
teachings. You know, people always come to me, ‘Show me this tantric book.’ I
had a person this morning. I heard about Kali Devi. I heard about Mahakala.
Can you show me the book?’ You know, and I’m like, ‘No, I can’t show you the
book.’ I can tell you openly the highest secrets of tantra; six times a day stop and
check your vows. That IS the highest tantric practice, okay. Sorry. [Laughs] It’s
not what they said at the learning annex, okay. I saw that one. [Laughter, laugh]
It sounds pretty hot. It’s stopping every two hours and checking you vows.
That keeps your rear end out of the lower realm. You can’t have those
perceptions if you keep those vows. If you don’t know what they are, now I get
to do an advertisement. Come on Monday night, okay, we’re going to discuss
them this Monday at seven o’clock at Sixth Street, okay. Those of you who wish
can take the first level of vows the following Monday. So if you haven’t taken
refuge vows or if you haven’t taken laypersons’ vows and if you’re interested in
it, come on Monday, okay, seven o’clock this Monday. And then the following
Monday at seven o’clock there will be a ceremony for taking them, okay. If you
take a vow to do certain kinds of karma and you do them, it’s extremely
powerful. You may be doing the same kinds of karma without taking the vow
but it’s not as powerful. So it’s very good if you take a vow. Come and see ...
check it out. It’s no obligation. You can always not come back the second
Monday. Check it out on Monday night. We’re going to go over the refuge,
what it means to take refuge and what the commitments are. And then the
following week you’re welcome to come. Those of you who have taken refuge
already and if you have then you’ve got a special name, special religious name or
if you’ve taken lifetime vows of a layperson, then you’re welcome to come but
you cannot take the vows again. Those are lifetime vows. You get them once
and that’s it. We’re not allowed to take them again because it would actually
destroy the first one. I mean Bodhisattva and Tantric vows you can renew.
Layman’s vows, lifetime vows are lifetime vows. You take them once and that’s
it. Does that mean you can’t come two Mondays from now? No, of course you
should come. It’s very holy to watch people take vows. I always cry. It’s so
beautiful to watch people take vows. It’s very, very sweet to watch somebody
get their rear end out of hell. And it’s sweet to watch. You’re welcome to come
even if you’re not going to take them. And you’re welcome on Monday even
you took them already. You kind of secretly want to find out what you agreed
to do that you never heard about, okay. [Laughter, laugh]              Like you can
pretend you know it all. And … I know … I met a lot of people who took refuge
and had no idea that they had twelve separate commitments, okay, and it’s nice
to know what they are. If you keep them you will not have that dog’s projection
or that hell being’s projections. That’s all. That keeps you out of those places.
That’s what they’re for. That’s their function, that’s what they do. And it’s very
cool. Otherwise you’re eligible for those things. You really are. I’m just going
to give you the names of the three lower realms. Student: [“Is that a typo in the
Tibetan?”] Yeah there’s a typo here, I’m sorry. This should be {ngen song},
okay. {ngang song sum} would mean ‘the three ducks’, okay. [Laugh, laughter]
We’ll do {ngen song sum}. 1- {dun ‘gro). Ora gives it to me to check every night,
I’m usually asleep by then. Say {dundro} [repeat], {dundro} [repeat]. {Dundro}
means ‘animals’. First of the three lower realms. Where are the three lower
realms? Are they lower? Where are they? It’s on the homework, okay, where
are they? They are in a sense in your mind, you see. There is even a school of
Buddhism that when they read this scripture they decided that the whole world
exists within your brain; they’re call the Mind Only School. Later on it was
proven that they were wrong. It’s not true to say that the whole world exists
only in your brain. That’s not exactly true. Things do exist outside of you.
People have asked me, you know, ‘How do I know everybody else in this room
… if everything is a projection then how do I know there even exists other
people?’ The Buddha said they do exist. There are people around you and it is
your projection. There are hells and it is your projection. They are real because
they are your projections. Buddhism says things are real because they are
projections. You see, anybody else would say, things are unreal because they’re
only your projection. We say, things are real because they are your projection.
You really can really can go to hell because it just requires a shift in your mind.
Does it mean the whole world is just one person’s mind? No. Okay, and you
have to get used to that. Okay, can I prove it? That’s another story. Say {yidak}
[repeat], {yidak} [repeat]. Take a small tendency towards selfishness in the mind,
magnify it millions of times, through the process of death and the {bardo} and it
would create projections called hungry ghosts or spirit, like some kind of
torment spirits. They do exist, these beings, okay. According to scripture they
have physical bodies which are too subtle to see, you cannot see their physical
body but they do exist around us. Say {nyelwa} [repeat], {nyelwa} [repeat].
{Nyelwa} means a hell realm, hell. I’m not going to talk a long time about hell,
couple of features. In the {b: Abidharmakosha}, third chapter, an important to
say about the hell realms is that time slows down. The perception of time slows
down. A day in the hell realms seems like thousands of years on this pla… on
the top of the planet, you know what I mean? Time slows down because time is
a perception also. So they really do last for a very, very long time Christianity
says you go to hell once and you stay there forever. It’s almost right, okay. I
mean, according to Buddhism you stay there for a very, very, very long time
and the rationale is that time slows down, you see what I mean? Your
perception of time slows down.           When you’re having a good time with
somebody the whole night can pass quickly. When you’re having a headache
and it’s four o’clock at work, that last hour seems to last a day. And it’s the same
principle. They go on for very long time and again you cannot die. Things that
would normally kill you don’t kill you. And you’re conscious all the time. There
is no … in the lowest hells there’s no … there’s no other feeling than pain, you
never have any other feeling. I wanted to put up for you the … on your
homework it says, name the sutra where the Buddha said, ‘All these stuff is only
your projection.’ {nye bar ‘khor gyis zhus pa’I mdo}. Say {nyelwar} [repeat] {kor
gyi} [repeat] {shupay do} [repeat]. {Nyelwa kor} means, Upali. It’s a popular
monk’s name in the Pali speaking Buddhist count… you know, the Pali writing
Buddhist countries, Sri Lanka. Rinpoche and I stayed in a Sri Lankan monastery
for six months once and the youngest monk was named Upali, so all the other
ones were always saying, ‘Upaleeee’ (laughs), meaning, ‘Get your rear end over
here, cook dinner.’ He was lowest on the totem pole, poor guy. Upali. {Gyi}
means, by Upali, {shupay} means, requested, and {do} means, sutra. Anybody
ask you where did Michael Roach get this idea about projections and all that
stuff, why does he teach emptiness like that? You can say, ‘Oh, it’s from the
Sutra Requested by Upali.’ It’s a quotation from Lord Buddha and it’s in your
reading for tonight. You’re going to get that at the break. I would live with that
quotation. It was the most exciting moment of my eighteen years of monastic
study, the day that they taught that. I’ll never forget it. Most amazing moment.
