ACI 14 «Лоджонг: развитие доброго сердца», занятие 11

Geshe Michael Roach
Course XIV: Lojong, Developing the Good Heart
Class Eleven: Course Review [tape 10]
July 9, 1998

Transcribed by Angie Overy

Tonight we’re going to be very busy.
We have a…we have a little piece left over from the Freedom from the Four
Attachments, {b: shenpa shi drel lojong} – question no. 5 - that never got
answered, could show up on your final, you never know. We never went over it
so we have to do that. Secondly, there are two very, very sweet lojongs, which
I really want you to hear. They’re only a few pages long and we’ll go over
those.     Then we’ll have a short break and then we’ll go over the final
examination, okay. Before I forget I wanted to… say one thing: two of our
venerables are leaving on retreat. One of them is leaving at about 8.15 or
something; one is leaving tomorrow morning. They’re going back to their
home country and I just wanted to give them our prayers that they bless that
place which was blessed already when they were born there and wish them
good luck and I hope you pray for them and I will too. [laughs] Okay. When we
did the four…when the {b: Freedom from the Four Attachments}, there was one
point that we didn’t get to because we didn’t have time, okay. If you remember,
the four attachments … by the way, this text by? We read a commentary by
Drakpa Gyeltsen, greatest tantrika Tibet has produced. And this is…these are
some comments on it by his nephew, who was who? Sakya Pandita, okay. Very
famous Tibetan lama. Brought Buddhism to the Mongols who brought it to
Howell, who brought it to you.
1) Anyone attached to this life is no dharma practitioner.
2) Anyone attached to the three realms, has no renunciation.
3) Anyone attached to their own needs alone, is no bodhisattva.
4) And if you grasp to things as self-existent, you have no world view.
Those were the four attachments, okay. That’s how Sachen, which is the person
from whom this started, the first of the great Sakya forefathers, that’s how he
stated it. Or was it him? Who wrote this thing? Manjushri, right. Manjushri
appears to this teenage, was it twelve or thirteen? I don’t remember. Twelve
years old say. And says these four things to the Sachen, Kunga Nyingpo, the
first great … Kunga Nyingpo? Yeah. The first of the great Sakyas, okay. Now,
how did the Sakya Pandita describe these? He kind of does it like this: he has a
metaphor, he has an antidote and then he has a result for each of the four. For
the first one the metaphor is ‘this life is like a bubble’, meaning it can end in a
second. And you’ve had some things… I don’t know, you had like that in your
life. Most people. Like you were very healthy, strong, whatever, and then
something happened and five minutes later, you were smashed, or sick, like if
you’ve been in a car accident, the difference between before the accident and
after the accident, you know, it happens in a few seconds and then it’s years
getting over it, years getting better. Or you know people who have been in
similar accidents and before that they were healthy and strong, sometimes even
like arrogant, and then the accident happens. And then after that they’re always
like, weak and never quite well and never quite themselves again. And that
happens with relationships and everything else in a few minutes. It’s your karma
shifting in your own mind. So when the Sakya Pandita says, ‘this life is like a
bubble’, that’s what he’s talking about. Okay, your karma can shift in a few
seconds and you’ll never be the same after that. So you have to use the health
and the opportunities that you have, now. Then the accident happens and you
have this lingering problems for years and…and you always wish that you’d
done what you wanted to do before that. Okay? Like that. Antidote: meditate
on death. And really, I think for me, the best way is to think about how things
can change very suddenly, okay. Whatever karma can get you in a car accident,
that same karma can kill you in a few minutes and I think it’s important to… for
me, it’s better if I don’t think self-existently about things. Like, if try to think of
myself getting into a car accident and then after that I might not be able to do
anything. I might hurt my back, I might be dead, whatever, but I won’t be able
to practice after that. That’s sort of abstract and difficult for me to imagine. But
if I remember my emptiness, if I remember karma, and if I think about the fact
that my karma can shift in a few seconds, into anything, then I…I get more
serious about my Dharma practice. I know that everything in front of me could
shift in a few seconds. Don’t believe that the one million monks and nuns in
Tibet didn’t think that Tibet would go on forever. They all thought that.
Rinpoche describes the last hours of Sera monastery, it’s very scary you know.
Everybody thought everything would be okay. And they knew the Chinese
were doing something, and they saw planes flying in, they saw army doing
something, and they saw…they even saw artillery pieces being rolled up around
the mountains around Sera monastery. And nobody knew…they all thought
things would go on okay. No one was very nervous, and no one was getting
ready. And you know a few monks were saying, should we run?                        And
everybody was saying, don’t worry, nothing will happen, you know. And then
their whole Dharma country collapsed in a day. You know, Sera monastery was
shelled mercilessly, flattened, most of the monastery. The people who got out …
Rinpoche was shelled. He was knocked down several times by the concussions;
he was running for his life. And nobody thought there’d be a problem. They
reached the mountain, the hill next to Sera and they’re watching the monastery
get blown apart. And still they had this big meeting of all the monks who were
still alive, and they said, you know, should we run to India or should we stay.
And they had this big argument and most of them stayed. And then were put in
prison or forced to disrobe, or tortured for years. And everybody thought it
couldn’t happen; this is Tibet, this is Dharma country, things like that can’t
happen, you know. And if it can happen to them, to one million monks and
nuns who are practicing all day long, it can happen to us, you know. Something
weird can happen here in a few seconds. And your life can change in a few
minutes, and don’t think that it can’t happen to you. Don’t be like those … don’t
be naïve. You know of course it can happen to you, okay. What’s the result? If
you’re able to meditate on death, he says your practice of Dharma becomes
Dharma. And we saw it in, you know the meaning of the first attachment isn’t
really just being attached to worldly things. We talked about it over and over
again. He did not describe it… Drakpa Gyelten…Jetsun Drakpa Gyeltsen did not
describe it in terms of don’t be attached to your family, don’t be attached to
milkshakes, don’t be attached to your friends, don’t be attached to movies and
music. He didn’t say anything like that. He said, don’t be attached to low
priority dharma practice, you know. He’s saying make sure your Dharma
practice is pure; make sure you’re not doing it for the wrong reasons, you know.
He’s talking to people who are already doing Dharma practice and already doing
a pretty good Dharma practice. And he’s saying don’t get attached to the lower
forms of this Dharma practice. Constantly push your self up and risk your
whole life, risk everything to keep going up in the chain of priorities. Keep
confronting yourself with the … every moment that you have to die soon. So as
soon as you’ve reached one level of Dharma practice start looking up to the next
one and keep going even if it risks everything that you have because you don’t
have anything else, you know. Even if you have to put your whole…everything
your life is built around at risk, take it easily, take it… take it happily and go up
to the next level. And in a way you never…this is true in corporate life. I
watched in a corporation. I worked in a corporation for fifteen years. The
people who tried to hold onto their position, the people who tried to defend or
protect their position, either they quit or got fired. It seems every time there
was a lay-off they went for those people first. Some kind of karma you know.
Or else, they got their wish, which was they got stuck in that position forever,
for ten or fifteen years they kept doing the same position for the same money,
you know. And then the people who were willing to take a risk, the people who
were willing to take some weird assignment that meant their own position
would be at risk, you know, like train this other person in your position and now
go and do this weird thing that no body wants to do. And the people who were
willing to jump and take the chance kept moving up in the corporation. You
know they were willing to look, okay I got this position now and I’m willing to
teach another person to do my job and loosen myself up and be at risk and
maybe have nothing. But then those people always seemed to go up again, you
see what I mean, because they were available for the next thing up. And you
have to be the same in your Dharma practice. Every time you get good at some
kind of practice, whatever your level of practice is, keep looking at your death
and keep comparing it against your death and keep being willing to give up the
lower, you know, even the less virtuous things and go for the more virtuous
things. And never be satisfied until you have reached the highest practices, like
that. Okay, keep trading off. That’s what he means if you are judging your
practice against your death and if you are risking your whole life. Then your
dharma becomes real Dharma. Up to that point it becomes some kind of
worldly thing.      Up until that point, even your Dharma practice becomes
something worldly because you’re using it as a…as a reason to be in this world
and to stay in this world with some kind of comfort level, okay. So as soon as
you’re ready, you have to trade that off for something more, okay. Keep going
