ACI 14 «Лоджонг: развитие доброго сердца», занятие 10

Note: 2 TYPINGS CLASS CLASS 10 (TAPE 9)

Lojong, Developing the Good Heart
Class 10 (tape 9)—version one
GMR
July 7 1998
Transcriber: Su Hung



Side A
Okay we’ve been studying a lojong text, lojong –How to develop a good heart.
And we have been studying one of the most famous ones, it’s called {b: tsuncha
korlo} Say {tsuncha} [repeat] {korlo} [repeat] {tsuncha} [repeat] {korlo} [repeat].
Sometimes…those of you studying Tibetan, sometimes it’s {tsunche korlo}.
{tsuncha} means any kind of weapon. In general like a {dul tren tsuncha} is an
atomic bomb. But more specifically in this case it means something with a sharp
blade. And we talked about it last time that…we were talking about like a ninja
star, about this big and it’s got these sharp blades, razor blades coming the side,
like knives, sharpen on both sides. And the idea is that you could throw it at
somebody. And I guess it’s like a boomerang. You know if you throw it that
way and then you just innocently standing there and then suddenly something
slashes you on the head over here. And you don’t know quite what happened,
you know. And this is the story of your life, you know. Every unpleasant…I
mean it’s the unpleasant thing when you say, ‘Why did this happen to me or
why me?’ And people don’t wonder about the good things. They wonder about
the bad things. So it’s like…why am I having this bad thing happening to me?
And it’s very important…last time the whole first half of this book, first what
does he do? He bows down to the Three Jewels. Secondly what does he do? In
a middle of a lojong text he bows down to a tantric fire angel call the Lord of
Death, {Yamari} okay. And then he starts this sweet little lojong text about…it
seems like every time something bad happens to me, if I really analyze it I see
that it came from myself; that I did something to hurt somebody and there’s this
long boomerang thing and then it comes back and hurts me okay.               And I
think…and then he goes through a long, long list of this happened to me, my
boss yelled at me, ‘Oh this the wheel of sharp knives, coming back and hitting
me. I realize it was because I yelled at someone else before. From now on I’ll
never yell back at my boss.’ Okay like that. It’s a whole cycle of having
something bad happen to you, figuring out what it was you did before and then
deciding how to avoid doing it anymore. And this is the whole…we’re going to
do the {b: Wheel of Life} in the next course and the key of {b: The Wheel of Life}
is that at number one, at one o’clock, you can break the wheel of life, that’s the
whole point of samsara. When someone’s bad to you and you get angry and
you want to do something back to them, if you break it at that point, called
ignorance, if you understand that it’s coming from you and if you respond with
the same stuff, it will perpetuate this thing, then you’re free. Then slowly you
can get free of everything, all the trouble you have. But it’s very compelling to
think that it’s other people’s fault especially when the suffering is coming back to
you through a human being. You know if a brick falls on your head or an egg
or whatever, walking down the street… we were walking down the street the
other night, had a nice latte and then right in the middle of Sixth Street this egg
lands on my head [laughter] and I’m not kidding. And I think they threw it off a
roof, like it…it felt like a brick. It hurt. It really hurt and we were sitting there
and laughing. You know, you never know, you know. It’s easy to be… like if
you stub your toe or something, it’s easy to kind of forget it and not to worry
about it. And not to believe too much in the self existence of it. But when
somebody is there in front of your face and somebody right in front of you is
hurting you somehow, it’s almost impossible at that moment to realize that this
is coming from yourself, and that they’re just an instrument of energy that you
set in motion yourself. They have nothing to do with the bad thing happening
to you. There’s nothing you can do by reacting to them to stop it. If there’s no
connection between with what you say to them or what you do to them or any
kind of logic or any kind of anger, there’s no connection to that. It’s all coming
to you because of something you did before. And if you do the right thing now
it will go away. And if you do the wrong thing now it will keep coming. And
you don’t need to know more than that to reach nirvana. That’s enough
nirvana. You have to study karma. You have to understand how things are
planted in your mind. And then everything is clear and then you know what
you have to do and you really don’t need much more dharma than that. You
want to get out of the bad situations in your life – every single physical and
mental that you… every unpleasant that happens to you throughout the day
and it happens all day long, right? Every five minutes or so. It’s all coming from
you. You have to get use to that. And that’s what the first half of the lojong is
about, you know. The whole first half of the lojong is ‘Oh this is happening to
me. I must have done that. In the future I won’t do this anymore.’ You know,
one of the students made a very beautiful chart, you will get it with this reading
of all of those verses. You know they put, ‘Problem – somebody is yelling at me
or Problem – I get migraine headaches. What is really cause by? I didn’t keep
the vows I took when I was with a Lama or something like that. How should I
fix it? It won’t do that anymore. Now I’ll keep my vows or something like that.’
That’s…they actually made a whole chart of everything. It’s kind of cool. And
as I mentioned last time it’s very important to say, especially if you weren’t here.
If you have a problem with someone, with someone yelling at you all the time,
it’s because you were…you yelled at other people in the past. That’s the real
cause, okay. Does that mean you’re necessarily a yeller in this life? No, okay,
and you gotta get use to that okay. You may be the most quiet simple, nice
person in this life who never yells at anybody but it doesn’t mean that you don’t
have that old karma. And that old karma can…people can be yelling at you all
day. So how are you suppose to fix it if you’re not a yeller? You see what I
mean? What are you suppose to do now? You have to be even more careful
than normal people about saying unkind things to other people. that’s all. Got
it? That’s how you stop it. And if you read the first half of the wheel of knives,
last time, if you finished and read it, you already know what your particular
problem is. You know what was causing it. Now you in particular whether it’s a
backache or a headache or depression, or feeling upset or being jealous a lot,
something like that, mental or physical problems, now you have enough
information. You have to stop that particular thing that you saw on the chart
there. So you gotta get a chart during the break okay. You personally have to
be super careful about yelling…even the tiniest bit, okay, because you have that
problem and you need it to purify that old karma. And the most powerful way
to purify it is to avoid it even in the smallest instance. Okay. And now you know
everything you need to know. You don’t need to know more than that okay.
That was the first half of the wheel of sharp….wheel of knives, okay. Now we
get to a sudden break and I warn you about it last time, okay. He’s been
moaning and groaning about the wheel of knives. He’s been saying, ‘I did that.
It’s circle around. I had this kind of bad things happening to me and I’m…and
I’m not going to that again. Oh and I also have this problem and I’ve got this
problem and this problem and this problem. And he goes through verse after