Everything made sense. At that moment the whole world made sense to me.
Everything made sense to me. Emptiness made sense to me. Karma made
sense to me. To me it’s the most stunning piece of scripture you can find. The
whole world is that. This room could be a tantric paradise and will be. This
room could be hell and might be. I hope not, I really hope not. You have to take
vows, okay. And this room could be a plain old mix of both, which is what it is
now, which is miserable and it’s your choice. It’s all your choice, you see. It’s
always your choice to create the causes for it to be one or the other. The next
kind of suffering he talks about is the suffering of change. It’s called the
suffering of change. It comes under attachment to the three realms. By the way,
don’t mix up the three realms and the three lower realms, okay. In the reading
it says don’t be attached to the three realms. That means, anywhere in this
world, okay.       There’re three realms; called desire realm, form realm and
formless realm. You can’t see the other two realms. We are living in the desire
realm. The lowest part of the desire realm is called the three lower realms. So
don’t mix up the three realms and the three lower realms. Tonight we’ve been
talking about the three lower realms. But even if you could come back and be
born as a human it’s no good, why? Suffering of change. Suffering of change.
Suffering of change means … this is … people ask me what made you a
Buddhist. I told them it was my high school girlfriends [laugh, laughter], okay.
I mean, if it’s the newspaper I’d say it was my mother’s death, okay, among
friends I’d say it was my high school girlfriends, okay. They say, ‘Why?’ I say,
‘Really, it was wonderful. It was happy, it was the most important thing in my
life. It was just great, something special. Something extraordinary and it always
changed, you know, it always changed. Nobody stays the same. Nothing stays
the same. No relationship stays the same. It always … for me it always got
worse. I don’t know about you. But it always just …at the best it changed into
neutral or something kind of boring. At the worst it was like you start hating
each other after a while.’ Why? You know, I was trying to decide and it
happened with my parents. I watched them get divorced, nasty divorce,
screaming at each other all the time. I knew they loved each other, so why is this
going on, why? Why do people change? You see? And I was feeling bad, I was
feeling guilty, you know, ‘Oh, I must be a bad person or something.’ Then I
began to discover that everyone does that, almost everyone. And I began to
wonder why. Why is it that you get something that you’re really hoping for this
piece of clothing or you were really hoping for this guy or this girl, you were
really hoping to get this job or you were really hoping to get this position or you
were really hoping to learn this language or something. Then after awhile it
doesn’t make you happy any more. After you get it, right? Worst thing that can
happen is to get it, right? You get it and then after six weeks it doesn’t feel so
great any more. What is it in the human being that makes that happen?
Suffering of change. It’s called the suffering of change.            What is really
happening? Is that lady changing? Is that man changing? Is that position at
work changing? Is that amount of salary changing? Or is something else
changing, you see what I mean? After awhile you realize ... you get to certain
maturity as a person living through this life and you say, ‘They’re not changing.
It’s me.’ You start to realize it’s you. The reason that the relationship you have
and the people that you’re in relationships with always seem to get worse or
something seems to go worse; often seems to go bad. And even jobs you get
that you were dying to get and then after you get them six months later you’re
dying to get out of it. You know, a level of money that you thought would be
enough for you and after you got it, after six weeks you’re dissatisfied again. It’s
the demon of dissatisfaction. Why do things keep changing? Why do we always
want more? Are they changing? No, it’s a shift in your karma. It’s a shift in
your mind. That’s the suffering of change. And in this realm you cannot avoid
it. As long as you decide to live here this way, nothing will make you happy.
Guaranteed. The whole world is getting up at six o’clock and taking a shower
and shaving and putting on those terrible work clothes, most uncomfortable. I
don’t why they choose them. And then going through the whole day struggling
to get something. And if you got it, it wouldn’t make you happy anyway. It’s
the curse of humanity, right. This is the suffering of change. Your own mind
will make you dislike it within another two months, okay. If you get all the
things you dream for you will be unhappy again within two months. This is a
curse of our karma. The thing did not change. It’s still eighty-six thousand
dollars, you know what I mean? The salary you were hoping for, the magic
number, right? Next … six months later you want more. It doesn’t seem like
enough any more. The eighty-six didn’t change. It was your mind. ‘Oh, could
we just learn to be satisfied?’ No, you can’t. It’s a curse of your mind. Your
karma is shifting. Karma … what we call dirty karma, dirty good karma shifts
all the time. You can pretend to be happy but you aren’t. You’re not really. If
someone else ... if someone else … if your friend was making ninety-six, you
wouldn’t be happy. If everybody in the office is making ninety-six, you
wouldn’t be happy. You see? It’s not ultimate, the mind keeps wanting more.
It’s the nature of your mind. It’s the nature of your karma. Any good thing you
get in this world without an understanding of karma and emptiness must make
you unhappy; period. Must turn into something which makes you unhappy.