for higher virtues. We call it {namdong}. Say {namdong} [repeat], {namdong}
[repeat]. You have a choice between two virtues, you can’t do both, so you’ve
got to go for the higher one. You have to keep perceiving your Dharma practice
that way. You always have the choice of going up and…and you have to make
the right choice, when you’re ready, okay not before you’re ready, all right.
Okay number two.
This…the metaphor here is ‘eating poison by accident’. And that was attachment
to the three realms and we…you remember he said it’s not like attachment … I
mean, you guys don’t have a problem of being attached to the form realm.
You’ve never seen the form realm. You don’t even know if it really exists, okay.
You’re sitting in the desire realm, in the lowest realm. You don’t now if the
formless realm exists, okay. So it’s not like you’re dying of attachment for these
two realms, which you’ve never seen before, and you don’t know if they even
exist. That’s not the point. Remember this was attachment to the world - view
of your realm. This is attachment to your world-view, to the New York Times’
world-view. To the idea that the things that the New York Times reports are
important and that that’s how you should judge the importance of what you do.
You know, should you judge yourself against the important people who are
reported on in the New York Times?              Is that what…is that some thing
important? Is it important to be successful in the way that the New York Times
reports success, because most people are after that. That’s attachment to the
three realms. You’ll never get out of it if that continues to be your gauge of
what’s an important thing or who’s an important person. And that’s so
prevalent that it’s very hard to overcome it, you know. Nobody’s going to grab
you after class and say can I take your picture for the New York Times, you’ve
finished the lojong class. You’re like one of only a hundred people in New York
City who has finished the lojong class. No one’s going to grab you and
interview you and take your photo and plaster it on the front page of the New
York Times. That proves that their world-view is mistaken. And can you
overcome that? Can you overcome that incessant brainwashing that your
culture tells you this is what’s important, these are the important people, these
are the movers and shakers, you know these are the celebrities, or can you
overcome that? Until you…until you change world-views, you still have an
attachment to this life, and it’s like eating poison, okay. He says, tastes good in
the short-run, kills you in the long run. And we talked about it the other night.
If you succeed in the New York Times’ version of success, the final, the ultimate
goal, the ultimate mark of your success, is that you get to be in the New York
Times’ obituary, okay. It’s like if you’re important enough, when you get
married they put you in the New York Times’ marriage section, who’s engaged
to who, right, and if you’re important enough they report on you throughout
your life. And if you’re really important, you can push all the other people off
the obituary page. I don’t know if Roy Rogers got any time or not on the
obituary, probably half a column or something. But, but that’s the…that’s all
that that gets you. It’s like eating poison. That’s what he’s talking about here. It
feels good to be in the New York Times, until the day they write your obituary.
[laughs] And then it’s not such an excitement to be in the New York Times. And
that’s all you’ll get. That’s the ultimate goal of being… that’s all you’ll ever get
from being in the New York Times. And then slowly your name will slide into
obscurity. Very gradually, very certainly, your name will be forgotten. And
you’ll be forgotten completely. All of that stuff will mean nothing. Like eating
poison. Okay. The antidote is to think of the problems of this vicious circle.
Nowadays, I’m into translating samsara as vicious circle. I like the connotation.
It’s exactly what samsara means. The word samsara, {korwa}, means circle. And
to me, I don’t know about you, but in English the expression ‘vicious circle’
means like a self-perpetuating circle. Like somebody gets a little bit depressed,
they take some kind of drugs, then the drugs wear off and they get more
depressed, so they have to take more drugs and then they wear off and they get
even more depressed so they have to take more drugs and this idea of a self-
perpetuating vicious circle or vicious cycle, is exactly samsara. You know every
time somebody does something bad to you, you react negatively, that creates
more people to do something bad to you so you can react negatively again, so
you can create more people and there’s this vicious cycle thing. And if you
don’t…the antidote for attachment… to your world-view is to think of what a
vicious cycle it is. Vicious cycle. If you get famous in New York Times’ terms, if
you start to make a salary that New York Times would notice, if you start to do
worldly things big enough that the New York Times reports on you, then you
get thrown into this vicious cycle. It’s like being a rock ’n roll star. And then
you’re under pressure to keep producing. You can’t stop. The next thing has to
be bigger; the next thing has to be more amazing. The salary has to get more or
else you’re ‘washed up’. It’s like Madonna. What can Madonna do now, I don’t
know? You know, it’s like washed up. You have to produce more and more and
more or you’re not worth anything. So if that’s how you value your life in terms
of money or position or something like that, you can’t keep up with that vicious
circle. You can’t. Sooner or later you’ll be a failure because you can’t keep it up.
It’s impossible, okay. So think about that. Consider it. All the things that the
world tells you are worthwhile are really just some kind of vicious cycle. Every
time you get a little of them all you can do is try to get more or else you’re a
failure, okay. They will wear out. Those things wear out. And then all that’s left
is the struggle to get some more. And then sooner or later you’re too tired to do
more and then you’re a failure, okay. What happens if you get the antidote?
You …if you get the antidote, which is to think of the problems of this vicious
cycle, I guess it’s called, vicious cycle right? Or circle? Cycle? Circle, okay. If
you get that pro…if you think about it, then your Dharma practice will become a
path because then, really, if you reject the New York Times’ world-view, you’re
left with just about nothing. I mean, it’s like Russia. I went to Russia right after
communism collapsed and people were walking around kind of dazed. And
there was no law. You know everyone was killing people. For fifty dollars you
could kill anybody. And it was really weird because there was no law left on…
there was no communist morality left and there was no religious or government
morality left. And it was just… whoever could pay the most to kill somebody
could kill somebody. I met all kinds of business men who got all their stuff
stolen from them because there was no one to stop it. And there was no world-
view to stop it. So you’re going to be left with this vacuum in your world-view.
If the New York Times’ world-view is wrong about what’s important, then
what’s important? And then you leave yourself open by giving up that world-
view and being able to live in that vacuum for a while, having the courage to live
in that vacuum for a while. And then you start to build up a new world-view;
which is the Buddhist world-view. You know that compassion for other people is
something valuable. That trying not to die is something important to do. That
trying to reach paradise is something important to do and possible to do. And
that you’ll be judged, ultimately, in how successful you were in doing that. You
know, can you succeed in being happy which is much more difficult than being
wealthy? Can you succeed in not dying? And can you succeed in reaching a
tantric paradise in this life? I mean, that’s how we’re going to judge your career,
okay. And that’s a new world-view. Then if you start thinking in those terms,
all the Dharma practice you do starts to take you there. And none of the Dharma
practice you do is just samsara … Dharma, if it’s some kind of…what do you call
that?    Accessory, to your normal life. You see most western Buddhists are
thinking of their career and their family life as their primary thing and then their
Dharma life as an accessory. It’s something meant to enhance or augment their
worldly life. And you have to reverse that. You know the Dharma life, even if
you do it in an office or even if you do it in a family… in a family setting, which is
fine, which is okay, has to be primary. The Dharma life is primary and then the
career, the work career and the family career become secondary, becomes an
accessory to the real life that you have, which is your Dharma life. I’m not
saying that you shouldn’t have a family and I’m not saying that you shouldn’t
have a worldly career but what I’m saying is that those should become Dharma
practice for you, okay, like that. Then… then whatever you do becomes a path.
But only if the primary reason for your existence is to learn not to die and to
learn to be totally happy forever and to reach a tantric paradise in this life. That
has to be the primary theme of your whole life, of your whole life okay. Then
your life becomes the path. And it’s not just something you do for an hour or
two in the evening when you have time, you know, Dharma. okay. We’re up to
the third attachment; which is attachment to what you want or your own goals.
The metaphor here is ‘killing the son of a very powerful enemy’, okay [laughs]
Remember, the Sakya Pandita was the greatest political leader of his time and he
subdued the Mongols. He converted the Mongols. It was a very popular
Mongol activity to go and murder all the tribes living next door. Genghis Khan’s
father was killed this way. Genghis Khan was hardened by living in the
mountains and hiding from the people who had killed his father when he was
only a very young boy. And that’s why he became such a clever leader. So he’s
