ACI 16 (обзорный курс), Занятие 06 (прогон ГМР, Нью-Йорк 1999) — стенограмма

Class Six

Geshe Michael Roach

Transcribed by Angie Overy



Okay, we’ll start. We just got back from India last night. So, still a little groggy,
okay. [laughs] So excuse that, okay. I was called away suddenly. There was a
Xerox corporation wanted to make a film about our computer work with the
monks so and they had to do it in three days or something. So we did it and
that’s all.
There’s a chart here, and I want to thank John for doing the class and I heard he
did a good job. This chart is, was made by our grandfather, meaning, Khen
Rinpoche’s teacher, Trijang Rinpoche who is the teacher of His Holiness the Dalai
Lama, the Junior Tuto,r and it summarises all the steps to meditation. So just
about all of class three, course three, is in here. And I’m sorry it’s so small.
There’ll be a reading that will contain all the parts here in English and Tibetan. So
we took it all off the chart and turned it into a reading. I think next class, yeah, at
the next session of this class, okay. That’s about as small as we could make it. I
mean, as big as we could make it [laughter] at a local print shop. So if anybody
has the, you know, effort, we could redo it on bigger paper. We just didn’t have
time. We just got back and did it. Originally, we did it on a larger sheet of paper
so you can see that. But this summarises all the steps to meditation. The main
thing to this chart is that it gives you all the potential problems that you can
expect. So I think that’s the most useful thing about it. It alerts you to all the
problems you can expect during your meditation. And then each, each one of
the turns represents a different problem that you overcome during your
meditation. So I think it’s very useful before you meditate if you know what
problems might come up and then you’re forewarned. And then you can
recognise them as they come up and then you can stop them. I think most
Americans who try to meditate end up never getting past the first or second
problem ‘cos they don’t know that they’re problems. And some of the problems
are sneaky and they, they are imposters. They pretend to be, they look like
you’re doing well and actually you’re in the middle of a problem. Like what
they call subtle dullness is some kind of spacing out during meditation and that’s
actually a serious problem to meditation. And I’m afraid that many Americans
see it as a benefit, you know, and they get into it. And it’s relaxing and it feels
good and then they space out. And this chart will help you understand that’s
really a problem and that once you get past it you can get even higher in your
meditation. So that’s the benefit of the chart. It’s nice to have everything in one
piece, okay.
If anyone has the, you know, energy they can make it, we have a larger one, and
if they can find a place that could do the copying maybe we could all chip in and
make one, okay.
There was a debate, which I think I’ve mentioned before, in ancient Tibet where
the Tibetan people were trying to decide what kind of meditation they were
going to do. They were like Americans. They were trying to figure out how to
meditate. And they had differing influences. They had people coming from the
East, from China, very good monks, a very good monastic tradition, a very
good Buddhist tradition older than Tibet and coming into Tibet and people
trying to teach meditation. And then, they had the Indian influence from the
South; great Indian teachers coming across the Himalayas and teaching
meditation. And at a certain point, although it wasn’t typical, there was a clash
between the two viewpoints. There was a teacher who came up from India
named Kamilashila who got to a certain part of Southern Tibet and said that
meditation should be done a certain way. And then there was a Chinese monk
named Hsang who came from China, in the same area, and said meditation
should be done a different way. And they settled it the old way, which is, they
had a public debate in front of the whole King and his court and all the people.
And I think the debate went on for weeks and they argued about the differing
kinds of meditation and what’s a useful meditation.
And Hsang’s view was, which you sometimes hear echoed in the United States
nowadays, is that you should just sit down and try to empty your mind and not
think about anything. And that’s called {… me} meditation, which means,
nothing at all. Just sit and try to think about nothing at all. And then you hear
emptiness being taught that way too, like, seeing emptiness is the art of trying to
think about nothing or watching your thoughts flow through your mind or
something like that. This was Hsang’s, this is a derivative of Hsang’s viewpoint.
Kamilashila said, come on, the nature of the mind is what we call {yul chen}.
{yul chen} means, ‘that which holds an object in it’ and you can’t have a state of
mind without a {yul}. There can’t be a state of mind without something that it’s
focussing on. If you try to focus on not thinking then you’re focussing on not
thinking and that becomes an object. And you always have an object before the
mind. Mind is like a mirror and what ever you put in front of it is what the mind
will concentrate on. But to imagine a mirror with nothing in front of it is not the
point. That’s not how the mind works. The mind is not stimulated to act until
there’s an object. It’s called a {mikyen}. In ancient philosophy they accept that,
you know, the mind itself, awareness itself is created by an object which triggers
the consciousness of the object. So it’s impossible to have a state of mind that’s
not thinking of anything. You can have a state of mind that’s trying not to think
of anything but then you’re thinking of something. You see what I mean? And,
and this is the debate that they had. And Kamilashila said, and anyway, suppose
you could think about nothing, what’s the point? You know what I mean? You
might as well just take heroin or something or knock yourself on the head with a
rock or something, you know what I mean. What’s the point of trying to think
about nothing? You know, no content.