And it’s … so I was like relieved to find out it wasn’t my fault. You know, like,
okay, that’s the way karma works. And it is the way karma works. And you
shouldn’t stay here. It’s no fun to stay there. It’s no fun to see things constantly
get worse. Every time you get something you’re hoping for, it gets worse. It’s
no fun any more. Learn how to stop it. And that’s keeping your vows and
using and understanding of the emptiness we talked about. Learn how to
manipulate your reality in the future, yourself. Home-made reality. I would
rather be in a world where things don’t work that way. Well, if you don’t like it,
you change it. Start keeping your vows. Do some powerful karma with the
perfection of wisdom, which means it won’t change, you see what I mean? It
won’t change. Student: [Unclear] He says isn’t it your fault because it’s your
karma? Of course it’s your fault because it’s your karma. But there’s two kinds
of karma. I’m talking good karma, right. That’s what we call {sak che kyi le} and
{sak me kyi le}. Say {sak che} [repeat], {sak me} [repeat]. {sak che} [repeat], {sak
me} [repeat]. {sak che} is nice things you do and you don’t know what’s going
on and they, in the future, will bring you a karmic result which is nice but which
wears out, where? In your mind. The reason your body is getting old is that
that old good karma is wearing out. Your body is not getting old, it’s your
perceptions are changing. You can change that. You don’t have to live like that
because there’s (sak me). Say {sak me} [repeat]. {Sak me} means good karma
which is everlasting, you see what I mean. If you collect good karma with at
certain kind of knowledge, you could change bodies, you don’t have to be in a
body like that. Big difference. You have to learn between good karma which is
dirty and good karma which is pure; impure good karma and pure good karma.
And the difference is the Perfection of Wisdom. It’s understanding emptiness.
Student: [Unclear] Oh, the reason to get enlightened is so that you can love the
cat and it won’t die. You see what I mean? It’s correct to love the cat and it’s
good to love things, you know what I mean? It really is good. By the way, if
you don’t … if your perceptions don’t change and you continue to love the cat, it
will die anyway. Then it became misery. You see, even in cases where you don’t
start to hate the person, they die. I mean, in the rare occasions where they do
         th
their 50 wedding anniversary still loving each other, one of them dies. And
that’s what I’m talking about. Every good thing changes to bad, in that sense.
But you don’t have to live like that; if you collected karma differently, you could
change that. And that’s what this class is all about. That’s what this whole lojong
is about. I’ll take some questions Student: [Unclear]. The one here? He said like,
I think your question is this. The fact that everything good in this realm tends to
screw up and you’re constantly tortured by not being able to get enough, how is
that different from a hungry ghost realm? I mean, qualitatively it’s the same.
It’s exactly the same state of mind. Quantitatively, they go through much worse
suffering. It’s much, much more painful (laughs), okay, that’s all, and it lasts
longer. Yeah?
Student
That’s a little complicated. That’s complicated. He said, if I had the karma to be a
Christian for example and then I had karma to receive Christian teachings on
hell and then I had the karma to receive teachings that if I did a certain bad deed,
like eating the wrong thing on the wrong day and then would that cause me to
perceive myself as entering a Christian hell, the Christian version of hell. I
would say, yes. I’d say that’s possible, yeah, because ninety percent of your …
ninety percent of what occurs to you is from your motivation, you see what I
mean? If it’s your motivation to hurt something or to be harmful to another
person, it almost doesn’t matter what you do. You see some people hoping to
kill someone, accidentally help somebody. From the point of … in Buddhism we
say that the motivation is ninety percent of the karma because the karma is
collected in the mind. You see, it’s an imprint in the mind. So the motivation is
what makes that imprint, more than the external reality, you see what I mean?
More than who shoots the gun or what the bullet hits or anything else. It’s what
were you thinking when you pulled the trigger. You see what I mean? That
determines the strength of the karma. So yeah, I would say that if you … that’s
a difficult question. I mean, if someone told you, for example, there’s a real case
in the {b: Abhidharmakosha}. There is a non-Buddhist Hindu teaching that if
you meditated your whole life and then get up on this ladder and set a spear
down below, you know, with the face up and you jump on it the right way, it’s a
trident. And if one goes through here and one goes through here and one goes
through here and if you die like that, you reach nirvana. You don’t have to go
through all this suffering. And the Abhidharma says is this a good deed or is it a
bad deed, you see. Because according to Buddhism this is the most stupid thing
you can do. It’s the most ridiculous thing you can do to hurt your precious
human body to reach a spiritual goal. The Abhidharma says that the motivation
is a great virtue. From the point of view of motivation, they truly want to
achieve nirvana. They’re tired of this constant change into suffering … suffering
of change. They really want to change it. That’s a beautiful, wonderful
motivation. So from the point of view of motivation, good karma and will lead
them to a good result. From the point of view of execution; extremely stupid,
extremely bad karma, will lead them to very bad karmic results. It’s the same
thing. One more question then we got to …
Student: [Unclear]
Bill said, ‘Well, since they’re all individual projections, do any two people ever
perceive any two objects the same?’ It’s a good question. Like, do any two
people ever perceive this room exactly the same? Buddhism say the following;
everybody in this room tonight has collected in the past a karma of providing
other people with a place to have their dharma teachings. Every person in this
room in the past according to Buddhism did something to help other people
have a place to have their teachings and that’s why you enjoy the use of the
basement, the lousy basement of the Quaker House, okay. No, but at least
you’re having a class, right? It’s uncomfortable, okay, but the fact that you’re
here proves that you personally did something to help other people to have a
place to study dharma, period. So we’re all having a common or a shared
projection of a room in which a dharma teaching is going on. Do any two
people in this room experience it exactly the same? No. Okay. I mean, your
feelings, your emotions, how much of this teaching is important to you, all of
that is different. Each person is having different karma, but the fact that we are
in a room and having a dharma teaching is a karma we together did something
to help other people learn dharma and because of that action we are having a
dharma class together. And that is what this room is and this room is nothing
more than those projections going on together, got it? There’s no room
independent of the collective projection of a room. There is no basement in the
Quaker House. There’s a hundred and something people having the same
projection of a room in the Quaker House. And that’s why we can’t have classes
here next semester. Okay. Because that karma is wearing out, seriously. Okay,
those projections are going to wear out simultaneously and then we can say that
this group doesn’t have a place to have a teaching next time, and that’s true.
Okay. Last thing and then we’ll take a break, okay. He said we could go over a
touch tonight. Because it took us so long to find a room. You will get to line
where Drakpa Gyeltsen speaks of the mystic power of this good deed. And it
says, what good deed is he referring to, where does its power come from and
how could it enlighten all beings. Okay. What is the basic good deed of the
lojong at all? What’s the best … what’s the main good deed of a lojong person?