verse after verse, and he identify the problems, I’m not going to do that
anymore. And then he’s getting…if you feel the verses, he’s getting uptight.
He’s starting to get whirled up. And in the beginning he was talking the tantric
deity you know. He’s like saying, ‘Lord of Death’, you know. We’re going to
get to Lord of Death here sooner or later. This is where we get to it okay.
We’re at the point in the…where his whole mood changes you know. He’s like
this poor guy who’s getting migraine… who’s trying to figure out where they
come from. Now he gets mad. You know and he says, ‘Wait a minute, lets
figure out why this is happening to me? You know what is the root cause of all
these stuff. I understand that it’s all because I yelled at somebody; I understand
it’s all because I hurt somebody but what made do that? Did the devil make me
do that? Who made me do that? you see what I mean? Who’s making me do
that?’ And then he looks inside himself and he…and he started to get angry
‘cause he started to figure who makes him do that, you know. There’s a…
something making him to do that. And then suddenly at this point in the text
you going to get it in the reading, there’s fifty more pages of reading. And
suddenly at this moment in text, he gets mad. And he’s…he, he like changes into
this fierce Lord of Death.
So, so since I’m not very good at being mad publicly, I do it all priv…inside. I
just started to call on a consultant [laughter]. David Sykes and he’s going to read
some of these verses one by one to see if you can get the true feeling ‘cause I’m
too shy, okay. And he’s going to be the Lord of Death, okay. You’re going to
see the Lord of Death here. He’s got this… apparently he keeps his legs like that,
you know. You got your thing? Where’s your thing? [laughter] He’s got this
sharp knife. Come on… they don’t hold it like that. No [laugh, laughter] Yeah
that’s better, that’s better. And he’s looking at you like that. You’ve to stare
with hatred in your eyes okay? [laugh, laughter]. Come on. Okay hatred in
your eyes and two feet… what’s the other thing, okay, anyway we’ll see, all
right. He’s gonna….this is the…are you ready?            This is the crucial moment
when the author of this lojong Dharma Rakshita, the teacher of Lord Atisha
suddenly he figures out who’s been giving him all the grief. He says, ‘Now I
know.’ And David Sykes is going to do it, okay.
Just verse number one, okay.
Since this is the way things are,
I’ve finally realized
Just who my enemy is
I’ve caught the thief who lay in wait
And deceived me with his trap.
He’s a masqueraded fooling others,
And fooling himself as well.
I see it now!
He’s the habit I have
Of grasping to myself,
And of this there can be no doubt.
[laugh] okay could you understand all that? Yeah, okay, anyway he figures out
where it is and he starts to get mad. And he starts to change into another person.
You see the author starts to change into another person and he’s like…he’s like
getting very, very angry at his own self, at himself. And there’s two states of
mind here okay. 1) {rang gces ‘dzin} 2) {bdak ‘dzin} Say {rang chendzin} [repeat]
{rang chendzin} [repeat] Then {dak dzin} [repeat] {dak dzin} [repeat]. These are…
are very similar and they’re often confused. And you have learn to separate
them okay. {rang}means ‘yourself’ {chen} means…{chendzin} is a verb that
means ‘to cherish yourself, self cherishing’ okay. watching out for number one,
that’s called {rang chendzin}. The state of mind that watches out for number
one. {dak dzin} is something different and it looks at yourself. It focuses on
yourself in the kind that gives you trouble. There’s a couple of kinds. The kind
that gives you trouble is the kind that looks at yourself and doesn’t understand
the emptiness of you, okay. It’s a misunderstanding of the emptiness of you.
{dak}means ‘self nature’. {dzin} means ‘it grasps, it believes that you have some
existence from your own side.’ {dak dzin} means the state of mind where you
believe something has some existence from its own side. How does it deal in a
case…how does it relate to case in which where your boss is yelling at you or
another person is doing something bad to you. Where’s the {rang chendzin} and
one is the {dak dzin}. Okay what’s the difference between self cherishing and
misunderstanding yourself okay? And then you’ll be able to get out of it. And
this is the one…he’s like ‘I’ll go after you’ you know. ‘You want…I’m sick of this
ninja wheel slashing my hand, would you like to see how it feels?’ Like you can
see him almost grabbing it out of the guy’s hand. And he’s like this and he’s like
…would you like on your hand how? Lets see how you like it {Mr. Rang
chendzin}. Lets see how you like it {Mr. Dak Dzin} and then he gives it to him.
And he’s this brutal, when you read it he’s like Ali, like Mike Tyson out of
control, like he’s bite his ear or something you know. And he’s like…he’s going
out of control and he starts slashing at his… he realizes who his real enemy is
okay? In the case of the boss screaming at you {rang chendzin} is the one who is
focusing very much on ‘I’m unhappy at this moment.’ You know it doesn’t care
about anybody else in the room. It’s focusing on me. It’s focusing on what’s
happening to me and it’s ignoring the other people in the room. When you have
mental affliction, often time an automatic result is that you…you [not clear]
towards other people thinking about people’s suffering, thinking about other
people’s troubles disappears right away and {rang chendzin} comes. You know
like ‘I’m not getting what I want.’ You know and that’s the first state of mind,
okay. I’m more important than anybody else here and this guy is yelling at ME.
That’s {rang chendzin}. {Dak dzin} is much more subtle. {Dak dzin} is focussing
on this situation and doesn’t get it that it’s not coming from the boss, okay, big
difference, right? {Rang chendzin} is like ‘I’m having a bad time. I’m having a
bad day.’ And doesn’t think about other people. But {dak dzin} is the root of
that emotion. {Dak dzin} is saying…it’s looking at this and saying, ‘the boss is
the root of this problem.’ He’s yelling at me; he’s a bad person. I hate him.
That’s {dak dzin}. {Dak dzin} doesn’t understand what? That this is all coming
from you. Prove it. That boss’s wife loves him. That’s boss’s wife swears he’s
the nicest person in the world. Okay. Other people in the room thinks the boss is
doing exactly the right thing when they’re yelling at you, okay. Obviously if he’s
a really bad person it’s coming from his side. It’s coming from somewhere else.
If it was coming from his side everybody else in the room will be feeling the
same thing about him and they don’t. Something else is happening. What’s
happening? Your karma is making you experience this situation as unpleasant
okay. {Dak dzin} can’t figure it out, okay. {Chendzin} is worried about me, why
is it happening to me? But {dak dzin} is at the root of it all. {Dak dzin} doesn’t
understand that if you just shut up the boss won’t come back anymore, okay?
There’s a bid difference. These are both the enemy. When he starts slashing the
enemy he’s going after these two states of mind, okay. Next ….the next verse,
two verses are going to be number two and number three, okay. It’s going to
be a description of what he turns into, okay. This guy, this nice old Dharma
Rakshita whose just figured out who’s giving him all the trouble is… is gonna…
undergo a transformation. Okay, here we go.
Now let’s see the wheel of knives,
Of karma, cut his skull!
O Angel of Wrath,
Now cut his skull, cut thrice!
Stand like a god on widespread legs,
A knowledge of two truths;
Of method, and of wisdom;
Open your jaws and show your fangs,
Four powers of confession,
Sink them deep within the flesh
Of this, my hated foe.