talking to an audience of people who would very often kill their enemy’s son.
Why is it a dangerous metaphor? It’s a metaphor for great potential future
danger. This person is going to get back at you. Every thing looks good; you
hate this guy and you finish off his…one of his relatives and you feel some kind
of satisfaction about it. But it’s a very stupid kind of satisfaction because the guy
is still very powerful and that was his closest relative and he will come out after
you. That’s the metaphor for the third attachment. The third attachment,
remember, was being attached to what you want or to the things that you need,
okay. In the short run if, you spend your life trying to watch out or number
one, trying to satisfy what you want and ignoring what other people want, it
seems to give you some satisfaction like arranging the murder of a very close
relative of a very powerful enemy. In the short term it seems like.. it somehow
it fulfils you, but in the long run the consequences are very, very dangerous and
very serious. It will come back to hurt you very badly. That attitude of
watching out for what you want will kill you, okay. Definitely, if you have that
attitude in any kind of strong way, you will never reach a tantric paradise in this
life. You will die. It will kill you literally, okay. The thoughts called bodhichitta,
the thought of reaching enlightenment for other people, is a requirement, if you
are to succeed in the highest tantric practices. They actually have a physical effect
on your spiritual body, on your inner body. It’s in that body that you’re going
to turn into an enlightened being. That body has to be…that body has to reach a
certain kind of condition for you to turn into an enlightened being, okay. The
inner body has to change and there are certain attitudes that must be in your
mind or that body cannot change. And one of the attitudes is thinking about
other people and committing your entire life to helping other people. You will
have to do that, sooner or later, if you hope to reach a tantric paradise in this life.
You cannot reach it physically; it can never happen that you will turn into an
enlightened being’s body if you don’t…if you don’t get this point of dedicating
your whole life to other people. It’ll never happen. Cannot happen. Physically
cannot happen. And so although in the short term it may seem more satisfying
to pay attention to your own needs, in the long run it will literally kill you, okay.
It will be one of the causes that kills your body in this life if you don’t change; if
you don’t change it now. Antidote. Antidote is bodhichitta or the wish for
enlightenment. Basically, it’s reaching a place where you dedicate every single
action that you ever do again in your life to helping other people. And it’s just a
total surrender of your life, of the rest of your life, to helping other people, either
in little ways or big ways, okay. Ultimately, it will be helping them with
Dharma, but it…it’s not…it’s restricted to that. It’s helping other people, any
kind of resource you have, anything you can give to others, you’re constantly …
every waking moment is dedicated to taking care of other people. And if you
get that attitude, even a little bit, you will start to want to give them the
knowledge that protects them from dying, you see what I mean. Sooner or later
you’ll come up with that, okay. If you start dedicating your life, every waking
moment of your life, to the outflow of your energy and resources to helping
other people, then sooner or later, you have to come across the concept that the
best thing that you can do for them is to teach them how not to die. And to
teach them how to reach a paradise, a Buddha… a Buddha paradise, in this life.
And that…that’s the gift of the Dharma, okay. What happens? What’s the
result? The result is that you are able to remove the first great mistake of the
path. What is the first great mistake of the path? There are two by the way,
okay. The second one’s coming later. First great mistake of the path, the way
you can ruin your practice of the Dharma, is just…is what I just talked about. If
you don’t get it, and if you continue to dedicate your life to your own needs, if
you continue to focus on your needs, and don’t get it and don’t reach that place
where you are constantly pouring out all your energy for other people, then
you’ll die. It’ll kill you. And that’s a big mistake of the path. You have made a
major error in Buddhism, in your Buddhist practice, you have made a big…
you’ve made fatal mistake. You can call it a fatal error. Literally a fatal error and
it will kill you, okay. You don’t have any choice. Sooner or later before you die
if you hope to reach real religious goals, real spiritual goals, you must start
giving to other people and you must start concentrating your efforts on what
other people need, okay. You must. And if you don’t, then you’ve made the
first big mistake in Buddhist practice and you’ll never get over that mistake. It
will kill you. When will you get another chance to make up for this mistake?
According to Buddhism, it is so rare, you can say never. {hlen chik nyer pay
delwa jor du di}means, this is the one and only chance you’ll have. {hlen chig}
means it’s so rare to get this chance that the odds against it are so high you can
say never. Technically, you can’t say, never, okay, but Je Tsongkapa says you
might as well call it never. The opportunity you have now is irreplaceable, okay.
Okay, forth one. The fourth attachment, if you remember, was, he doesn’t state
it like the other ones. He doesn’t say, if you’re attached to blah, blah, blah, you
don’t get blah, blah, blah. He doesn’t say that. He says, if you start to grasp to
things as being self-existent, then you have no world-view. You have a bad
world-view. You don’t have a good world-view, okay. The metaphor here is
‘grasping to a mirage as drinking water’. This is…I don’t know…Americans have
never really been thirsty enough to appreciate this one. If you’ve ever been lost
in the dessert, which I have, and then in the summer, water becomes incredibly
valuable. I mean not to have water, to know you could die without water in the
next few hours or so, I don’t think most Americans have ever experienced it.
But, but the point here is, if you could imagine it, is to be in a dessert, to be out of
water and to think that you see water. And to start….you go crazy, you start
running. If you run, you’re going to run out of what ever water’s in your body
already. [laughs] I mean the running will kill you. And this is this metaphor of a
person in the dessert out of water, and it feels really bad. I mean, when it
happened to me I crawled under a bush, like one of the only bushes, I just
crawled under there and stayed there for a few hours with all these lizards and
rats and snakes and stuff just to get out of the sun for a few hours you know. I
just stayed there. And there’s not much you can do. You’re just waiting. Maybe
some one will show up with some water, you know. And this is this cool
metaphor for you think you see some water, like a couple of hundred yards
away, and you start running. And then you reach there and there’s nothing
there. And the running kills you. You get exhausted, you get … where I was, a
lady died that week who was out for a walk, you know, just got caught up in the
dessert. And, and it will kill you if you run out after those mirages. It’s this
image of running for something that’s not there and it’s killing you. Okay.
The antidote. The antidote is not to hold to the two extremes, okay. By the way,
Madhyamika, Middle Way, means weaving, threading your way through two
extreme positions. Here’s one extreme position and here’s another extreme
position. Middle Way or Madhyamika emptiness means threading your way
down the middle. Like that. When you drive a car, you’re doing a Madhyamika.
If you watch a person driving, they’re constantly doing like this. And
Madhyamika means correcting like that. You start to get toward one extreme,
and you start to go off the road to the left, and then you shift back. When you
see a person drive a car they never hold their hands still. It’s always a constant
correcting process. And keeping your mind, {dzin tsam} it’s called, between two
difficult extremes, keeping your mind so delicately on that understanding
between the two extremes, is very difficult. And it requires constant correction,
like that. One extreme is called {yu ta} the extreme of thinking that the things
around you exist the way they seem, okay. That’s extreme number one. That’s
one extreme that will kill you, okay. To think that the things around you are
what they seem, okay. What’s really causing all the good things in your life and
what’s really causing all the bad things in your life has pretty much nothing to do
with all the activities you’re running around trying to do nowadays, okay. If
you’re successful in business it has nothing to do with your intelligence or the
accuracy of your planning or your budgets or anything like that. It is only a
result of your generosity in the past. That’s why you see stupid businessmen
succeed and why you see intelligent businessmen succeed and why you see
stupid businessmen fail and why you see intelligent businessmen fail. All four
possibilities. Why?         Because it’s not coming from that; okay, it’s totally
independent of that. It’s coming from generosity that you did in the past to
other people, okay. And the appearance that anything else is going on … by the
way, when you’re successful, which I have been in business, you really want to
take credit for it, you know. You feel this great urge to say, those stupid
competitors, they don’t get it, this strategy thing that we figured out. And you
like, feel really good about it and you feel really smart. Then your company
starts to struggle you know, and they’re saying the same thing about you. And
you start to think, oh my strategy’s not so good or my budget’s not so good,
maybe we should do this or maybe we should do that. You have big meetings