Stop worrying about yourself and worry about other people. And that’s the
lesson of the lojong. For me this class has been very, very much like a breath of
fresh air. You know, every time I think about it … every time I wake up and I
don’t open my eyes and I think about what can I do today to destroy my main
enemy which is worrying about myself, it just frees me. It makes me happy, I’m
happy like for whole twenty minutes or so. You know, I mean, it’s like, it really
feels good. It really feels nice. The enemy of lojong is worrying about yourself
and not thinking about other people. And what the mystic power of that … and
he’s talking about the desire, in this case, that the pain of other people could
come to you and they wouldn’t have to experience it. We talked about it as
being a death lojong. At the moment of your death, in the moment of your
death, as you die, do this lojong. I take all the pain of other people in me. May I
die with it. Let it die with me. I’m about to die and don’t forget it, okay. I’m
about to die, it’s going to hurt, at least let me take other people’s pain away from
them as I die. That’s what he calls a mystical action. Like an ultimate mystical
action.      Does that get other people enlightened? Question, it’s on your
homework. No, you can’t take away their pain. You didn’t collect their bad
karma, they did. Where is the bad karma? In their mind. How do you get bad
karma out of somebody’s mind and get into your mind, like special scalpel or
something? can’t do. Prove it. We wouldn’t be here. I would not be here,
standing here in this hot room, if the Buddha had taken away my bad karma. Of
course the Buddha would love to take away my bad karma, at least the Dalai
Lama, I don’t know if the Buddha was there or not. I know His Holiness is here
and I know, I believe, seeing his face, feeling how I feel in his presence, if he
could do it, I wouldn’t be having a hot room right now. If he could take away
my bad karma, I’m sure he would have done … I believe, I believe Khen
Rinpoche would have taken away my bad karma. I lived with him my whole
adult life. I truly believe that if it is possible for a high Lama or a Buddha to take
away my bad karma he would have done it a long time ago. I’m still having bad
days. I had a headache this morning, it was really bad, okay; ego, proves they
can’t take away your bad karma, can’t do it.
So what’s the mystical power of this great deed? It gets you enlightened. It gets
you enlightened faster if you want to take other people’s pain away. If you
really want to do it, it makes you a Buddha faster and then you can teach them
how to do it and that makes them a Buddha faster, okay. And that’s the main
thing. That’s the mystical power. There’s no magic to it, right? It’s plain old
projections, like everything else. It works because it’s a projection. All right,
we’re going to take break and do the twelve point lojong in ten minutes. So
come back at nine-twenty, okay. There’s a drinking fountain out here on the
right. It’s legal. Okay, we’ll start again. {blo sbyong nam mkha’I khyim ma}
Say {lojong} [repeat], {namkay} [repeat], {kyimma} [repeat]. Lojong means
‘lojong’ Ah ha. {Namkay} means … it can either mean ‘sky or the space.’ You
know, like the night sky, it can mean that. The Abhidharma says … {Namkay
pulga awo} It’s supposed to be one of the things that doesn’t change. But
anyway, that’s another story. {Kyimma} … {Kyim} means ‘the twelve houses of
the astrology’, it’s called {kyim}, in Tibetan also it’s called {kyim}. {Kyim} means
‘celestial mansions’ or something like that, like the house of Capricorn and the
house of … there are also twelve in a (laughs, laughter), okay, don’t stare at her,
okay. {Kyimma} means, what do you call it, ‘house’ right, ‘the house of the …
astrological house’. There are also twelve. I think it all came from Persia
anyway. It also reached Tibet and there is very beautiful Tibetan astrological
scriptures from the Kangyur and Tengyur. In the Tengyur … like from many
centuries ago. {Ma} is a normal ending for a text, okay. So it’s the lojong of the
houses of the constellation … of the houses of the sky or something like that.
And this is one of those things like in Tibetan where they have code words for
numbers, like, {chok dang dawa} if you know the {dakkye}that’s about how
many {kye rim’s} there are. Because there are {chok chu}, right, ten {choks} and
the {dawa} is one. So there are {kirrim chok chik}, is called {chok dang dawa}. It’s
a code word. {Namkay kyimma} is a code word for number twelve because
there are twelve houses of the, you know, what do you call it, houses of the
heavens, right, okay, like that. And this is a lojong where they’re describing …
it’s a short one, it’s a few verse and they’re describing the twelve spiritual
qualities of a person who has succeeded in the lojong, who has reached the goals
of lojong. And they tend to exhibit twelve kinds of behavior, okay, and it’s a
very short list and we’ll go through the twelve. I’m just going to write them in
… in the pronunciation, you can see it in the reading okay. First one is call the
{yiche}. The verse says {yiche rung dang ka drin dran, mi la rok dang kun la jam,
shen la drel chen shen gyi dran, dulwar nyan dang dzum kar chen}. That’s the
first verse. {Yiche} means like ‘you can count on them’; okay, like a person who
has studied lojong well, if they make you a commitment you can count on them.
You know, whatever they say they are going to do for you, they do for you, like
they’re totally trustworthy. They don’t let people down. In a ultimate sense
they don’t let down their mothers and fathers, who’s that? All living beings.
Like you can trust them. But even in little things like during the day you can
trust them. They give you … they make a commitment to do something for
you, they volunteer for some project, their dharma center, you can count on
them, they finish it. {kadrin dren}. Okay, I’ll try to get off all twelve on this
page, but I’ll try. Say {kadrin} [repeat]. {dren} [repeat].
{Kadrin} means ‘kindness’ and {dren} means ‘to remember’, and{ kadrin dren}
means ‘a person who remembers kindness in the sense that once something has
done something for them they don’t forget it and they remain loyal to that
person, you see, what that person needs … if the person who has paid them
great kindness needs something they continue to be there for them, see? That’s
what {kadrin dren} means. And this is especially … as your Buddhist practice
gets better and better you will feel this towards your teachers and towards your
others … your fellow students and this is a barometer of your practice, okay. If
you start to feel these intense feelings of ‘thank you’ and feeling like having a
relationship to the teacher or to your other students then it’s a sign that you are
getting it, you know, that you’re succeeding. The more … the sweeter your
dharma gets, the more you feel some kind of gratitude or loyalty to that
tradition and to that teaching, you see what I mean? It’s a very sweet feeling. If
you don’t have it much it means you’re not getting the results and if you start
having it more and more, it’s a good sign. So I’m not saying artificially try to feel
it. I’m just saying … if someone saves your life you feel like that about them,
you know. As your spiritual life … as amazing things start happen to you, you
will treasure that … the place where you got those things. So it’s a sign that your
practice is going well, okay. Say {mila rok} [repeat]. {Mila} means ‘to people’.