I call on the King of the secret knowledge
And secret words that work
To torture all these enemies.
There is no freedom here in the woods
Take up in your hands the wheel of knives,
Take up the wheel of karma,
Speed to the side of my foe,
The cruel one, evil demon that he is,
This grasping to myself,
Broken vows and promises,
Waster of my life and others,
Go and fetch him here.

[laugh] Like’s turning into this tantric deity and he’s like talking to this tantric
deity {Yamari} and he’s saying ‘Okay go get him and we’ll teach him a lesson.
And we will use the same knives on him. We will take those two states of mind
and…and we’ll see how they like the wheel of karma. The wheel of knives…and
we’ll try it on him.’ It goes like this. ‘Cut his skull! Angel of Wrath, now cut this
skull, cut thrice. Stand like a god on widespread legs.’ This is a posture that
{Yamari} takes you know and {Yamari} is like this, you know. So {Yamari} has
this…it’s called {tre pa}, the legs are spread out like that. And Dharma Rakshita
says, ‘this stands for the knowledge of the two truths.’ Okay. This stands for the
knowledge of the two realities. There’re two realities going on all the time. All
the time, around you two different realities are going on. One is called {kundzob
denpa}. Say {kundzob} [repeat] {denpa} [repeat], {kundzob} [repeat] {denpa}
[repeat]. You can think of it as the world created by your projection, okay. it’s
the some total of all the projections you’re having and you call it yourself and
your world, okay. It’s the sum total of all the karmic stuff ripening in your mind
and making you see this world, all your friends and your own mind and your
own body and yourself. And when you look in the mirror in the morning that’s
part of {kundzob denpa}. {Kundzob denpa} means ‘deceptive reality or false
reality’ People have translated it as ‘relative truth’. That’s wimpy translation.
{dzob}, {kundzob} doesn’t have anything to do with relative. {Kundzob} means
liar, cheater, deceiver, okay. And what it means is the nature of this reality
around is deceptive. You can call it deceptive reality. Sometimes they call it the
Two Truths and there’s a joke in the monastery that the Two Truths ain’t true.
Okay. There’s a big joke in the monastery. ‘Hi the Two Truths aren’t true right?’
Right. What’s {kundzob}? {Kundzob} means ‘fake, fake truth; false truth’. Why?
Because the world as you perceive it now you’re always mislead by it. It’s
always deceiving you, especially when your emotions are evolve…involved.
Okay. When the boss starts to yell he suddenly transform into something which
must be self existent, existing from his own side. He cannot be my projection,
caused by my own deed. He must be a bad person. He must be bad from his
side. It can’t be something that I’m doing, okay. That’s a sign. That’s {kundzob
denpa}. Okay. And everything around you, all the…what we call appearances
which means your projections, going on constantly, those are call ‘deceptive
reality’ okay.
The other reality is call {dundam denpa}. Say {dundam} [repeat] {denpa}
[repeat], {dundam} [repeat] {denpa} [repeat]. {Dundam denpa} means ‘ the fact
that nothing is NOT your projection’. Got it? The fact that nothing exist any
other way except your projection. You can call it emptiness. Same thing. I’ll say
it one more time. Emptiness and the fact that there ain’t nothing which is not
coming from you are the same thing. That’s the same thing and it’s called
{dundam denpa}. {Dundam denpa} means ultimate reality. Okay. Ultimate
reality; ultimate truth.
When do you see {dundam denpa} directly? Only once- when you see emptiness
directly – {tong lam}, path of seeing, twenty minutes of direct communion with
ultimate reality. That’s {dundam denpa}. You can understand it as I speak.
You’re perceiving it with mental projection as we speak but that’s not…that’s
your projection of ultimate reality and not ultimate reality itself, okay. You’re
perceiving it a way but you’re not perceiving it directly. On the day you see
emptiness directly for the first time, you will see for the first time that there’s
a separate reality doing around all around us that you never saw before.
It’s a higher reality.
It’s a perfect crystal, diamond reality going on all around you and you can’t
make contact with it unless you see emptiness directly. And that understanding
can stop you from reacting negatively ever again. You’re on the way to
stopping your mental afflictions permanently and that in fact is the definition of
nirvana. When you stop your bad thoughts because you saw emptiness directly
okay. So anyone who has a true grasp of this fact, these two realities they can go
and start whipping up these two guys with their wheel of knives, you know it’s
like a Swiss blade or something you know. Anybody who stands on this
foundation of these two truths they got the equipment to start whipping this
guy’s face out with this knife. Okay. Who is this guy? My own cherishing of
myself and not understand reality, okay. Once…once I’m standing on the two
legs of my understanding of the two legs of my understanding of emptiness and
the way the world is happening through my karmic projection then I’m in a
strong position to start reaping this guy’s face out. All right? That’s the first
quality of this tantric deity.
What’s the second one?         He says, ‘Stare in hatred with your two eyes’
apparently… I can’t do it okay the guy’s like…and he says ‘the two eyes are
method and wisdom’ okay. Say {tap} [repeat] {sherab} [repeat]. Oh by the way
that’s Two Truths okay, {bden gnyis} {den nyi}.
And here’s {tap} and {sherab}. (Tap) is misspelt. Suppose to be a {sa} here. {thabs
shes} Say {tap} [repeat] {she} [repeat], {tap} [repeat] {she} [repeat] . {tap) refers…
{tap} means ‘skilful means or method, okay, method’ and it refers generally to
the Bodhisattva acitivity especially for example in the six perfections it will be like
the first four – giving, living an ethical way of life, learning to overcome anger,
and then finally taking a great joy in doing good deed, okay. And that kind of
behavior is mostly on the {tap} side of things. It’s mostly on the…what we call
the message side of things. It’s more practice and less theory, okay. It’s more
practice and less theory. Those kinds of energies will create your physical body
of, of an enlightened being in the future. When your body starts to change,
esp…when the inner body is…everything starts getting straightened out and as
a result of that your outer body starts to change and eventually turns into light.
This is all because of {tap}. It’s mainly it’s because of your success in the
perfections of a Bodhisattva, like those that I mentioned. The practical side of
things. Then there’s {sherab}. Say {sherab} [repeat] {sherab} [repeat]. {Sherab} is
wisdom which only means exactly everything I talked about tonight so far.
That’s {sherab} nothing else, okay. Understanding emptiness and how your
karma is making you see stuff. What’s the emptiness of the boss? He’s not a
bad guy from his own side and he’s not a good guy from his own side. What’s
his dependent origination? If I have good karma I see him as smiling at me. If I
have bad karma I see him as yelling at me. You may have noticed it doesn’t
depend what I do. It doesn’t matter what I do, you know. I can do something
really bad, he comes and smiles at me. I can have a really good day at work and
he comes in and yells at me. Something else is making this happen, okay. And
that…the knowledge of that is {sherab}.            {Sherab} is responsible for you