for hours and hours. You argue all night about it, has nothing to do with any of
that. Okay, whether or not you succeed in business is totally up to your
generosity toward others okay. It’s coming from there. To think that it’s
coming from anything else is called {yu ta}. To think that the way it appears is
real, is wrong. It’s not real. Things aren’t coming from your business decisions at
all, okay. That’s not real. That’s one extreme to think like that. And the other
extreme is to think, well if that’s not the case, then I can just do anything I want,
you know. Then it doesn’t matter what I do. I shouldn’t do anything. Morality
doesn’t mean anything. Morality doesn’t mean anything. Bodhisattva vows
don’t mean anything. Secret vows don’t do anything. I can do what I want.
Nothing matters. Everything’s an illusion. Somebody teaches you, hey,
everything you thought was true was wrong; it’s all an illusion.
Then there’s this reaction among an untrained person. Untrained people have
this reaction like, well then nothing matters, I can do whatever I want. It’s all an
illusion. I can steal, I can do anything, I can say anything I want. That’s another
extreme. By the way, what percentage of the population falls into the first
extreme? It’s about a hundred, okay. [laughs] [laughter] It’s very close to a
hundred. A few students at ACI, okay having a slightly different world-view.
Maybe a few people around the country who’ve had a lot of Buddhist training,
breaking slightly out of that world-view, okay. So the first extreme, called the
{yu ta}, the belief that everything you think is going on is really going on, and
that your business decisions matter much, is one extreme and almost everybody
has that. And then, on the other extreme, people who heard about emptiness
and now believe that nothing matters anymore. How many…what percentage
of the population? What percentage of the population? Very few. Extremely
few, okay. It’s a very nasty, dirty, filthy, crazy, terrible extreme to be in. But
you can’t get there unless somebody teaches you emptiness the wrong way,
okay. You can’t really fall into that extreme unless somebody explains emptiness
to you or the illusion to you in a wrong way, okay. So really, in America,
especially since the Dharma hasn’t got here, we don’t have a lot of false Dharma
either. We don’t have much Dharma anyway, okay, false or true. So the people
that can be misled by a bad teacher into thinking they can do anything they want
because things are empty and that tantra means you can have any dirty…you
can do any dirty thing you want because nothing matters, because everything’s
empty, people teaching that are very few. And the people believing that
hopefully are very few. And those are the people in the other extreme. So those
are the two extremes. The antidote is not to hold to those two extremes, okay.
The result is this thing called Buddhahood. If I get up here and say to you … I
mean business is close to my heart because I did it for so many years. If I get up
here and say to you, look success in business depends almost nothing on your
decisions, on your strategic decisions, it doesn’t depend on your budgets, it
doesn’t depend on your product or your marketing or your merchandising, or
your delivery methods, or your facility, or the training of your employees, or
anything else. It has nothing to do with those things. It depends only and solely
and totally on your own generosity in the past, okay. I mean if…if you believed
what I said and if you went out and tried to just be generous, then, then you
would succeed in business. You would get…you would have less and less
financial problems. You would start to get more and more money of all different
kinds. Money would come to you by very strange means. Uncle Schmoe has
died, who you never met, please sign this paper and send it back to us and we’ll
send you $10,000, okay. Stuff like that. You know, you start getting letters in the
mail, or stuff like that. If you just keep giving, okay. Then, then what would be
the ultimate result of this world-view? If you kept up this world-view long
enough, you would have to get enlightened. You would have to become a
tantric deity. You would have to enter a Buddha paradise in this lifetime. Once
you get it, that the world is really run by virtue and non-virtue, you know, once
you get it, then it’s easy to get enlightened, you know. Then you probably can’t
avoid becoming a Buddha in this life. Once you really get correct world-view,
once your world-view is pure, once you believe what I just said about business,
you’d…you’ll be forced into success by the laws of karma. And that’s really cool.
And you can do it. That’s the last,,, I have to say on the Four Attachments. All
right. You can do it. Okay, we’ll do two short lojongs, then we’ll take a break.
I’m just going to read them to you if you don’t mind, okay. It’s like a blessing.
It’s a blessing for me to hear myself say it and I thank you for that, okay. These
are very short. One of them is one page long, one of them is a half page long. Of
course, I stretch it out because I like to make it look like more, okay. First one is
called, ‘Herein are Contained the Instructions for Developing the Good Heart
Which were Passed Down Through the Master Translator of Sumpa’. Sumpa is
like, I guess its like ‘Mirakobi County’ in Arizona, or something. I don’t know.
But he’s called Sumpa Lotsawa. I kept looking for who wrote this lojong because
it just says ‘passed down through Sumpa Lotsawa’. Lotsawa means master
translator. And you’ll figure it out after you hear it. Okay. It starts out, Guru
Namo, which means I bow down to my holy Lama. And I’m just going to read
it in English. Just enjoy it okay. You’re going to get it during the break I think.
‘It happened that the accomplished saint named the Master translator of Sumpa
traveled to India. While there he was able to study a great deal of the secret
teachings’. In the old days you had to take, I told you last time. You had to take
a bag of gold dust with you when you went to ask for teachings. It wasn’t this
cheap mandala thing okau, that you offer before class. It was a little more
serious. I mean, the Indian pandits expected the Tibetans to show that they were
serious. And to show they were serious they had to turn up with a bag of gold
dust to get it…to get any teaching. And more often than not the Indian wise
man would take the gold dust and just go whoosh [demonstrates] and just
throw it to the wind. And they didn’t…they just wanted the Tibetans to show
they were serious. So it took a long time to get that much gold. There was even
a case where somebody had to ransom his weight in gold to get certain teachers,
okay. They didn’t keep the money. There were these famous cliffs in India that
later they found all these bags of gold and coins. You know, the people would
just go and throw them away. It’s a problem, right, to have that stuff. okay.
You have to keep track of it and report it to the IRS and everything. Okay.
[laughter] ‘While there he was able to study a great deal of the secret teachings,
when it came time for him to return to Tibet, he took the left over gold he had
with him and set off first to the Seat of the Diamond’. Seat of the Diamond in
Sanskrit is Vajrasana. All Buddhas in all of history are always enlightened in a
city called Varasana. It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter which
Buddha you are. Winston the Buddha will be or was enlightened in a place called
Vajrasana. It means seat of the diamond, place of the diamond. ‘So that he could
make offerings at the site of the Great Enlightenment.’ This is Bodhgaya, in
India. Nowadays, they call it Bodhgaya. ‘One day, after reaching the Seat of the
Diamond he spent some time at the Great Temple, walking around it in prayer,
and sometimes pausing for a rest. There was a woman there as well, in red; as
he watched her walking around the Temple too, he noticed that for awhile she
would be stepping on the ground, and then for a stretch that she stepped in the
air itself, and then on the ground once more. Okay. Then there was a lady in
green, and she walked at the side of the red, and she said but four things:
‘I don’t feel so well today.
 I have this urge to get going somewhere.
 It would be better if people didn’t have to die.
 Death is a frightening thing.’
That’s all she said. Remember this guy, I think it was twelve years, he spent
twelve years studying tantra, and now he’s going home. And he’s just sitting
there enjoying, you know Bodhgaya and these two ladies are walking around
and just talking to each other. He’s like over … he’s eavesdropping. ‘The lady in
red turned to the green and with a sideways glance at the Master Translator said
but four things in reply:’
The Tibetan word is hard, it’s like…to glance like that, you know like… it’s called
{chin che} means, do it like that. Like get it? [laughs] [laughter] She said: ‘My
dear, once you’ve learned to be satisfied with whatever comes to you, you will
find happiness no matter what happens. Your problem is that you are never
satisfied. My dear, once you’ve learned to leave you mind in one place, you can
go wherever you want. Your problem is that you’ve never learned to leave your
mind in one place. My dear, once your mind has sunk into the Dharma, even
dying is an easy thing to do. Your problem is that your mind has never sunk
into the Dharma. My dear, once you’ve realize that the mind is beyond all
beginning, there is no death at all. Your problem is that you’ve never realized
that the mind is beyond all beginning.’
Last lines: ‘And with these words, all the sadness that the Master Translator had
ever felt in his heart melted away. All the Dharma that he’d ever heard suddenly
took on meaning. And he would say that, at that moment, he gained his
greatest realizations of all.’ That’s the whole lojong. And then the guy
comments on it a little bit but that’s … Oh, there’s one other point here. You
know at the end of these very holy lojongs they, they trace the lineage. They
say where this lineage began, and who taught it to who, who taught it to who,