{Rok} means ‘to help’, means helpful. This is a Jampa behavior, okay. I mean,
you go down to Howell … I mean, I’m teaching the class, he’s really doing it,
right? I think he should teach the class. Some time we should get him down
here, right? Up here, anyway … helpful to everybody. I mean, every time you
see something who needs a slightest bit of help you’re off your arse and you’re
over there near them helping them, you know what I mean? Two signs of a
person who is not like that. They either got their hands in their pocket or they’re
sitting down. This is [laugh] this is very typical. {Mila rok}, a person whose
lojong is good is like always moving, like, they’re the first ones to stand up when
the bell ring. They’re the one who says, ‘I’ll go out and get the thing.’ They’re
the one who’s jumping up … they’re always in motion to help. As soon as it’s
clear that somebody needs something they’re up and they’re helping. You
know, their hands are out and they’re ready to help. Like, they’re constantly in a
state of readiness; red alert to be helpful to people and any time someone needs
something they’re there and they’re really … what do you call it? Substantial
help. It’s not like, do you need anything, like I’ve got like ten minutes, you
know. It’s not like that. I mean, when you really need it they are there and they
don’t … they’re not watching the time. They’re really helping you. And they’re
giving you help that means something, okay. It says {kun la jam}. Say {kun la
jam} [repeat], {kun la jam} [repeat]. {Kun la} means ‘to everybody’. {Jam} … this
the {jam} in {jampel yang}. It you know {Jampel yang}, in Sanskrit Manjushri.
{Manju} means ‘soft or gentle or friendly’. It’s the word used for cotton balls in
Tibetan. It’s this … it’s a kind of a softness or gentleness to everybody, it’s like
being friendly to everyone. Like as they go throughout New York, as they walk
down the street they’re always like relating to people. All day long they’re
relating to people. They’re just friendly to everybody automatically, and why
not? We’re all dying together, you know. We’re all in the act of dying. Why not
be nice to each other, you know what I mean? We got a few years or months to
be here, you know, might as well be friendly to each other. Why …
And suppose you don’t feel well and you’re not having a good day or the boss
just yelled at … well, who cares, still be friendly to people. What’s the point?
We’re all dying. Be friendly to each other, what you got to lose, right? Doesn’t
hurt. Doesn’t cost you anything, right? And that’s a sign of successful lojong,
just friendly. Say {shenla} [repeat] {drel chen} [repeat]. {Shen la} means ‘to other
people’.
{Trel}, I think you remember. You had {trelyu} in (Tibetan). I’m sorry {trelyu} …
what’s the other one? (Tibetan) okay. {Trelyu} means in your behavior you are
sensitive to what other people will think as you take certain actions, that’s called
{trelyu}. {Trel chen} means ‘you’re very sensitive’. {Chen} means ‘big’. {Shen la
trel chen} means ‘you’re constantly courteous to other people’. And frankly this
is a sign of a good Buddhist. I mean, the people who really do well with their
Buddhist practice are constantly being courteous to other people. And it’s not
something that they talk about much in the teachings. This is lojong stuff.
Lojong … you don’t see it much in the … I mean, it’s there in the {b: Lam Rim
Chenmo}, you have to know where to look, but being courteous to other people
is just a very, very basic Buddhist thing.
You know, you see Seamus showing up with twelve handfuls of equipment, you
stop and help him, you know what I mean, and you be courteous to each other.
You know, somebody needs a seat, you give it up for him, you know, or her.
Somebody needs a homework, you take care of them and you just act towards
each other and towards other people in a courteous way. You know, it’s
thoughtful. And this should be like very natural for a Bodhisattva. It’s very
weird and it’s very much a sign of a failure of dharma classes. This center is a
failure; these classes are a failure; forget this big, high Bodhisattva behavior of
giving up your body for others if you can’t even hold a door open for
somebody. Or you can’t help Seamus carry the stuff here, or you don’t want to
stay five minutes over and clean up or something like that. Then how are you
ever going to give up your arm or your eye or, you know, what are you talking
about? You say, there’s no connection. You bet there’s a connection, okay.
That courteous … being courteous is the first step of being a Bodhisattva. Come
one, you know what I mean? It’s very weird and I’ve been in dharma groups
where they just trash a place. Five minutes after they leave there is two hours of
work left for the monks usually or the nuns and that’s like the least courteous
thing you can imagine, you know. That’s the opposite of Bodhisattva behavior.
I mean, basic courteous behavior towards other people is … that’s like the first
thousandth of a percent of a Bodhisattva behavior. You know what I mean?
You’re going to have to give up your eyeball for these people, you don’t have
five minutes to help clean the floor? What are you talking about? I mean … the
high Bodhisattva activities start by being …by normal courteous behavior
towards other people. You know, and that’s all. Don’t throw stuff on the
ground. Don’t break something on the subway. Don’t spit where somebody
might step in or put the gum there, stuff like that. This is like, if you can’t do
that, what are you talking about, Bodhisattva Mahayana, all this stuff. What are
you talking about? You can’t even think that someone might step on the gum
or, you know, that somebody has to clean the floor after you leave and you just
leave everything … what is that? What does it mean? You see what I mean, it
means that that teaching is a failure; that, you know, five years of studying
Buddhist scriptures is a failure, you know. You haven’t even started. You can’t
even be courteous to other people. That’s weird. It just weird, weird dharma.
I’ve seen it a lot. In America it’s very common, you know. Like the last people
that would ever help you clean up a place are dharma students. They always got
to get home and recite something. [Laugh, laughter] you know what I mean?