eventually achieving the state of mind of the Buddha as opposed to the body of
the Buddha. Okay, the state of mind of the Buddha, and that’s mainly the last
two perfections, meditation and wisdom. That’s {tap she}. So what have we got
so far. We got this tantric monster. His standing on the leg of his understanding
of the two truths. He’s staring at who? He’s staring at his own selfishness and
his own existence, grasping with those two eyes, you know. The six perfections
in those two eyes. Those are his two eyes. This is very typical, I’m not suppose
to tell you…well I won’t okay. Open your jaws and show your fangs, Four
powers of confession.
He’s got two fangs here two fangs here all right. Sink them deep within the flesh
Of this, my hated foe.
Doesn’t sound like a sweet little lojong text right? He’s saying, ‘could you take a
big bite of this guy?’ You know, okay, with your fangs? He’s got this four
fangs, okay. And the fangs are the ability to straighten out your old bad karma
and that’s call the four forces, right? And you guys know them, I don’t have to
go over them, right? There’re four tricks to removing your old bad karma,
okay. If you have wisdom and method, you can take care of your future karma.
If you have the knowledge of the two truths you can take care of your mental
afflictions. You still got to polish of your old bad karma, you can take care of that
with the four forces, you’re a complete tantric monster. Everything is covered.
New bad karma is covered. Old bad karma is covered. And wisdom is there
and you’re not gonna have any more problem any more doing anything.
You’re complete monster ready to rip this guy’s eyeballs out, of. …of …who
doesn’t understand emptiness and as a result is always being selfish, okay. And
you’re now in a position to do that okay. This is something metaphorical, you
know? People say, ‘Oh that’s a nice metaphor. That’s a very beautiful metaphor.
I guess those tantric pictures are all metaphors, you know. I guess there’s no
real people like that. Anyway he’d look weird anyway. Can you see this guy
walking down the street, you know. What would be people say even in the east
village, you know. This guy is like eight tall, four feet across you know when he
looks at you he burns your eyeballs out. He’s got these fangs hanging out. And
he’s walking around with this big knife thing you know, waving it. And is it just
a metaphor? You see it seems to be a metaphor. It seems to be this guy, this
tantric deity just… ‘Oh now I get it. All those paintings are just metaphors.
There’s nobody like that. It’s not like there’s people wandering around with
three eyeballs or something like that okay.’ The point is this it’s not a metaphor.
It’s not a metaphor. That being does exist. And it’s created by those spiritual
qualities existing within you. Okay? Got it? There’re monsters like that.
There’re tantric deities like that. And they are not made of flesh and bone,
they’re made of projection and you have those projections if you get those
spiritual realizations. You see what I mean? Like everything else all tantric
deities are produced by your own karma. And the most powerful kind of karma
is your own thoughts. And as you begin to have these realizations you can start
to create this guy. They, they will be created by your own realizations, okay.
Got it? They are made of your realizations. This is not some kind of a metaphor.
If you haven’t met a tantric deity lately it’s because you don’t have those
qualities you see what I mean? And, and it doesn’t matter how many guys give
you initiation and sprinkle water on your head and ring their bell and all that.
Doesn’t… it doesn’t really matter much at all. If you have those inside spiritual
qualities you will begin to see these beings because they are made of that. You
get it? They’re made of your spiritual qualities.
You will meet Tara. She will be this extraordinary, lovely, incredible being. But
she’s made of this kind of stuff that has to come from you just as your
screaming, stupid, ugly boss is. You see what I mean? And the level of your
mind now, the level of your karma now is that you’re creating these bosses who
are screaming at you. And every other unpleasant thing you can imagine. If
you change the source of that you would start to run into these angels. You
know like in a restaurant, in a coffee shop. You know, you say, ‘Wow!’. And
I’m not talking about… I’ve students coming to me and saying, ‘Oh it works you
know, last week I, I say this angel.’ I say, ‘What were they like?’ you know, they
say, ‘Oh I tried really hard, I kind of squinted the right way and…and for three
minutes or so they seem like very nice, you know.’ And I say, ‘Do you like this
person?’ ‘ Yeah I kind of like it.’ You know and then next week they’re like, ‘oh
no the person became a demon you know’ and I’m like…what happened? ‘I
don’t know they yell at me you know.’ It’s not like that. I’m not talking about
that. I’m talking about a change in the reality around you. An actual change that
stays that way. It’s not like thinking of something as a tantric angel or thinking
of somebody as a demon or something like that. It’s that your own karma is
forcing you to see them as clearly as the people in this room and it goes on. And
it continues to be that way. It’s not like a mood you have about somebody or
feeling you have about…I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about they
actually transform before your eyes and they stay that way. That’s the whole
point of Buddhist practice. What I’m saying is…the tantric monster being
described here you can become like that or you can become like Tara. Or you
can…I don’t even mean like Tara, you can be Tara but it comes from, from
practicing year after year these deep thing. It comes from keeping your book. It
comes from watching your vows. And then slowly things start to change
forever, okay. And that’s a…what I want to say is a tantric deity is not a self
existent, external being anymore than your boss was. If you’re tired of your
boss and you’d like to meet this David Sykes, Lord of Death type of guys, you
have to change your mind. okay. All right. Next one. By the way there’s four
powers. Wait, not yet. Hold him back. Hold him back. {stobs bzhi} {tob shi}.
Basically I mean, if you don’t know what the four forces are ask one of the older
students. I don’t have time to go into it but you MUST learn. It is how to
destroy old bad karma. The essence of it is what we spoke about. Read the first
half of the wheel of knives. Figure out your main problem. What caused them
karmically and avoid those perfectly. Avoid the smallest form of that. If you
suffer from migraine headache and even if you’re not the kind of person who
breaks their vows, don’t even get close and they will go away. And I said last
week, if you go to a doctor they fix you it’s because the old karma ran out. The
old bad karma. And if you went to a doctor and they can’t fix you it’s because
the old bad karma didn’t wear out. It don’t depend on the doctor very much,
okay. Not at all actually. That’s why some medicine works for some people and
doesn’t work for other people. If there’s vaccination that works for everybody
because everybody collected a karma in common or together in the past, okay.
You ready Dr. Sykes? Number four.
Fetch him, bring him,
Lord of Anger, Lord of Death;
Strike, strike now,
Strike this highest foe in his heart;
With the roar of hell
Smash now the skull
Of my misperceptions,
The ones who have wasted my life;
Bring your death
To the heart of this butcher,
My greatest enemy.