who taught it to who, who taught it to who. And the lojong lineages are often at
the end of the lojong, okay. He says, by the way, I’ll tell you the lineage through
which this teaching has been passed down to us. It was spoken first to the
Master Translator of Sumpa by the pair of the Holy Angels, the Diamond Sow
Vajrayogini and the Lady of Liberation, or Tara, okay. That was the lady in red
and the lady in green. Sneaky. All right, second Lojong. This is a lojong that
Lord Atisha heard one day, all right. ‘On a very special day once Lord Atisha
was training his mind in the Wish for enlightenment, bodhichitta, while circling a
holy place on foot. Off to the east then, up in the sky in the direction of the Seat
of the Diamond’ again, always the name of the place where anyone gets
enlightened the site of Lord Buddha’s enlightenment, he saw two women. Their
bodies were something just beyond a human form, but something just short of
the divine; and they were covered in precious jewels. The younger of the two
made as if to ask a question of the older: ‘What method would a person have to
train themselves in if she or he hoped to reach their enlightenment very
quickly?’ And the older of the two replied, in the Way of the Secret Word, and
said to the other:
‘A person who hopes to reach enlightenment, most quickly, should practice the
Wish for enlightenment.’ And then they say that this…this is the commentary;
it’s one sentence. They say these two women were the Lady of Liberation, Tara
and the Woman of Ferocity.
Ferocity is, this is a form of Tara, a different form of Tara, okay. That’s the last
two lojongs that I want you to hear, all right and very holy.
Take a break, get something to drink and then we’ll go over the final exam after
that, okay. Okay. We’ll start again. The moment you’ve been waiting for. I
want to thank all the people who worked a lot; very hard to make these courses
possible. And I’m not very good at that. I always forget the people that worked
on it. There are basically 40 or 50 people around you are working for free to
help you have Dharma classes here. And I’d really like to thank you for that. I
think three years ago, it was two or three people and then suddenly, there’s this
attitude among this group which is really, really sweet and I have people come
from out of town and they say there’s something going on in your group, it’s
really nice. I love to hear that. You know, I don’t hear Dharma rumors, I hear,
people are talking behind your back but they’re saying you’re really great and
that your study is really good and that they feel some really good feeling. I get
letters like every week of people who want to move here and study with you
guy and they feel something really sweet going on. And there are literally about
fifty people, forty to fifty people here are giving a lot of their time. And I’m not
even…I can’t go through all the names. John Stillwell has been working very
hard, Tasha’s been working very hard, all of the correspondence course stuff …
they have sent out twelve thousand tapes, they have sent out, I don’t know,
over a hundred thousand pages of stuff to prisons and stuff like that. That’s all
being taken care of in people’s homes. People are working for free, people are
doing all the work and it’s a great virtue and it makes me feel really proud that
you put your actions where your mouth is, right. And I really, really salute you
for that. A lot of people working really, really hard. And that’s the pay-back,
you know. And there are people all over the world, we get letters from all over
the world. People just…I was in a room the other day showing a lady a
diamond, you know and she says, I’m showing her this diamond and suddenly
she stands up and says, are you Michael Roach? I said, yeah, I’m Michael Roach.
She says, I’ve been taking your courses for 6 months by tape, I recognize your
voice [laughs] [laughter]. And it was so funny.
She said, what are you doing selling diamonds? [laughs] [laughter] And I get
people like that all the time. People all over the world are calling us. South Africa
called us the other day, come to South Africa, bring your students, you know.
All over the world. So you are doing very, very fine Dharma work and it’s
really, really nice to see it. And especially the brotherhood and sisterhood;
especially the feeling of the people here. I really congratulate you for that. In
Tibetan they say, {chu kyi chikma na re}, you ‘stink of the Dharma’, you have
Dharma B.O. And I can tell and people can tell. And that’s really, really sweet.
Really this feeling of helping each other and helping other people and perfect,
really perfect. Okay. Okay, they said we could go over, so you know what that
means. [laughs] [laughter] Okay, I’ll go real quick through some of the final
exam questions, okay. And I’ll just hint, you know. I think it’s really important
to know what the word lojong means.              I don’t like the ‘mental training
‘translation. I think… I think you heard a much better one and you hard the
explanation for it and you heard the sources of it. And it makes a lot more sense.
I mean. ‘mental training’ always reminded me of a SAT exam preparation or
something, or L-CATS or M-CATS or whatever. Much different thing. And you
should know the source for that and you should be able to explain the word
lojong properly. All the lojongs you studied during this course came from one
collection of lojongs, a very famous collection created in the fourteenth century.
I always think it’s important to know what you’re studying in case some big
Tibetan lama comes here and says, where did you study your lojong from? And
then you’re like, ah, ah, okay. No ah. Ahs. In the Eight Verses, which was the
first lojong you studied, there was a treatment about the causes for low self-
esteem, depression, low self-esteem. You should…I think that’s important in this
country. I expect all of you to teach eventually and some of you are already
starting. There are people here who have already started Dharma groups. There
are people here already have twenty-five, thirty people coming to their houses
for meditation. I love that. I want you to do that. People come to me and say is
it okay? I say, no it isn’t okay, I want you to, I require it. Don’t be shy. Don’t
feel you’re not worthy or something like that. Study well, study properly, but
then it’s your job to teach other people, okay. You have to set up the conditions
where other people can study with you. Keep it in the back of your mind that
eventually you will be teaching. And you can only do that if you’ve covered the
material properly, okay. The next question is about why is it not okay to have a
bad thought for even a minute, you know. Why is it not ok to let a mental
affliction go on in your mind? Why is it wrong when people say, Oh you know,
watch your mental affliction go through your mind and float through your mind
and you know, just watch it, maybe it’ll go away. Why is that a really lousy
idea? It’s a very common response to the idea in the Eight Verses that you
should give other people the advantage in any situation, is that they will start to
roll all over you, or they’ll start to take advantage of you. And that question was
treated in the lojong. And you should study that. By the way, you’re going to
get tonight, … is that correct? Answer keys.          You’re going to get the right
answers to all the homework questions. We decided to do that now because
then you can go over them and review them at home.                The point of the
homework, the point of the quizzes, the point of the final is not to see if I can
trick you. I want you to know the answers; that’s the whole point. I want you
to go home and cheat and read all the answer in advance and know them. So
you know, we took a lot of extra time and wrote out all the answers, so please
study the answers. Even if Punsok was having a good day and didn’t mark up
your homework, you might not have gotten the answer fully, so study the
answers also in the keys. The next question refers to Gyalwa Yang Gunpa’s
lojong that we studied. It was the Advices of this very famous teacher of the
Kagyu lineage. He said your own mind is the Budhha. I really want you guys to
address yourselves and to encourage your students to address, those very sexy
and very general, statements that you find in scripture that are not literal, okay.
Your mind is not the Buddha. If your own mind was the Buddha, you wouldn’t
be here, you wouldn’t be suffering, you wouldn’t have to die, you wouldn’t be
seeing grey hairs pop in your head, or no hairs pop in your head, okay. You are
suffering. Everything around you is pain and collapsing. It’s not enough just to
say, Oh you are the Buddha, your mind is the Buddha, just be happy, you know
be aware. You know, you have to be able to address those generalisms and
explain what they really mean, especially to your students. We don’t want that
poison in the United States spreading among the Buddhists. We don’t want this
general platitudes that end up killing people, okay. We had that already. That’s
why we’re becoming Buddhists, right? It’s to get the bottom of things; the real
bottom of things. And not to make these beautiful general things like you’re the
Buddha, just try to recognize it, bye, good luck. Not like that. No. 7 Who taught
the Seven Step practice, the seven-step lojong? Who wrote it down? Okay.
That’s a trick question, right. I mean, somebody wrote it down but somebody
else wrote it, so you have to know that. I like to give you that question because I
couldn’t figure it out for so long, I feel kind of good if I force you to figure it out.
Okay. You’re going to have to put the title in Tibetan if you know Tibetan. Next
question is, why didn’t they teach the seven-point lojong openly for so many
centuries? Okay. Apparently the lojong dun duma, the 7-point lojong, was
circulating secretly among Buddhists, even though it’s not tantra, it was
circulating secretly for hundreds of years. Why? I mean you should be able to
explain why. Why would you…why would you refuse someone a teaching so