It’s weird. I’d like to help you, I got to go meditate. On what? Exchanging self
and others, you know. Well, could you just exchange your time for some
mopping tonight? It’s like … let’s not be like that, okay. This lojong is very
basic and very true. I’m embarrassed when that happens in my center, you
know, where I am; it really embarrasses me. I feel like I’m a failure. Anyway,
there it is. Courteous.
Think about other people, I mean, basically. I mean, what’s a Bodhi… what’s this
talk about Bodhisattva if you can’t even think about other people that much? I
see people come into Rinpoche, they clean out his refrigerator. This is your root
Lama, this is the head of the tantric college in Lhasa in Tibet in 1959, you know,
this is the highest living scholar of Buddhism in the world, you know, and you’re
in there raiding his refrigerator, you know, and leaving his house in a mess and
pee pee all over the ground and stuff. And not even lifting the seat, you know
what I mean? What is that? He has to come in and clean it, you know what I
mean? Think about it. This is just plain old common courtesy, you know. And
it’s amazing. It’s pretty amazing actually. Anyway … 6- {shen gyi dren}- Kind.
Say {shen gyi} [repeat], {dren} [repeat]. {shen gyi} [repeat], {dren} [repeat]. {Shen}
mean ‘other peoples’. {Dren} means ‘foot servant’ or something like that. It’s
not quite slave but it’s very close, in Tibetan. And in the Lama Chupa, you
know, in these high, holy prays, Bodhisattva, people who take Bodhisattva vows
are always saying, ‘I pledge to be {shen gyi dren}’ now. I am the slave of others.
Anything you want, ask me. I’m at your command. It’s like saying, ‘I’m at your
command’. Once you have taken Bodhisattva vows, the first set, right -
remember there’re two kinds of Bodhisattva vows - once you have sworn to
have the attitude of a Bodhisattva you are at the command of all other people,
you know, whatever they need, you’re thinking … you’re being kind to them all
the time. You’re being kind to other people all the time and that’s just plain
Bodhisattva behavior. You are at their command. What they need you give
kindly, kindness. Plain old kindness. You also see these people say, ‘I got to get
home, meditate. I can’t help this person who’s about to commit suicide, having a
breakdown, you know. I’m busy. I have a computer project. We’re in putting
all the scriptures that teach you how to be kind, you know. Could you come
back later?’ Maybe I do that, okay, anyway …
Seven. Dulwar nyen – Obedient . Say . {dulwar} [repeat], {nyen} [repeat],
{dulwar} [repeat], {nyen} [repeat]. {Dulwar} (dul bar) is the past tense of {‘dul ba}.
{dulwa} as you may know means Vinaya. {Dulwa} means … the word Vinaya,
by the way, means ‘a practice for taming your mind or taming your behavior’.
{dulwar} is a verb that’s used for wild horses and stuff like that. Did you
{dulwar} the horse? Yeah, yeah I rode it for five minutes, he finally stopped
bucking. That’s called {dulwa}. {Dulwar} is the past tense. {Dulwar} means ‘to be
tamed, to be gentle, to listen in a respectful and controlled way’. {Nyen} means
‘to listen to what your Lama asked you to do’ and things like that, in a very
respectful way. It’s also a good habit with other people. It’s very common of
Bodhisattvas to listen carefully to what they’re being asked to do. Like, they
don’t … it’s a kind of humility to be obedient when you should be. Doesn’t
mean to be obedient when they’re asking you to do something wrong or to hurt
somebody. It doesn’t mean that. But it means when a Lama has a very sweet,
beautiful, helpful instruction, asking you to do something, then you say, you
know, with gladness I’ll do, of course I’ll do it. And then you go and execute it
for that Lama or for that group or whatever. That’s call {dulwar nyen}. {Nyen}
means to listen or to obey. Rinpoche often tells me that {Drolma} listens to me
… to him better than I do, okay; that’s called {nyen}; his dog. 8- Dzum kar chen –
Cheerful. Say {dzum kar} [repeat], {chen} [repeat] {dzum kar} [repeat], {chen}
[repeat]. Those of you who know {Ganden Hlagyama}, this is found there also.
{Dzum kar chen} ‘smiling face’.
{‘dzum} means honorific or teeth, I think or smile. {dkar} means ‘white’. {Dzum
kar chen} means, you know, like, you know, always like Jampa, okay, down in
Howell, I mean, always cheerful, never seen him a bad mood. I’ve lived with
him for five years or something, never seen him be less than cheerful, never and
I know he has backaches. I know he has migraines. I know he stays up till two in
the morning cleaning up after those Bodhisattvas. [Laugher] after {Tseychu’s}
and other ceremonies and I’ve never seen him be grumpy or bitter or anything;
always cheerful. Always, always cheerful; why not? What else you gonna to do?
So cheerful is important. Cheerful is very common Bodhisattva behavior.
Never seen him personally, never seen him get … I’ve never seen him complain
actually, ever, never once. That’s cheerful. No complaining. No kavetching,
okay. Yeah? Student. [Unclear]. I think it’s very close. But in Buddhism joyful
has the kind of connotations of enjoying good karma and cheerful is more like
… especially in the face of adversity or in the face of Bodhisattva’s who can’t
clean the floor, cheerful, and you don’t like always complaining about it and
whining about it.         Cheerful, never whining, never complaining, never
kavetching. Ultimately everything that takes place in your world was designed
by one person alone and you might as well grin and bear it and change it, okay.
Number nine. We’re on page eighteen now. 9- Tundze bak-yu –Thrify. Yeah?
Student .. aren’t they the principles of the cub scouts?
Excuse me? I think … yeah, little bit. Student: [Unclear] No, I ... [Laughter,
laugh]. Must be a bak chak from my past life. Seriously?
Student [Unclear]. Something like that. [Laughter] Huh? I mean, I went to cub
scouts and all, you know.
Student: [Unclear] [Laughter] Seriously? [Laugh, laughter] Maybe [not clear]
before I hear about it. Let’s see … I don’t know, let’s see. It’s exactly like that?
[Laughter] That’s funny. Anyway, it’s probably just a coincidence. Say {tundze}
[repeat] {bak-yu} [repeat], {tundze} [repeat] {bak-yu}. That’s weird. [Laughs,
laughter]{tun} means ‘in common’. Like {tun mo lam tzal gyupa la}– common
path. {dze} means ‘things that people share in common, like the environment,
like the world’. {Bak-yu} means … {bak-yu} is a special expression in Vinaya.