[laugh] Phew… okay.
He says, ‘Fetch him, bring him Lord of Anger, Lord of death; strike, strike now,
strike this highest foe in his heart’ and the rest is a refrain. This is going to be in
every single verse in the rest of the lojong. Okay. The following is in very verse
up till the very end. ‘With the roar of hell, smash now the skull of my
misperceptions, the ones who have wasted my life; bring your death to the heart
of this butcher, my greatest enemy,’ okay.          And again now he’s asking the
monster…you can think of the monster as another person, you can think of
Dharma Rakshita as becoming the monster, doesn’t matter. You have to
become this guy. You have to become this guy. If the mental afflictions were
people and if they look at you practicing dharma you’d look like what my boss
looks to me. Got it? You’d look like this monster. If the mental afflictions were
real people and if you were practicing dharma really well, if they looked at the
Dalai Lama they would see something really frightening because he’s out to kill
them, you see what I mean? And if you’re practicing well and they see coming,
they’re like really…you look to them like Freddie or something. You look very
frightening. If you’re practicing well you look discussing to a mental affliction
and they’re afraid of you. And he says, ‘Smash the skull’ he’s mad that these
guys have been throwing wheel of knives at him for his life; all day long his life
he’s been getting hit by these things and never knowing what was the problem,
now he figured it out. His selfishness and misperceptions. And he says, ‘smash
the skull of misperceptions’ okay. {Tokpa}.             {rtog pa} Say {tokpa} [repeat]
{tokpa} [repeat]. This is a tricky word okay. When you’re debating in the
monastery, somebody says {tokpa yin pay chir}. And then suddenly everybody
is quiet. The guy goes up and says, ‘Is that with a {sa} or without a {sa}’ Okay
{sa} is like a special letter at the end of this word, okay. There’re two words that
are homonyms, like the word two. How do you spell two? I mean it could be
to, too or two. When you hear {tokpa} in a debate you always stop the guy and
say, ‘Wait a minute, which {tokpa}?’ Okay there’s two {topka’s}, you gotta get
that okay. The one that has an extra {sa} on it if you’re studying Tibetan, means
‘high spiritual realization’. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s a wonderful thing. Okay.
{Tokpa} without the {sa} which is this one means ‘in its worse form, a perception
of things being self existent; thinking that something is self existent’. It’s basically
the same as {dak dzin} okay. {Tokpa} is looking at your boss and thinking that
what you’re seeing is coming from his side and not from your side, okay. That’s
a {tokpa}. {Tok nyen} – it’s a wrong idea. You can say wrong idea. So when he
says, ‘Smash the skull of my enemy’ he’s saying, smash the skull in the sense of
smash these ideas that things are coming from their side. They’re not. If you
really get this life becomes very, very frustrating. It’s extremely frustrating to
realize as it’s happening that all the bad things happening to you are coming
from yourself, it’s very frustrating. And it’s liberating you see ‘cause you can do
something about it. If they were self existent, said, Ayra Nagarjuna, you and I
would be in deep trouble because then they could not be changed. You know if
your boss was really bad and that nasty from his side we’ll be in trouble.
Because he couldn’t change it. You’ve tried to reason with him. You’ve tried to
out fox him. You’re tried to force him; you’ve tried to be sneaky with him,
nothing works. If he was self existent out there the way it seems, and this is all
that you can do to change him we already…we’ve already lost the battle. Life is
going to go on like this. You will die; you will get old; you will lose everything
you have. Period. Can’t change it. But because things are coming from your
karma and because they’re projection of your mind, everything becomes
possible. Tantric paradise in this life becomes totally plausible and attainable,
okay, because things are not coming from their own side, they’re coming from
you, okay. Okay next one. Not yet Sykes, not yet Sykes. In the next few verses
which Dr. Sykes doesn’t have. He says, ‘Lets use this wheel of knives on you
now.’ Okay, he’s talking to his enemy. Let’s…let’s just see how it works on
your face. Okay. And he starts to spin it. And he starts to call it {le kyi korlo}.
Say {le kyi korlo} [repeat], {le kyi korlo} [repeat] He starts calling it the wheel of
karma. Okay, I’ll spell it for you. {las kyi ‘khor lo}. Say {le kyi} [repeat] {korlo}
[repeat], {le kyi} [repeat] {korlo} [repeat]. {Le} means karma, okay. In modern
Tibetan it means ‘work’. It means anything…anything you ever do; anything
you ever say and anything you ever think, it’s {le}. {Le kyi korlo} means the
wheel of karma. It’s very interesting. This is the first time that he calls it the
wheel of karma. Up to now he’s been calling it the wheel of knives. He says,
‘Lets see how you like to get your face cut up with this {le kyi korlo}. Let me use
this {tsuncha}….let me use this wheel of knives, karma, this wheel of karma on
you now, lets see how you like it, okay. And this is a little bit touchy, okay. Do
Buddhist collect karma? Do enlightened beings still collect karma? And this gets
a little touchy. Can you turn the laws of karma back on this monster, you know,
your enemy? Can you…can you use his own weapon against him? That’s the
question here in the text. Can you use the wheel of knives on your own self-
cherishing? Can you use the wheel of knives on your own ignorance? That’s the
question. Can you do that? Can you turn the tables around and start slicing up
his face with his own weapon? We say ‘Yeah’ okay. Yeah. The same rules apply
when you….when you clean up samsara as you made the mess, the original
mess. You can use the same rules, okay. What? Your enemy is not self-existent
either. He is also a projection of your mind. And we’re going to get that at the
end. At the end he’s so in to it, he says, ‘Your enemy doesn’t exist at all. This self
cherishing and this perceptions of things as being existing from their own side,
they don’t even exist and they NEVER DID.’ He gets really into it you know.
What it means is that they don’t exist from their own side. They also are your
projections. If there’s something about your mind that you don’t like you can
use the same rules that you use to get rid of your ugly boss. Okay. Any
unpleasant event, internal or external you can deal with it using {le kyi korlo},
the wheel of karma. And you can use the same things against it, what? Find out
what causes ignorance. Find out what causes self-cherishing. And take…and do
the steps you have to take to remove it, okay. For self cherishing what’s the
best way? You already know – {tong len}. Exchanging yourself and others.
What’s the ultimate practice of it? {Tong len}. A breathing practice where you
take away others pain and give them happiness. It’s very, very beautiful. It’s
very, very detailed. We have a twelve chapter course about it. You have to
study it in detail It’s a hundred pages of stuff to study to do it properly okay.
And there’s a course on it. So you have to do {tong len}; it’s the ultimate way to
stop that projection of your own mind being selfish okay. It will change the
projection. What you use of ignorance is wisdom. And that we use {b: The
Diamond Cutter Sutra}. All right. You go read the…study the Diamond Cutter
Course. Okay. Those two things will change the projection in your own mind of
that enemy and you can turn the wheel of karma against its master, you know,
you can use it on the other guy as well as he’s been using it on you. There’s a
technical detail here. {tsogs gnyis} Say {tsok nyi} [repeat], {tsok nyi} [repeat].
{tsok nyi} means…{tsok} means ‘a big collection of anything okay. Like when
the monks at Sera Mey, a thousand monks go in the main temple and hold a
prayer ceremony that’s called a {tsok}. In fact it’s called a {tsok khang} or {du
khang}, big temple. The big, big temple where Sera Je and Sera Mey monks
both meet is called {tsok chen}. The place for big {tsok}. {Tsok} means when you
get a whole bunch of stuff together. {tsok nyi} means two of them, two different
kinds.
When we spoke about method and wisdom, if you use method which is mainly
the first four perfections, doing those over and over and over again, not getting
angry with people, controlling your anger, keeping your vows nicely, giving
things to other people; taking joy in…in doing good things. If you doing them
over and over again you start to collect together this incredible mass of energy
that we no longer call karma. Okay, if you do it with wisdom, if you do it with
an understanding of emptiness that we talked about tonight we don’t call it
karma any more. We don’t say Buddhas collect karma we say they collect {tsok
nyi}, okay. They gather the two {tsoks}. What are the two {tsoks}?
{Gewa diyi kyewo kun
Sunam yeshe tsok-dzok shing}
Okay the second line of the prayer that we do every single night, okay, at the
end. {Sunam} and {yeshe tsok} okay, the second line {‘sunam yeshe tsok dzok
shing’}okay.     {Sunam} means good deeds which in this case mainly means
method; it mainly means not getting angry, keeping your vows well; being
generous to other people; being joyful to do good deeds. If you keep doing that
enough you collect together what we call the collection of merit. Okay. The
collection of merit. That turns you into physically a Buddha. Okay. That gives
you the physical body of a Buddha. That changes…the effect of that on your
inner body which you cannot see if you cut your body open, you have a inner
body, you have a whole network inside that you can’t see. You have a spiritual
body and as you collect more and more virtue, as you have more and more
compassion, every time you understand one more little thing about emptiness it
starts to open up. The little channels inside…covering your body, all throughout
your body start to open up a little more. Every time you help somebody, every
time you have kind thought for someone and especially every time you have
understanding of emptiness, a little bit more understanding emptiness, they
open up a little bit more. When they are not open you must get old and die.
When they open completely you don’t have to get old an die anymore and the
whole…the whole idea of the {sunam kyi tsok} is to change this body…it will
change this body. Those good deeds done over a long period of time, in a very
powerful way will change this body into the body of an enlightened being, okay,
of light. So we don’t technically call it karma any more at that point, okay. We
don’t say people collect karma to be a Buddha. It’s not like that. They collect the
two collections. They create the two collections. What is the second collection?
It’s call wisdom. Okay, wisdom. It’s meditating enough and having enough
understanding of emptiness that eventually your mind transforms into a
Buddha’s mind. okay. And that’s the {sunam kyi tsok}.              So, you know,
somebody ask you ‘do Buddhas collect karma?’ You say, ‘Not really’ but you
can use the principle of karma to become a Buddha and you can use that knife on
that other guy okay. But technically it’s not going to be call the wheel of karma
any more. At that point it becomes me collecting my holy angel’s body and my
holy angel’s mind. I’m collecting energy to do that and we don’t call it karma
any more, in the higher schools. In the lower schools they have an idea of pure
and impure karma and that’s another thing, okay. Same idea. Okay one more
thing and we’ll take a break. So I actually I don’t have this one here. I’ll read
you the lines okay. These are almost at the end of the lojong. He’s close to the
end. He says
And for whatever time remains
In the days before myself
And those who are my parents
Have reached out enlightenment
In the Heaven Below No Other, (This is a special paradise)
May all of us as we wander together,
Driven by karma through six worlds,
Love and cherish one another,
Love and cherish each other as one.