sweet as the lojong? Why would you restrict the lojong from people? Why
would you not teach it to people who wanted to learn it? Why were they doing
that? And you should understand why in the case of the lojong, and then why in
the case of when you teach students yourself, you might find it necessary to
restrict what you teach them. There might be a point at which you don’t want to
teach them certain subjects for a certain period of time. And when is it you make
that decision and why do you make that decision, okay? Next question is, what
are the 7-points?
I mean, it’s bad if you say I studied lojong dun duma, I studied the 7-point lojong
…they say what lojong did you study? Oh, the 8 Verses and the 7 Points. And
they say, oh tell me a few of the points. And you say, ah, ah, ah ok [laughter]
not like that. Should be able to give the 7 points, all right. There’s a real sexy
part in the lojong dun duma where it says, ‘In-between your meditation sessions,
be a figment of the imagination.’. Be a figment of the imagination, and you
should be able to explain. Again, I’m picking on those sexy lines that are going
to confuse Buddhists in America in the future. I don’t ever want you to teach
your students those very mystical lines without explaining them properly. So
you’re going to have to do that on your final. There’s a line in the {b: lojong dun
duma} that gives you the real teaching on {powa}. Okay, the real teaching on
how to send your mind into death. How to send your consciousness into the
state of death. Okay and {powa} is generally a very secret practice. The {b:
lojong dun duma}, in there, it’s taught openly and you’re allowed to teach it
there and there is no better {powa} than that. I mean that is a great {powa}
practice. If you want a {powa} practice, that’s the real {powa} practice. And
study it there; become a master of it. And please go out {senge ngaro} with the
roar of a lion and crush those stupid teachings on {powa}. I mean go out, if you
hear some dumb thing on {powa} …what’s a dumb thing on {powa}? Oh, you
don’t have to practice very hard. Why? Oh, no problem. What’s his name died,
we called this lama, he came over, he did {powa} with him for the last fifteen
minutes, he’s fine. Come on! If it was that easy then the Buddha would have just
taught that, and you wouldn’t have to go through seven years of courses. It’s
not like that. It’s really not like that under extraordinary conditions and
extraordinary practitioner like some high reincarnation, can in the last few hours
of their life do some kind of special practices. A normal person will be totally
confused. They’re in a special kind of pain called {chu, ne, ne chupa }, means the
pain you feel at death is a kind of pain that doesn’t come to you your whole life,
and you start having hallucinations. Your mind’s … if you want to say it in
western terms, the electrical energy is like, fizzing out in your mind. And you
start to go through a standard series of very frightening hallucinations. To think
that in the middle of that, you could pull off something that you have not been
able to do in your clearest moments for fifty or sixty years of your life, is
ridiculous. And it’s a disservice to teach people that, okay. You have to study
Mahayana {powa}, you have to study {lojong powa} and you have to start doing
it now. And then you can do it next year, okay. You don’t have to wait till the
last ten minutes, you know, when it’s totally impossible to do anything. You
should prepare for death. You should do a…should be able to do a proper
{powa}, and you need to train yourself properly; in the Mahayana version, okay,
which is very much based on practising taking other people’s suffering into you
during the last moments of your life, okay. And wouldn’t that be the way it
should be? Doesn’t it sound to you like the right one? That you use your death,
you use that pain as a vehicle to help other people? Of course. It’s not like
some, you turn into some purple guy and that’s enough. It’s not like that. That’s
not going to help you, okay. Very important. I love what Geshe Chekawa said
in the last moments of his life, okay. As he was lying there among his students,
you know, he sits up and he yells something. I think you should know what it
was, okay. Very sweet. This one is easy. What does it mean when the root text
says, ‘don’t expect any thanks’? I think, especially if you’re going to be a
Dharma teacher, or if you’re going to support Dharma in any big way, I mean
meaningful way with your time or your resources, you have to get into that
mode of … you know oftentimes you…you might not only not get thanked,
you might get worse than that. It’s very typical that you would spend years
trying to support something, then people come and complain to you that you
hadn’t, you’re five dollar short. You know gave us $200,000 but we want to
know where that last $5 is, or something like that. It’s very typical in the
Dharma business. You might as well get used to it now. And it’s very, very bad
karma to feel bitter or to feel like people don’t appreciate you, or to feel any kind
of … I don’t know how to say it, like any regret about what you’ve done. It’s
very important as a Dharma practitioner and especially as a Dharma teacher that
you give away all your resources, you try to take care of everybody and then
don’t expect any return. I mean immediately; you’re making investment for
higher things. And don’t expect people to come to you and say, oh thank you
and all that. You have to do it with a different kind of motivation. You have
given people something that can save their lives. They don’t know it necessarily
right now, but you have to keep pouring it out and never feel any kind of…you
know I don’t know how to say it, some kind of resentful feeling that people
don’t appreciate you or something like that. That’s not the point. When you get
into practising Dharma it has to be free, totally free, in the sense of not just
money-wise, but totally free in the sense that you don’t expect anything back
from people. You just give, okay. And you…they might even…you even get
negative things back. But you just keep giving; you have to. If you get negative
things back it’s because of some old bad karma, okay. It’s also your fault. It’s not
their fault, okay. The response has to be you just keep giving, okay. And that’s
the…that’s all. Okay, No. 14, is it? Even though I’m not so good at it you have
to know who taught Freedom from the Four Attachments, who was their
nephew, who was his nephew’s nephew, okay. You have to know the basic
lineage of that teaching that we did tonight. We did the last piece tonight. You
have to be able to write out the Freedom from the Four Attachments. It’s only 4
sentences, okay. In Tibetan if you know Tibetan. By the way, even if you
choose not to take the final in Tibetan, if you’re studying Tibetan, do some part
of it in Tibetan, okay. Even if you chicken out at the last minute go ahead and
throw some Tibetan in there. Write at the top, I’m not doing this in Tibetan
Punsok; this is just because I want to show that I learned a little bit of it, okay.
You have to know the real meaning of attachment to this life. It does not mean
attachment to milkshakes or music or people or anything like that. It has a very,
very specific, very special meaning in this case and you should know it. It’s not
enough to go up to somebody and say, you have to be free of attachment from
this life, for this life. You have to explain what that means. And it doesn’t mean
what it sounds like. You guys know, okay.
Next question is, Drakpa Gyeltsen in his commentary on that text, talks about
the three lower realms. I don’t like to talk about the three lower realms. Why?
People don’t believe me. And I don’t believe me. I mean, I could sit here and
describe the hell realms to you and, you know you heard that. I had to read in
High School, we had to read Dante’s Inferno. It was interesting, you know, it
was Italian politics and stuff like that. And you know we weren’t very interested
in it. It sounded horrible and nobody believed in it. I want you to be able to
explain to your students, on the basis of emptiness and karma, and not because
somebody said so. I want you to be able to explain to a normal American why
going to hell is very, very possible, okay. Not in terms of Buddha said so,
chapter 4 {b: Abhidharmakosha} says that, chapter 3 says it’s 80,000 yojana under
Dorge Den and if you dig that deep you’d find it. Not interesting to a westerner.
But they are in danger of going there. So if you’re compassionate you have to
learn the argument of how perceptions are created by your past karma; how
you perception of the world is forced on you by your past karma and how that
makes anything possible, okay. You have to be able to explain hell in that…in
those terms. You don’t get reborn in hell; you start seeing hell. And that is a
rebirth in hell. You have to be able to tell someone that. You have to be able to
explain it logically to a person that you don’t get born in hell but you can go to
hell because you can start seeing hell because certain energies take…start to go
in your mind. They’re the same energy that created New York City for you. So
don’t think you can’t go to hell tomorrow, okay. And that’s a kindness to be
able to explain that to people clearly because otherwise they won’t believe it and
they probably will go there. And it’s very real and it can happen. You have to
be able to explain it to people in terms of emptiness and karma, okay.
That was that question. Mmmm. That concept of how hell is created, that
concept of how a person goes to hell is very, very sweetly presented by the
Buddha Himself in a Sutra called Requested by Upali, okay The Sutra Requested
by Upali. Very, very powerful; very, very clear. You had a separate reading on
it. Please be able to explain that to somebody. You know this is not Michael
Roach’s version of where hell came from, this is not Je Tsongkapa or some Dalai
Lama’s version of where hell came from. This is Lord Buddha explaining to you
that idea I just described. And you can quote it and you can show it. You