And {bak-yu} means, for example, we can’t waste food in Vinaya. It’s against the
monk’s vow not to finish your bowl of food. You have to eat it all. And you
never waste food. You never waste resources of humanity and that’s thrifty,
that’s like {tun dze bak-yu} means ‘do not waste, for your children don’t waste
the resources of this planet. Don’t waste food. Don’t waste other things.’ This is
where Rinpoche ... it’s very Bodhisattva behavior to go round the room … he
comes down every night and turns off the lights. Every time he can he turns off
the heat, he turns of the air-conditioning. He turns off things all the time. He
goes around the house turning off things. He goes around the house never
buying things that he doesn’t need. I mean, if you have been in his room, if
you’ve watched him, he never wastes, ever. And he could and people would
give him money … if he needed money we would give it. He never wastes. He
always is … {bak-yu} means mindful of the needs of others. Mindful of common
resources. And this is the kind of Bodhisattva behavior, even with our planet,
this is like, don’t waste the riches of this planet. They are here because of your
karma. You created the material wealth of the United States of America. You
can be proud of it. But if you waste it you can be sure you won’t have it again.
You see what I mean? It will not exist in the future, for you. And common
resources were created by being mindful, not to waste what everyone could use.
You see what I mean? That’s call {tun dze bak-yu}.
[Laughter].10- Patak den- Brave. Say {pa tak} [repeat], {den} [repeat], Say {pa
tak} [repeat], {den} [repeat]. {Pa} is a word for ‘warrior’ like … really the word
Bodhisattva, the sattva part in Tibetan is {sempa}, {jang chub sempa}. And this
{pa} means ‘warrior’, brave person. {Tak} means ‘the sign of a warrior’. {Pa tak
den} means possess the sign of courage. Means brave, okay. This is …
especially in a sense of your world view. You are not afraid to take a stand or to
take a view or to live a life for which you will be criticized by other people, you
know what I mean, but you know it’s right. You know it’s the right thing to do.
And you’re brave enough to stand by it. You have courage in the sense of …
you know a certain world view is correct, and you know, if you really keep a
pure Buddhist world view you probably will be drawn into some kind of friction
with the way the world works. You will be accused of something if you keep
your Buddhist world view. And especially if you practice higher practices or
whatever, you will be criticized and you have to be strong enough in your
beliefs and in your understanding of karma to do the right thing. I think Gandhi
was really good at this. Gandhi didn’t mind to get beat up or kicked or literally
physically beaten. In a moment … any given moment he was ready to be
physically beaten. You know, and you and I see something going in the street
that’s not right we keep our mouth shut ‘cause the guy might have a gun or
knife and I imagine that Gandhi would just walk up to this guy and say, ‘Why
are you throwing that stuff on the ground, you know, that makes everybody’s
house dirty, you know?’ And he’d probably get hit on the head for it, you see
what I mean? Philosophically as a Buddhist you have to be willing to stand up
and say, ‘This thing is crazy, you know. We have to stop this thing. This kind of
behavior is not acceptable. Or this kind of world view is stupid and I’m stopping
that. I won’t do that anymore.’ And people will call you crazy or silly or dirty or
whatever, and you stand up for it. That’s courage. Yeah? Student: [Unclear]
I think obedience is in a case of a … normally when you’re not obedient in that
sense is to some goodness that you know you should do and that you agree that
you should do. And that you know is good for you. I had this sweet letter this
morning from this sweet student in California. ‘I love you. I believe everything
you taught. I’m going to give up my job and come to New York and study with
you next year. And by the way, I’m not keeping my book and I’m not
meditating.’ Seriously, I got this letter this morning. Beautiful card. Beautiful
picture on the front. I’m talking about obedient in the sense of doing what you
know is good for you and you’re just lazy or some kind of unwillingness to do
what is clearly right. Number eleven. Dakshing so –Clean. Say {dak} [repeat],
{shing so} [repeat], {dak} [repeat], {shing so} [repeat]. {Dak} means ‘pure’. Okay
{Dak} means ‘pure’. {Shing} means ‘field’. {So} means ‘to create or to make’.
{Dak shing so} means to ‘to make your own Buddha field. To make your pure
field’. Pure land they call it, okay. It’s a translation of this, {dak shing}. {Dak
shing} means paradise, Buddha’s paradise. One of the main karmas to help
create a Buddha paradise in your future is plain old cleanliness. And I have a
very dirty room so I’m not too good at it. And it doesn’t mean to be anal about
it. It doesn’t mean that, but it means that it conducive to your meditation. It’s
conducive to a good state of mind to have a nice, simple room; nice simple place
to live. Throw out all the junk, you know. Throw out the things that don’t
matter and it doesn’t have to be Gucci furniture or whatever, you know what I
mean? Not like that. And it doesn’t have to be … I used to go to these peoples’
houses when I was a kid and they would have these nice beautiful plush carpets.
And they would cover them with this horrible sticky plastic because they didn’t
want it to get dirty. You couldn’t even see it, you know, not like that, okay, but
just the idea of a Buddhist is poor, simple and clean and neat, you know what I
mean? That the place where you live, the place ... especially the place where you
meditate is nice. It’s sweet. It’s simple. And I’m not either saying sort of a
compulsion or addiction to ultimate simplicity, you know, where you take care
that the whole room is stark or something. I don’t mean that. I mean it’s
comfortable. It’s friendly. It’s warm and it’s neat and clean, something like that,
okay, something like that. Your dress is not fancy but it’s clean and it’s neat.
Something like that. And that in Buddhism is called preparing your Buddha field.
That’s a code word for next to godliness. Last one is called the …11- Chusem
shul- Reverent. Say {chu sem} [repeat], {shul} [repeat] {chu sem} [repeat], {shul}
[repeat]. {Chu} means ‘dharma’. {Sem} means ‘mind’. {Chu sem} means ‘a
dharma state of mind’. {Shul} means … {shul} is a beautiful word. It means ‘you
lost yourself to that’. Like {shul} is a word for throwing water out of a pot. It’s
like … how you do say? It means like the stream is going along and you’re
swept along with the stream. You see what I mean? {Chu sem shul} means ‘your
mind is carried away in the current of the dharma.’ And it means that you’re a
spiritual person. You have … all day long you’re thinking spiritual, spiritually.