So he’s making a prayer, you know, like, if I keep this kind of stuff up I’m going
to get enlightened sooner or later. I will reach a Buddha paradise. In the mean
time bless me to have the strength to love the people around me, okay. Then he
says

And in those days as well may I find
The strength to dwell along
Within the three realms of misery
If this would be of service
To a single other being,

So now he’s making a prayer. He’s saying if it would help a single other person
I’d be willing to go to hell, you know. I’d personally be willing to go down to
hell or go live in New York city in it would help a single other being. I’d move
from my happy home where I’m completely satisfied, and I’d go to some lousy
place, if that would help somebody else, okay.

May I find the strength
To never give up
This bodhisattva behavior.
May I draw into my being
The suffering all those feel
In the three lower realms of pain.

He’s like praying that he could suck out the suffering from other living beings
okay. Now he’s talking about what it’s going to be like when he gets to hell, in
the service of a single other being.

And in the very moment after
I arrive in the realm of hell;
May the hell guards look upon me
And see their holy Lama;
May the rain of weapons they release upon me
Turn to a shower of blooms before they land;
May I stand untouched,
May peace and bliss then
Spread throughout my heart.

This is something we talked about last time. It’s the idea people have that
Bodhisattvas will go to hell for other people, you know and that’s ….is that’
possible? You know we have to talk about it. And is he being poetic or is he
being real? If a Bodhisattva who kept up this kind of behavior long enough,
wanted to go hell, could they? They can’t okay. Can’t. Why? Because hell is a
creation of bad karma. They don’t have any more bad karmas, okay. Get this –
there ain’t no hell that’s not created by bad karma. And they can’t go to
somebody else’s hell, you see what I mean? Your hell is created by your bad
karma and my hell is created by my bad karma. I can’t go to your hell and you
can’t go to my hell. We can go to hell together but that hell will be a projection
that’s going…two projections going on at once.              It’s really two different
projections going on at once. It happens to be a very similar projection but not
exactly the same ever. You know, you’re experiencing generally the same
realm; the guards are cutting up a little differently than they’re cutting me up
okay. And that’s a …slightly perception of a same thing. I can’t go to hell for
you okay. It’s a…that part is a metaphor. That part is like, yeah they would
love to go to hell for you and the point is they really would be willing to go to
hell for you but every time they try, what happens? What did {Yang Gunpa} say
at the end of his poem? On his death bed and he was dying. He yelled out..
everybody standing watching…woo woo Lama is dying. He goes ‘Wait a
minute, you know. I’m trying to get to hell to help all sentient beings but every
time I try I just keep seeing more paradise.’ [laugh] Like every time he gets the
feeling that he…he’s on his death bed; he’s praying to go to hell to help
somebody. And every time he does the pray more gates…more paradises
opens up before his eyes and he’s reporting it to his students as he dies, you
know. And that was really the way he died, okay. So is it possible that someone
could throw knives at you or throw spears at you? Or say something bad to you
or do something wrong to you? And before that thing reach you, it turn into a
rain of flowers? Or blooms. It’s it possible? Of course. That’s what’s happening.
It’s exactly what’s happening. The thing that happened under the Bodhi tree
when the Buddha was getting enlightened ain’t no metaphor. They wanted to
hurt him. They did everything they could do to hurt him. And every time they
thought of something nasty to do to him, before it reach him it’s turn into this
bliss. It’s turning into flowers. The point is I can’t hurt you even if I want to hurt
you, okay. You can’t hurt another person and they can’t hurt you. It’s
impossible. If you had your karmic act together, and if everybody else in this
room wanted to help you you’d just think it’s the nicest, sexiest thing happen to
you. “Wooo.. do more, that’s great you know, do it over there.” okay. You see
what I mean? Because they’re not self-existent. They’re coming from you and if
your karma was clean then every time and I tell it to you honestly, okay. I tell
you the truth, the things that you think now people are doing to hurt you when
you improve your karma the exact same people doing the exact same thing, you
will think it’s some kind of plot to help you. And it will be, you see what I mean?
In those days when you thought they were trying to hurt you, were you right?
Yeap. And later on after you clean out your karma and they did the same thing
to you, were they trying to help you? Right. So is it not a contradiction for one
action from another person, one and the same action to you on two different
occasions to be totally bad on one side and totally nice on the other side. Totally
possible. That’s the emptiness of the action. That’s the emptiness of the action.
And I tell you it’s really, really interesting that the things that made you irritated,
the people that bothered you, the events that use to bother you, you will start to
perceive them as the sweetest, holiest, most beautiful thing that ever happen to
you. It’s weird. It’s really weird but ain’t that the way karma work? And ain’t
that the way emptiness works? Okay.
And then sometimes you’ll be on [not clear] seeing it both ways. Then you go
do a little better karma and then suddenly it flops over the right side of the fence.
You know what I mean? And that’s the…that’s what’s it’s like to live in a world
where nothing is real. That’s what’s it’s like to live in a world where nothing is
coming from itself as you improve your karma and your behavior and keep
your vows more and more, those events will actually transform. The same thing
done to you a week later will feel great, okay. It’s very exciting. It’s very cool to
watch it happen. Yeah?
Student
GMR: Yeah she said, you said…she said that I said like if you go to hell, it’s true
that every being in hell right now did something similar so they’re in what we
call a realm but get this, a realm is nothing more than their collective experiences.
There is no realm. There is no hell realm. There’s a place where millions of
beings are perceiving each one of them, themselves being tortured and that’s
what hell is. There’s no separate realm… you had the reading right couple of
weeks ago, Upali, the sutra requested by Upali, it’s not like Joe Shmoe
Construction Company went and build hell. Of course hell is the collective
perception of every being in hell and there’s all the hell there is. As soon as the
last person doesn’t have to go to hell any more, they won’t be any hell because
nobody will be seeing hell because that’s all hell is, okay. And each person in hell
is experiencing a little bit differently in the way that each person in this room is
experiencing me a little bit differently. Some people smiling, some people
laughing, some people snoring, some people yawning, some people watching
their watches, okay. Everyone is having a different karma ripen at this moment.
She said is that same in Buddha paradise? That’s true it is the same. Each Buddha
maintains their individuality. Each Buddha has their own Buddha paradise.
Qualitative their bliss is the same. Qualitatively they’re having the same bliss
you know but they have slight distinction. They’re each experiencing it as an
individual. But remember They’re all experiencing every event that ever was,
ever will be and is now. So almost quantitatively They’re also experiencing the
same stuff but They are still individuals and They don’t miss to one being, why?
That’s the nature of how karma is stored and collected. It’s what an individual is,
is the continuation of karma. Okay. So they still have their identity. They’re still
thirty five Buddha confession and one thousand and one Buddhas and they’re
still separate beings, okay. So it is possible to turn weapon into flower. And it
will happen to you and the events that you find hurt you now, you know
somebody cheating you; somebody stealing your girl friend; somebody lying to
you; somebody screaming at you; all of these events will turn into some holy
thing happening to you that you really like and, and you’ll see them as a
completely different thing. And they are the same event, exactly but your
karma has changed and your projections have changed, okay. See you in about
five, ten minutes okay.
Two things – Tuesday nights class will be.. there’ll be some real class, it’s not just
a review class, okay. The first half will be two more very, very short lojongs that
I didn’t have the heart to leave out okay. These are….one is call the lojong that
was granted to Lord Atisha by two angels and told him, ‘You better get a good
heart’ and that’s the title of it. The other one is call ‘The lojong passed down
through {Sumpa Lotsawa}. {Sumpa Lotsawa} was a Tibetan who went to India
[cut]

Side B

[cut] to learn to translate the holy books into Tibetan. He spent years there and
in those days classes were an expensive proposition, you have to take a bag of
gold dust and offer it to the guru. And often times they would take out the dust
and just throw it in the air, signifying they don’t need it and they don’t want it.
But, but from the student’s side it was important to sacrifice something. So there
was this give and take thing. And he had a bag of gold when he got to India and
he spent is slowly; he gave it away to lamas and at the end he had a little bit left.
So he had enough money to go down to Bodhgaya and he went down to see the
stupa at Bodhgaya. And he still had some questions of…philosophical questions
that he didn’t get straightened out and he’s like wondering about what to do and
what it was and these two ladies showed up at the stupa and started walking
around. And some times taking a break and some times walking around. And
they start talking. Like these two old ladies gossiping you know. And then
suddenly he realizes that they are giving him a message you know. And you see
it’s that thing of his own goodness in studying with all those Indian masters is
making these two ordinary or are they ordinary women, seeing like somebody
special. And then slowly all this final answers are…questions are answered in
that moment of those ladies walking around. He just lifts over….he’s like eaves
dropping on these two ladies. And all his final questions are answered and he
goes back to Tibet happy. So this is the…these are two…we’re going to do two
very sweet little lojongs next…next on Tuesday because class eight was just a
zero because there will not be any class eight. There’s no class eight, okay. all
right. Oh the other thing is…last class I asked you, you know, if you would
help…if anybody wanted to help with Rinpoche’s…the scriptures that we
offered to Rinpoche. They cost exactly one thousand dollar. We already had the
money. I said if you wanted any good karma throw five, ten dollars. And we
steal some of Leon’s good karma. We collected nine hundred and eighty nine
dollars in about ten minutes and I threw in the other eleven with some my
friends because we wanted to catch some of the virtue and I want to thank you
for that. And Leon when we told him he was really….[laugh, laughter]. I told
him he could do the shipping or something. But anyway thank you very much.
It was beautiful. It was really beautiful offering. And he’s very, very happy.
He’s like a kid with some new toys and I’ve haven’t seen him like that for a long
time. It’s about the only thing that he would sit there all day like a kid with a
bunch of toys. So that was really, really beautiful. And thanks for leaving eleven
for me. Okay. All right. Poor Sykes haven’t had anything to do for awhile. You
want to read one you didn’t practice? Okay here we do. Do it slow.
Think now, everything we see
Is something that happens from something else.
Understanding that everything comes
From something else
Is to see that nothing exists by itself alone.
Things come,
Things go,
But nothing is what it seems,
Everything is an illusion
The face in a mirror
Is not face itself;
When you spin a burning stick
And see a solid crimson circle
It’s only as real as an image
Seen in a looking glass.

[laugh laughter]
So what’ he’s saying here…I mean we hear people say, ‘Oh Buddhism says
everything is illusion.’ Here he says, in here in the next verse he says, ‘Things
come, things go but nothing is what it seems. Everything is an illusion. The face
in a mirror is no face itself.’ That’s the idea that it looks…you know, a young
child or an animal when they see a face in a mirror they sometimes mistake it for
a real person. And, and that’s the idea of an illusion. Then he says there’s this
idea in Buddhism you take a brand meaning a torch and you go like this real fast
and it looks there’s one circle of light. It looks solid but it’s really just that the
arm is moving so fast that the illusion of solidity and that’s another example in
Buddhism for illusion. Later on he says, [not clear] are like that. You know they
look this huge thing coming into town and when they get there it’s around you
and you can’t see anything anymore and there’s no solidity to it. Okay he keeps
talking like that. But how he starts out the verse, okay. And the point is…the
text, the lojong here as we enter the past of it, the last few paragraphs it gets
very sexy. It gets really cool. You know he starts talking really mystical, you
know. Nothing exist; there’s no this; there’s no that; nothing matters. You can
practice. You can don’t practice. Don’t try to think too much, you can’t
understand anything. It’s all beyond. And then people get this kind of stuff you
know they forget the whole… they forget the first eighty pages about morality
and they grasp on that last line, you know. Nothing matter. Nothing is
anything. There’s no hero there. Everything is the same. Doesn’t matter
whether you practice or you don’t practice. Okay, and you must…because you
are going to be teachers of the next generation, I mean, in this group are sitting
ten or fifteen people or more who will have their own dharma centers. They will
be like that Sakya guy who started his own little dharma center which became
the biggest monastery of his time. There will be people like that in this room.
You have to be careful with these lines. I even hesitate to give them to you. You
know what I mean? You have to explain them clearly to people. okay. Don’t
forget what he said at the beginning. I don’t know if you noticed. Here’s the
first few lines before he got sexy, okay.