should be able to roll it off. Here’s this quotation: Lord Buddha said it. It
supports everything I’m telling you about how your perceptions are created by
your past karma. And that’s your world; that makes your world. You’ll be able
to pull it out … you guys should be like that. It shouldn’t be Michael Roach said
so, or I heard that somewhere, or I read that in some book I can’t remember
where. We don’t want that. We want Buddha said it to Upali. When people
argue with me about abortion or people argue with me about alcohol, I just pull
out the sutra you know. Here, you read it, you figure it out, okay. Next one is
… there’s a special…we did the lojong that had the 12 points, where Skye
freaked out, and you have to be…you have to understand the idea… the concept
that, the point of that lojong…the neat thing about that lojong is that it seems to
suggest that in 1100 AD somebody was writing out the Boy Scout thing, okay. It
really seemed to sugg… it mean to me…now what’s going on?                     Is it a
coincidence? Is it just a random incident? Or is it possible that the person who
taught you… your Boy Scout leader was preparing you for something? You see
what I mean? And could you start looking at your whole life that way? You
know, what I’m saying is that when you get to a certain point in your Buddhist
practice you are going to have to look back in your life and start to realize that
certain people that you ran into was no accident, you know. You were set up,
okay. And you have…there have been beings in your life who have been
preparing your mind for this class for a long time, okay.        It’s part of your
training, it’s gonna have to be to go back to those years and see who and why
and what were they trying to do with you. And is it possible that they could
have been something else, okay? And for each person it’s something else. It
seems to be true of everybody’s first girlfriend or boyfriend at High School,
okay. I don’t know about the rest. Anyway, you check, okay. Something
special…certain people have been trying to influence your mind for a long time.
You have to go back and check. That’s the point of this question. okay. No.20.
See? Okay? You know all those letters and numbers, okay, that’s great. You’d
better know those. You better know the… you know where to connect them;
what deeds lead to what kind of problems in your life, okay. Where do you
headaches come from? Where do your backaches come from? Where does
your boss come from? Where does your lack of money come from? Okay. 21.
Now we’re onto the Wheel of Knives and you have to be able to describe the
enemy, that he…basically, he takes out a Dharma switchblade and slices up this
guy’s face, okay. You have to know who it is he’s working on, all right. That’s
your job. You have to describe carefully the two aspects of his enemy, of his
great enemy. I want you to be able to discuss, in theory, even though you may
never have studied tantra, in theory, are those you know, funny guys, some of
them are chubby, some of them have four heads, you know, like I wouldn’t like
to be like that , I’d rather just do a normal Buddha thing with a little bit of a less
bump on my head [laughs], you know, not like that. Are those beings symbolic
or are they even more than symbolic? You have to study it. Are they just
metaphors or is there some reality to them? And if there is a reality to them
what is it like? And where did it come from? You have to be able to do that.
Ultimately, I means this is the…the answer is this, okay. Ultimately, you will
meet tantric Angels directly. They will have certain physical appearances. It’s
important to realize that every detail of their body and every detail of their mind
as you experience it, is a direct result of your practice of Buddhism, okay. So
whether you have a bad back or not depends on the deeds you did in the past.
And when you meet those beings, you have to understand where they’re
coming from and why they look like that okay, and where that’s really coming
from. And then, you can actually start working on making them. And it’s very
sweet; it’s like Frankenstein, but the result is much better. Like, you’re like Dr.
Frankenstein, right, you’re getting … you can make these beings appear and
they will be in what ever way you want. And their Holy bodies will be produced
by certain ideas that you have and by certain actions that you’ve done and they
will have this extraordinary beauty. And in the end, that beauty you must
realize is coming from your own past actions. It is the expression of the beauty
of your mind, of the purity of your mind is creating these beings. And it would
be a…you can be like a painter. You can be like Michelangelo: step back and say,
I did that, you know. I met Tara and I have seen that every beautiful detail of
her body and her mind as I’m experiencing it, comes from me. Comes from
some purity that I have, some good karma that I’ve created. That’s the
important thing, all right. Is it just a metaphor when they say that the weapons
of Mara changed to a shower of flower blooms as the Buddha sat under the
Bodhi tree? Is it just a nice story? You’ve got to talk about that. The text says
that life is an illusion, unreal, like a mirage. What does that mean? Why can you
say that life is like an illusion? Okay. I don’t care if you explain it so well why it’s
like an illusion, I mean how it’s like an illusion, I’m not asking. I want to know
why can you say life is like an illusion and be correct? And this is … the punch
line is dependent origination and you have to be able to explain that, okay. Next
to last question, he says something like, look life is a big movie, every thing is
like a big movie. Nothing is real. Therefore, I beg you, keep your morality.
Therefore, I beg you, keep your vows, okay. This is all a big movie; nothing is
the way it seems. Every thing is an illusion, so please keep your book, okay
[laughs] why does he say that? You have to be able to explain that logic, okay.
You hear the reverse evil, poisonous, crazy logic from untrained people who
say, life is like an illusion so you cab be a big tantrika and you don’t have to keep
any vows, okay. That’s poison ; Dharma poison, okay. The real thing is, life is
an illusion, you have to practice tantra, therefore keep all of your morality
immaculate. Even down to borrowing pens at work, okay. This is a tantric
practice. Why? Last one. There’s this real sexy verse in that last lojong about,
’there’s nothing you should practice, there’s nothing you should give up, strip
everything of your perceptions, leave your mind as it came, don’t confuse things
by trying to understand them, live in the place called as-it-is, and then you’ll
become a high and holy being.’ You’d better be able to explain that to your
students. You will notice, as you start to teach Dharma, they will skip through
fourteen courses and start quoting this verse to you, okay. Nothing matters; he
said so. The text says so. It’s weird how the human mind grabs onto this one
and ignores all the other three thousand pages of teachings, you know what I
mean. This seems great; it seems to say you don’t have to do anything. Just be
stupid, continue the way you were and everything will mystically work out, you
know. You’d better be able to explain this verse properly. And I’m just
preparing you for the day when your students start shoving it in your face,
okay, as a reason why they don’t have to study anymore or something like that.
Or why they can meditate on nothing at all and it’s okay. Oh, my mind is a
Buddha. I’ve seen the result of this teaching. I’ve seen people’s lives ruined by
those teachings, literally ruined. I have a friend who’s a…who’s in jail for six
years for you know, some kind of misbehavior based on this kind of teaching
and don’t go for it, okay. If you understand emptiness well, if you understand
tantra well, then your ethics must be totally pure, okay. And then it will succeed,
okay. That’s about all I have. And I, you know…for me this course has been
amazing. For me, it’s blown my mind and for me the most holy sweet things
have happened to me here as a result of this class and the blessings of these
lojong teachings. And I thank you for …you know because you come, then I
have to talk about these things. You know, I have to start cramming around
four o’clock in the afternoon and that’s a great blessing for me.               It’s
extraordinary blessing for me and very, very sweet. To be with you and to see
each of you. And to see you practice, you know, I’m surrounded by students all
day and they’re constantly teaching me and constantly correcting me and
constantly forcing me to be a good person. And it’s a great blessing for me to
have each student here be near me and it’s a great, great blessing to teach these
things. It’s a great blessing to hear them. So I want to thank you for that. For
me, very precious. And for me it’s my life, you know. It’s the … my life is … I
owe that to people like you. So thank you for coming for that. Okay.
We’ll do a short dedication, okay. Just a one minute, two minutes, okay. You
collected extraordinary good karma. First time this kind of lojong has gone
around I think. And just sit for a moment and don’t think too hard. Just enjoy it
and send out the karma to New York City, America. I want to dedicate this to
America, okay. Buddhism can…Buddhism can spread here. Everything is ready:
the field is there, the fertilizer’s there, the lamas have planted all the seeds.
Dedicate it to the spread of Dharma, sweet Dharma among our people, ok. So,
stay just quiet for a few minutes, okay. Some kind of special thing okay.
Student: We would like to present you with this blessing prayer for the long life
                                                    th
of Geshe Michael Roach from your class here at 15 Street and also from the
dakas and dakkinis on the big island of Hawaii who are taking your
correspondence class.
Magnificent Geshe La,
You are the bridge over troubled waters
That we can walk across.
Live Long Geshe La
The western mind is waiting for you now.