That’s call {chu sem shul}. You have lost yourself to dharma. People would say
you’re almost fanatical or something. Fanatical to means, you know, you bother
other people, not like that. You’re just totally immersed in it all the time. You
spend your whole day happily in dharma. And that’s called {chu sem shul}. So
it’s trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kindness, obedient, cheerful,
thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. Twelve point lojong. It’s kind of cool when I
realized that it fit those twelve, you know, I was pretty freaked out. I thought
maybe, you know, eight hundred years ago some guy is writing it, you know,
and is it coincidence? Is it some kind of coincidence or something. Student:
[Unclear]. She said, can you think of it as a Bodhisattva style of the boy scouts,
okay. Answer is this. It’s the last question on your homework. That’s how I get
people to pay attention and also get them to know that we’re almost done with
class so they probably listen for the last two minutes.          I call it dharma
revisionism, okay. Dharma revisionism. Revisionism to me means where you
rewrite history, right? Like if you’re American you rewrite the cold war in a
certain way. The Russians started it. When I got to Russia, it was very cool. I
studied Russian for years and years. I finally went to Russia a few years ago and
I lived with those guys for a couple of days. We worked together. We had a
beautiful time. And I got in the car and I said, they said, ‘How do you like
Russia?’ and I said, ‘You guys are wonderful and to tell you the truth when I was
growing up they made us get under the desks every month, they rang an alarm
and I had to get under the desk.’ And I said … They said, ‘Why?’ and I said,
‘Because they told me that you evil Russians were going to attack us with atom
bombs and you were these horrible monsters and you hated us and you were
trying to kill us. And they taught us that over and over and over again. I
thought the first time I met a Russian I probably get some kind of virus or
something, you know.’ And I said, ‘You guys are great. You’re just like we are.’
We had a great time.
And they said, ‘I’ll tell you something. They told us the same thing about you.’
You know, [laugh]. And this is revisionism. You see, in my mind I rewrote my
life’s history. On that moment, in the car, I remember, it was like (Russian) or
something, in St. Petersburg, it’s (Russian), you know, it’s a certain street, I
remember the street. On that moment I rewrote my last … the history of my
life. I cancelled everything Mrs. Melvin told me about the Russians, you know
what I mean? Everything was just changed. I rewrote the history of my life.
What I’m trying to say is as you get older, as your dharma practice get better
you will want to look into a revisionism of your past …of your earlier life, okay.
People are always coming to me and telling me, ‘Oh, when I was twenty-three I
read such and such a book and then I got changed into a Buddhist, you know.
Then I met my first lama.’ What I’m trying to say is that as you get older and
older, as your practice gets more powerful you will start to have {nam dak}. Say
{nam dak} [repeat]. {Nam dak} is an experience, a spiritual level where you
begin to realize that the people who brought you up were not normal beings.
The early people in your life, your boy scout patrol leader, okay, your first high
school boy friend, your own parents, your sister, the one you hated, okay, were
they special beings or normal people? You will start to wonder and that’s a good
sign, because don’t think Buddhas can’t appear as the sister you didn’t like, okay.
Don’t think Buddhas can’t appear as boy scout leaders. Don’t think the guy who
started the boy scouts couldn’t have been a Kadampa Geshe. You know what I
mean? Don’t ever think that; it’s called dharma revisionism. At some point in
your practice you may want to rewrite your childhood. Who knows who those
people were. Can you really tell me? People say, ‘No, they didn’t have slanty
eyes, they couldn’t have been Tibetan deities, you know. Come on, you think
Tara can’t appear as your sister? You think Manjushri has a problem, Maitreya
can’t appear as a dog? But did to Asanga? You think that your boy scout leader
could not have been a Lama, a real Lama, a Tibetan Buddhist Lama who could
emanate? Do you think the guy who wrote the twelve points of the boy scout
code or something, it’s impossible that they could have been a Bodhisattva or a
Buddha. Do you believe that? Then you didn’t get to this stage yet. What I’m
saying is that … I’m suggesting you go back … this week’s meditation, go back
and check out the important people in your life. The people who made a
difference. For me it was Mr. Bloom in the fifth grade. Put my life on a different
track. It was a certain person in the eleventh grade that really made me a monk.
You know. If I looked back it was that crucial year, it was that particular month.
Are you sure that they were not some kind of extraordinary Bodhisattva; are
you sure? Think about it logically. Do this meditation logically. Are you sure
that that person who affected you was not an emanation of a holy being? You
go back and you check. Those of you who had logic course last semester, you
try to do it logically. Give me {dak yang tak}. Give me a {jor war} {chu chen, yin
te, ma yin pay chir} you know, try to prove to me that they weren’t. You try to
prove to me that any influential person in your life was not a high Bodhisattva.
You try to prove to me that the boy scout code wasn’t written by a high lama,
who was really a high lama. And by the way, explore the question, ‘Could they
be both?’ Explore the question, ‘Could they have been both?’ Get it? Explore
the question that as your own spiritual life begins to reach its success point and
you start to escape death itself, that you can revise what you were perceiving of
them and will it be valid? Were they normal or were they Bodhisattvas out to
help you? Are they either? Are they both? Are they validly one or the other?
Am I just trying to be metaphorical? Am I just saying, ‘Oh, you could look at
them that way.’ No, I’m not. I’m saying, ‘Could they have been tantric deities
sent to help you?’ Okay, this won’t come out on the tape. I’m waving a pen,
same pen, okay. All right.
We’ll do a prayer.
[prayer: short mandala]
[prayer: dedication]
Okay, remember that Rinpoche will be teaching Sunday; two o’clock. Very, very
important. Very high Lama, maybe the highest Lama left, okay. And … what’s
                                         th
the other thing? His birthday on the 28 at two o’clock. Don’t miss that one, all
                                                     th
right? I think that’s all. And the flamenco on July 8 . Okay. All right.