I do this online thing every Sunday night [laughter] and answer questions. You
know, people log on from around the world and then they ask questions. I’ve
been doing this a couple of weeks. And somebody said, I went to a really good
retreat up at, I won’t name the place, okay. And I said, well, you know, what
was it like, you know. And they said, the food was great. And then I said, okay,
what else? [laughter] And I say, and they said, well, we had this really strict
schedule. We got up really early, you know. We worked really hard. We sat for
a long time and then we did walking meditation and then we did this and this
and this. And then I said, you know, sounds great, what did you meditate on?
And then there’s this long pause, you know, and there’s nothing going on the
screen and I, you know, I typed it again, you know.
And then there’s this long pause and then there’s this they didn’t tell us to
meditate on anything, you know. This is, like, a four-day thing, you know. And
I said, well what did you meditate on? And they said, well, just anything you
want, you know, it doesn’t matter. The main thing is to be calm and happy and
not think about anything and this Hsang coming to the United States, you know.
So you gotta have a content to your meditation, alright. And, and there’s three
types of meditation and people don’t understand that so I’m gonna give you the
three types.
First, you gotta have something that you’re gonna meditate on. Say {jok gom}
[repeat] {jok gom}[repeat]; {gom} means meditation. It comes from an ancient
Tibetan word {ghom}, which means, to get used to something. Like, to do
something over and over again until you get used to it, {ghom}. So, {gom}
means to meditate. {jok} means to set your mind on an object one-pointedly,
like, to set an object in front of your mind. This could be a picture, a visualisation
or this could be some idea that you’ve had, for example, a deep emptiness
meditation would be a {jok gom}. So {jok gom} just means to put your mind
[unclear] on a single object, okay. Single-pointed meditation. I used to think that
if you did it a lot your head would get pointy because mine used to be a little bit.
And I didn’t know what single-pointed meant, you know. You keep hearing
single-pointed. And then I saw an explanation in a text that said, single object
meditation. Single-pointed means single object. In English we say, single
minded, you know. And baseball players, businessmen, you know, successful,
are single minded. They have only one thing in mind. It’s either money or
baseball or whatever, food, but that’s a single mindedness, okay.              Single
mindedness means, one-pointed meditation means you just have one object of
your meditation. {jok gom} is that. {jok gom} is fixing the mind on one object,
okay. And that’s what you’re normally thinking about when you hear the word
meditation. And that’s a good kind of meditation and you can do it. People ask
me, what should be my first meditation? In the Scriptures they say, try to
picture something, you know. Start with a silhouette, you know, like a Buddha
with a light behind him or her and you see just the outline. You meditate on the
outline. And then you fill in the eyes, the color of the eyes. And then you fill in
the nose and then you start filling in the face. Then you fill in the hair. Then you
fill in the rest of the body. And then you fill in the breath and the warmth and
the smell of the body, you see what I mean, until it’s a total thing. And it’s not
like a visualising a thangka, okay. A lot of people when you say try to visualise a
lama, they close their eyes and they try to picture somebody flat on a piece of
paper, okay. It’s not like that. You have to try to get in the mood of sitting with
this person. They’re breathing slightly, their eyes are moving slightly, you can
smell their body, you can feel them rustling, you can feel the warmth from their
body. You know, make the meditation all sensory, all the senses should be
there. And that’s a real {jok gom}, okay. I’m afraid that many Americans even if
they find out what they’re supposed to meditate on they just meditate on a flat
picture of somebody. And that’s not the point, okay. I mean, eventually it
should get to where you really feel the person is there, okay.
Next one is {shar gom}. Say {shar gom}[repeat]; {shar} means, it’s the word for
‘east’ in Tibetan, because it means for something to rise or something to appear
because that’s where the sun appears in the morning, okay. So {shar gom}
means, like, holding pictures up to your mind in a certain order, okay. Like, like,
like you’re going through a bunch of paper. You know how they go look at this
picture, look at this picture, look at this picture, look at this picture, and that’s
called {shar}. One by one you make them appear to the mind, okay.
And this is what we call review meditation, review meditation, okay. You go
into a certain series of steps one by one over and over again, okay. I’ve heard
this thing where they say that little kids who learn foreign languages get smarter
later in their lives ‘cos they’re making new neural bridges in their mind, like,
they’re making new mental habits in their mind or pathways that other people
don’t. So it’s like a new connection between this point and this point that if you
keep doing it and you learn a new language then you have a new connection
between two points or something like that. This is very similar. {shar gom}
means you keep doing the same steps in a meditation over and over again until
there’s a new, like, bridge, made in your mind; and it just, a new mental habit, a
new way of thinking, we call it a {bakchak}, until you’re used to that. For
example, a good death meditation would be this way. There’s nine steps to a
good death meditation. And if you keep doing it over and over and over and
over and over again, then finally, the bridge is constructed in your mind and you
start to think that way, you know. You start to think, well maybe I will die
today and maybe I should do exactly what I want to do if I was going to die
today, you know. Maybe I should lead my life that way everyday and do
exactly what’s the most important thing every hour of my day ‘cos I will die
today, someday. Okay. Like that. And that’s a {shar gom}, okay.