Think now, everything see
Is something that happens from something else.
Understanding that everything comes
From something else
Is to see that nothing exists by itself alone.

That he’s giving you the clue there. When I say nothing exist I mean nothing
exist that doesn’t come from something else. When I say there’s nothing to
practice, I mean there’s nothing practice that doesn’t come from something else.
When I say that monster doesn’t even exist, your enemy doesn’t exist and you
don’t exist and your world doesn’t exist and my book doesn’t exist, what I mean
is they don’t… they’re nothing that doesn’t come from something else. He’s
saying everything comes from something else. This is the Buddhist idea of
dependent origination. In the highest school it means everything is coming from
your mind. Your mind is projecting all these events. That’s the highest meaning
of dependent origination. That is the meaning of dependent origination. Your
boss is empty. Whether you see that boss as good or whether you see that boss
as mean, is only coming from one place and that’s your mind, okay. So that’s all.
On that basis he’s like an illusion. You might mistake and take him for really bad
but he’s not really bad any more than your face in the mirror is really your face,
or any more than that solid, the circle is solid, is not okay. That’s all he’s saying.
The homework’s going to say, ‘What reason does he use to say all things are an
illusion?’ and you have to say, ‘everything comes from something else’.
Meaning this whole world is a production of my projections forced on me by
past karma. That’s all okay, which boils down in the practical sense is nothing
happens to you all day long that you don’t like that you did not create yourself.
And if you don’t like start keeping your vows; start keeping your book. All the
people who come to me and tell me how miserable they are and how lousy their
practice is, I’m always saying, ‘How is your book going?’ ‘You see I don’t have
time to do that.’ I’m like, ‘Don’t come to me’ I get pissed off sometimes. I’m
like, ‘Don’t come to me anymore. I don’t want to hear about it you know. Keep
your book it will change.’ Keep your vows, things will change. Don’t come and
tell me ‘Oh I don’t feel so good. Things aren’t working.’ Why? I mean it boils
down to, ‘I’m not keeping my vows. I don’t even know what they are and I
don’t check them regularly.’ Of course you’ll be unhappy. Don’t come and
confess it to me, okay. okay. Next one. The question in the homework says,
Master Dharma Rakshita says of the enemy himself that, quote, he’s not there at
all. He seems to be real, so very real but nothing is real at all’ Does this mean
that our tendency to see things as self existent doesn’t exist at all? Okay. He says
that the enemy doesn’t exist; the enemy is your tendency to misunderstand
things. Of course it exist. How does it exist? Exactly the same way your boss.
Exactly the same as your boss. You created that ignorance also in the same way
you created your boss and everything else you don’t like in the world, okay.
You created your very ignorance. And you can change it. Ignorance…the
mental state of not understanding emptiness has its own emptiness, okay. The
mental state of not understanding emptiness has its own emptiness and that’s
why you can change it.
Then he says something else. It’s really beautiful. He says….let me read it to
you.
Sykes you want to do this one?
Start here and go to the next page.

Think of filling a water pitcher
With single drops of water,
The pitcher isn’t filled up
When the first drop drops.
Neither is it the last that fills it,
Nor any other of the drops alone.
It’s when the whole is done,
When things that come from others
Have come from the others,
That the pitcher is filled

It’s just the same whenever we experience
The results of our previous actions,
Whether it’s pleasure or pain.
It is not the first instant of the cause
That brings us the result,
Nor is it the last of one of the rest.
It’s when the whole is done,
When things that come from others
Have come from the others,
That we feel the pain or pleasure.
And so I beg you be careful;
Do those things that you should,
And give up those things you shouldn’t,
If only in a movie.
Okay the point is this. It’s a very obscure verse and I want you to understand it.
It’s a very beautiful verse, okay. It says if you took a big water pitcher and you
filled it up with water drop by drop, it’s not the first drop that fills the pitcher and
it’s not any of the in between drop and it’s even the last drop that fills the pitcher.
The pitcher is filled when all the drops have come together. Okay and this is the
idea when Arya Nagarjuna, Master Nagarjuna he says, look things are not their
parts; things are not sum of the parts; things are not both the parts and sum of
the parts; but things ain’t neither the parts nor sum of the parts either. Okay. I’ll
say it again. Things are not the parts. Things are not their parts – A. B – things
are not all the parts together. C – things are not both their parts and all the parts
together and D – things are neither…they are not either not the parts and not
the whole. All of those are impossible. All permutations are impossible, which
doesn’t make sense. One of them has to be true. And here Dharma Rakshita is
also saying you drop all the drop of drop into the pitcher but the pitcher is not
full by any one of the drop. It’s all the drops…it’s when all the drops are
together…then he says, your world is the same. When dependant origination is
completed then things exist and until that time they don’t. okay. What does it
mean? What’s the comparison? Why is…what does he mean when he’s talking
about drops of water in a pitcher and then he starts talking about your
perception… your projection. And this is very important. When Nagarjuna
says….by the is a thing sum of its parts? Of course it is okay. Is a car a tire? No.
Is a car both a tire and all the other parts together? I shouldn’t say it that way. Is
a car both the tire by itself A and also the sum of its parts? No.
Is it neither the tire alone nor all the parts altogether? No. Well what is it? It’s all
the parts together, dumb head. Get all the parts together, the car works, that is.
The car is sum of its parts. Why did Nagarjuna and everybody since him say, the
car is not the sum of its parts. Why is Dharma Rakshita saying when you put all
these parts into a glass of water it’s not until a certain fullness is reached can you
can it’s a pitcher of water and those drops are not filling the pitcher. Why is it
true that the sum of the parts is not the whole? Why is it true that the car is not
the sum of five thousand different parts correctly put together? With gas…and
insurance, okay. [laugh laughter] Why can he say that?
Student
GMR: no it’s not like that. It’s not like you can take the gas cap off it’s going
to….
Student
GMR: oh assuming it works. I’m assuming it works. The point is she says, one
thing is missing. One part is still missing. When you put those five thousand
parts together and you set them altogether properly assembled with gas and
insurance, okay, one part is still missing and that’s your perception of it as a
working car. And if that part is missing those….sum of those parts is not a
whole. You have to get that. Prove it. A guy some Alaska sixth century BC
who walks into your garage does not see a car, okay. That’s all. Until you think
of it as a car, until you know how to use it as a car, until your karma is forcing
you to know how to use it as a car, it’s not car. One part is still missing. Your
karma is not forcing to perceive it until you [not clear] as a car. That’s all. And
that’s what he means by the drops of water thing. Okay you got to cook it but
that’s a big help of you who got headache, Michael, from Jeffery Hopkins, big
book okay. ‘cause it wasn’t…you have to make sure that’s clear. Of course it’s
not true to say things are not sum of the parts. They’re the sum of the parts but
only after you have the karma to see them as a whole thing working. And until
then there’s…actually there’s still one part missing which is your karma forcing
you to see that way. Okay. That’s all. That’s the thing about the drop. Okay we
got number six, Dr Sykes.

There is no wheel of karma here at all.
Nothing is anything,
Nothing is this or that.
It looks like the moon itself
Is floating in your teacup.
The things we do, and their consequences,
Float by in the multitude
Of the things in the world around us.
I be you now be careful,
Do the things you should,
And give up the things you shouldn’t,
If only in a movie.