A magnificent Geshe La
You are the bridge over troubled waters
That we can walk across.
Oh, Live Long Geshe La,
The western mind is waiting for you.

To you, our Guru, and your long line of Lamas
Going back to the great Je Tsongkapa,
We bow down with deepest gratitude
For the teachings imprinted on our mind-streams
By You.

May you live for a thousand eons
And may all your aspirations be fulfilled.
Your brilliance shines like a Diamond,
Manifesting in miraculous ways to each devotee
According to their capacity.

With our bodies in full prostration
We offer these prayers with intense devotion:
May you live for a thousand eons
And may all your aspirations be fulfilled.

Your generosity is unending
As you guide countless beings
Overwhelmed by misery through the oceans of existence.
Plant your feet forever, unmovingly firm
To be our anchor in the storm.
May you live for a thousand eons,
And may all your aspirations be fulfilled.

Your Mind shines like a luminous moon,
Holding the treasures of the Dharma
Imparted to you through a pure lineage teacher.
You expansive intelligence naturally encounters the meaning
Of the fundamental nature of Reality.
May you live for a thousand eons
And may all your aspirations be fulfilled.

Extraordinary, personal Heart Deity who
Swiftly bestows bliss.
Your compassion radiates like a golden light
Filling all those you teach. Elevating them with
Your words and smile.
May you live for a thousand eons
And may all your aspirations be fulfilled.

Your knowledge of the Scriptures is immeasurable
As you speak to us in many tongues. Whoever
Relies on you may actually accomplish Immortality,
As you lead us by the hand.
May you live for a thousand eons
And may all your aspirations be fulfilled.

Like Marpa, the translator of old Tibet,
You bring the Dharma to the West
Revealing the Nature of knowable things through the
Power of speech and writing.
May you live for a thousand eons
And may all your aspirations be fulfilled.

Child of Je Tsongkapa, spinner of the Dharma Wheel,
You are trustworthy. Following in your footsteps, you
Guide us, moulding our minds with Pure Dharma.
May you live for a thousand eons
And may all your aspirations be fulfilled.

You startle us with your clairvoyance,
Spontaneously answering all our questions
Without even asking. Your magical powers are apparent
Even to the lowest of us.
May you live for a thousand eons
And may all your aspirations be fulfilled.

Unrecognized Rinpoche of our hearts, you teach
Women as you teach men with total equality.
We will carry out your Work and teach the Dharma
Far and wide.
May you live for a thousand eons
And may all your aspirations be fulfilled.

We offer these prayers with intense devotion,
With our bodies in full prostration
And with strong and unbearable longing we pray:
May you live for a thousand eons
And may all your aspirations be fulfilled.

By the Blessings of the wondrous Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,
By the Truth of the Spiritual Laws
Of cause and effect. By the Unstained power of the pure mind,
May the aim of this prayer be fulfilled;
May you live for a thousand eons
And may all your aspirations be fulfilled.

Magnificent Geshe La,
You are the bridge over troubled waters
That we can walk across.
Live Long Geshe La
The western mind is waiting for you now.

A magnificent Geshe La
You are the bridge over troubled waters
That we can walk across.
Oh, Live Long Geshe La,
The western mind is waiting for you.

To you, our Guru, and your long line of Lamas
Going back to the great Je Tsongkapa,
We bow down with deepest gratitude
For the teachings imprinted on our mind-streams
By You.

And the merit, written on the last day of June 1998, in the cave of the east village
in New York City [laughter], by the humble yeshe lamo may this merit be
dedicated to all beings, as they come to the sacred jewel house, come to the
sacred jewel house, come to the sacred jewel house, not a long time, not a long
time, not a long time, …….

[Applause]

Thank you for everything.
May you live for a thousand eons and may all your aspirations be fulfilled.

[Applause]

We’re all really, really grateful and on behalf of all the students we’d like to
present you with this computer thing and we hope that you keep pumping at
the Dharma for all of us.
[laughter and applause]

        Course XIV: Lojong, Developing Good the Heart—NYC—May-July 1998
                    RAW TRANSCRIPT w/ correct Tibetan words


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