Okay so now we get to a pretty heavy line. We’re close to the end of the lojong,
okay and it’s nine twenty. I’ve got like nine minutes okay.
He says .there is no wheel of karma here at all’. There’s no wheel of knives.
‘Nothing is anything, nothing is this or that’ and then he talks about you look
into your teacup and you can see the moon. Okay. Is the moon in your teacup?
No. Why does it look like the moon is in your teacup? Ah, conditions are
complete, all right. Dependant origination has fulfilled itself. There’s a nice
smooth body of water, even if it’s a tiny one but it’s not moving. It’s still and
there’s a nice big autumn moon up there and the angle of refraction is right and
you see a reflection in the teacup. Is there a moon in the teacup? No. Does
there appear to be a moon in the teacup? Yes. Okay. And he says, ‘Your whole
world is the same as the moon in the teacup and you keep going around
thinking that’s a real moon.’ You think your boss is bad from his side and you
get angry at him which makes you see another bad boss about two weeks later.
Don’t you get it yet? Okay. Just stop it, all right. That’s the whole thing, he says,
you’re chasing…you’re trying to put a lunar lander in your teacup you know,
forget it. The boss is not coming from his side. It’s you…every bad person you
eve meet is you. So just stop it, okay. Every time somebody hurts you, it’s you.
It’s the wheel of knives. Just stop it, okay. Okay. Then he says something very
heavy. He says…and by the way, he says this over and over again. Towards
the end of the text he starts to get into another mood. It’s like the monster is
started to calm down a little bit, you know, like the hair is starting…it’s like wolf
man coming back, okay. And he says, ‘I beg you now be careful. Do the things
you should and give up the things you shouldn’t, if only in a movie.’ Somebody
asked me where there movies in eleven hundred AD? I said, not really okay.
He said something like…a false play, you see what I mean? And what he’s
saying is that… the whole idea about the moon in the teacup prove one thing,
YOU have to keep your vow and you have to never break your vow, okay. It’s
very beautiful.       Normally you hear people explaining it wrong.           Totally
poisonous wrong. Because things are empty you can do whatever hell you
want. Total poison, okay.         Because things are an illusion you MUST do good
deeds. Why? They create the illusion. And the illusion can hurt you bad, okay.
When your foot breaks; when you arm breaks; when you pull your back our
joint it’s an illusion but it hurts and it’s no fun. And if you don’t want just to go
on anymore you have to stop and keep your vows and you have to do it every
two hours and you have to check them okay, every two hours and you have to
write something specific and don’t say, ‘Oh I’m not such a good person’ or
something like that. Okay. No at 3.05 today when I saw this person with that
person I was unhappy for two minutes. It’s gotta to be something like that,
okay That ‘s why he says, ‘If only in a movie.’ Right. You have to be good; you
have to be not be bad even though you’re dealing with illusion. Even though
you’re in a world of illusion you have to be good and bad. I mean Je Tsongkapa
would have said, because you’re in a movie you have to be good, okay? Not if
only, all right? Je Tsongkapa was lot tougher on this point. He would say,
‘Because the world around you is the Truman Show you must be moral.’
Because everything around you is totally illusory now it’s time to keep your
vows, okay. And you have to teach it that way.
Okay last thing….Sykes, number seven. This is the last verse. I expect a good
round of applause of Dr Sykes.

Neither the things that the mind perceives
Nor the mind itself
Have any real nature of their own.
There is nothing you should practice,
There is nothing you should give up.
Strip everything of your perceptions.
Leave your mind as it came
From the beginning that never was.
Don’t’ confuse things by trying to understand them.
Live in the place called as-it-is,
And then you will become
A high and holy being.

[long loud applause]

Okay last verse. Perfect verse for creating a non-dharma, okay. Perfect verse
for confusing generation after generation of future Buddhists, okay. Forget all
the fifteen courses of nice, strict Buddhism you had and go around teaching this
verse, it’s much easier okay. Neither the things that the mind perceives nor the
mind itself have any real nature of their own. Theirs is noting you should
practice, there is nothing you should give up.          Strip everything of your
perception. Leave your mind as it came from the beginning that never was.
Don’t confuse things by trying to understand them. live in the pace called as-it-
is, and then you will become a high and holy being. I means, those very, very
dangerous lines. Okay and they have…I think they have misled many people in
the past. Seems like they have misled many people in the past. And you last
homework question is, explain those lines, all right. ‘There’s nothing you should
practice’ means what? Come on it’s always the same trick. [laughter]
student
GMR: no too easy. ‘There’s nothing you should practice that comes from its own
side’ okay. There’s no dharma that exist in the universe that’s not being created
by you. I keep talking about your boss but you also created His Holiness the
Dalai Lama. Thank you. If His Holiness is in this world and Khen Rinpoche is
still here it’s because you’re good enough for them to be here because you’re
creating them. You know thank you for that. okay. That’s all. ‘There’s nothing
you should practice’ means you would never meet the dharma, you would
never hear about the Quaker House, they wouldn’t be any classes in New York
city if your mind didn’t have an extraordinary amount of virtue in it. You’re
creating these classes and that’s really cool. That’s what the line means okay.
‘Strip everything of your perceptions’ means try to understand is your
projection, okay. Try to understand the world that your own karma is playing
all around you all the time. Everything you like, everything you don’t like it’s
coming from your karma, okay. ‘Leave your mind as it came from the
beginning that never was’. Oh yeah? My mind happens to be a very unpleasant
place to live at time, okay. I don’t want to leave it like it was from the beginning,
okay. What he means is something is Buddhism call the primordial state and
some schools of Buddhism teach that your mind has been pure from the
beginning but you just can’t see it. That’s not true at all. Your mind is not pure
at all. If you think it is….you know…come visit my mind for awhile, you know
what I mean? [laugh]           It’s really not and you know that. It makes you
miserable. It makes you depress. It makes you want things that you can’t have.
It makes you dissatisfied the minute you get what you did want. The mind is no
happy place to be and it has been that way forever. From no beginning it has
been like that. What this verse means is learn to recognize the emptiness of your
mind which is pure and has been pure from the beginning. The fact that your
own mind is also your projection is what give you hope to become a Buddha,
you see? If your mind is not your own projection you’ll be stuck with it forever.
But because your mind is your projection and that’s the case forever, now there’s
hope that you can turn it into an enlightened being’s mind, okay. The emptiness
of your mind which is what we call the Buddha nature of you, the emptiness of
your mind, it gives the…hope, it gives the possibility that you can become a
Buddha, okay. That’s all. That’s what that line mean. “Live in the place called as-
it-is’ okay “Live in the place called as-it-is’, as-it-is means the real nature of things,
okay which is that they are a collaboration of karma and emptiness, okay.
Never forget those two.          I sometimes call it the marriage of karma and
emptiness. Very sweet when two things get married forever. Karma and
emptiness. Your boss is empty of any quality of being good or bad. Your
karma is forcing you to see him one way or the other, okay. And that’s all.
That’s the meaning of those lines. And you have to explain them correctly or else
some pure guy will get of these lines and swear for ten or twenty years that he
doesn’t have to practice anything. I have met many ruined people who got
these teachings, fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, you know. I have one
calling me as we speak he’s in jail, you know, his lama said, ‘Oh everything is
empty. Do what you like you know.’ And he’s in jail for charges for something
like six years for some kind of bad behavior you know. And it’s not like that.
It’s really bad to give that to people and not explain it properly. Because
everything is an illusion, you must keep you vows. Okay. That’s what is really
means. That’s about it….let me see. That’s how he ends the lojong. He ends it
on emptiness. He ends it on the teaching on emptiness. Then he gives a little bit
of the lineage. The person who wrote it down we don’t know who he is gives
you a little bit of lineage. So at the end you’ll see who passed it down to whom
throughout the years. Just about every great Lama is in there. Okay. So that’s
the end of that lojong. Please keep it in your mind. And you have to be like that
okay. First half of the lojong of the wheel of knives is waking up and realizing
that everything is coming from you. And the second half you know, get pissed
off and go…cut him up a little bit. Who? Your own self-cherishing and your
own misunderstanding of emptiness, okay. Go…go beat him. Go smash his
face. Go cut him a little bit with the wheel of karma, right? And that’s very
powerful. Sometimes when you have a …this is a trick okay, when you have a
very bad emotion, you get very…of anger or depress or you have some kind of
jealousy going in your mind, do a U-dance, you know what I mean? Like it’s
really good. You visualize yourself as this being who could reap out this guy’s
heart with his hand you know and you just like get two feet taller and a foot
wider and you just try to get into the mode of this being who could just stand
there and reap this guy’s heart out, okay. And it’s very beautiful. Sometimes
the right thing to do when you have a mental affliction is to be calm and peaceful
and sometimes you should get into a like a wrathful mode, like, I’m going to
take my own selfishness and reap his heart out. And then just enjoy it and you
just turn into this powerful being and it’s very, very beautiful. It really works
okay. Some times…especially when things are confusing, you know. When a
mental affliction is making you confuse and making you like… I don’t know
how to say… like you’re not quite sure what to do or something like that. Then
change mode into this monster and just reap his face out, all right. Okay. Nice
sweet thing.
[Prayer: short mandala]
[Prayer: dedication]
Transcription by    RitaMiles