Last one is called {che gom}; say {che gom}[repeat] {che gom}[repeat]. {che}
means to examine a problem. You can call this problem-solving meditation.
And it’s defined in the Scriptures. It says, take a certain question that you’re not
sure about in Buddhism and they say set it at the centre stage of your mind.
And then, examine it from all different kinds of viewpoints, you know. Like,
take this question, put it at the centre of your mind, and think about it from fifty,
sixty different ways, you see what I mean. And that’s called {che gom}. So, for
me personally, when I do {che gom} it’s most often on what’s the most
important Buddhist thing I can do, you see. ‘Cos I live in a world of Buddhist
things to do, you know. I can do one of a hundred different Buddhist things. I
have al day to do Buddhist things, you know, so I can, you know, for me it’s not
a question of whether I’m gonna do a Buddhist thing or not. It’s what’s the most
important Buddhist thing to do of all the Buddhist things I can do today. And
that becomes a struggle for me, you know. Like, ‘cos I have Buddhist things to
do which are more comfortable for me. And then I have Buddhist things to do
which are less comfortable for me. But sometimes the less comfortable ones are
more important so I have to fight with my own mind, you know. My own mind
wants to do the more comfortable ones ‘cos it’s used to it and then, but I know
intellectually that I should be doing the more difficult ones r the more
challenging ones that’ll get me to Buddha-hood faster for other people. So I
have this constant struggle in my own mind about prioritising my practice, you
know. What’s more important than other things. And that’s a {che gom}. So
what you do is you sit down and you say, okay, today I have, I’m faced with this
choice between, you know, doing this virtue or doing this virtue. So which is
more important? You know, ‘cos I only have one day to work with and it’s two
days of stuff. And then I sit down at my meditation and I, and I, and I struggle,
you know. I punch it out. It’s like an intellectual questioning about this thing.
Which is more important to do? And then, this side will say this is more
comfortable and this side’ll say, yeah, but you’re gonna get to buddhahood
slower if you do that. And then this side’ll say, yeah, but you know, everybody
else is doing this. And I’ll say, no, no, but this is more important, all the books
say that. You say, I don’t know, you know. And then it’s, you know, and then
you, that’s a debate in your mind. That’s called a {che gom}, okay.
And then you resolve the question and then you slide into a {jok gom}, okay.
It’s like, I decided that this is more important than that, now let’s hold that for a
while. Okay. Then you move over to {jok gom}, you see what I mean. So from
a {che gom} you go to a {jok gom}. You gotta get used to that.
What I wanted to do tonight was, the original course number three was about
meditation and I think the first six or seven classes were about all the ways to
meditate, how to sit in meditation, all the different problems, all the different
fixes for the problems, all the conditions you need, very importantly, how to
prepare for a good meditation. And then, as I was getting toward the end of the
course, I realised that a lot of people were coming up to me and asking, well,
what am I supposed to meditate about, okay. And the most important thing
that you can meditate about is Lam Rim, okay. So, we’re gonna talk about a
Lam Rim. And your reading is kinda long. Did it get printed? I don’t know.
Yeah. We were up all night and, Ora was up, and we, it’s a long reading, okay.
It’s a Lam Rim text. But what it’s meant to be is a meditation that you can do for
the rest of your life, okay. It’s about, I don’t know, a hundred and something
pages. But it’s a complete meditation that you can do indefinitely, okay. Let me
see which one [cut]
Say {Lam Rim} [repeat] {Lam Rim}[repeat]; {lam], means path, ‘parth’ [laughs]. I
always remember getting corrected in Brisbane. I said path, they said, huh?
Path. They said, huh, parth. Oh, [laughs] [laughter], okay. {lam} means path,
{rim} means steps, steps to the path, okay, steps to the path. Path’s the way to
enlightenment, alright, steps to the path to enlightenment. Whenever I hear of
Lam Rim I think of this instruction manual that we got with our lawnmower we
got in New Jersey when we bought it. It was how to put it together. This was
from Sears Roebuck lawnmower. And it comes in this box ‘cos they don’t want
to have it be too big when they ship it, you know what I mean. And you have to
follow these instructions to put it together. And, you know, it’s really hard for
some people. [laughter] And it’s, like, big letters and it says don’t forget this
screw, you know, number one. And number two it says don’t ever tighten it
past that, you know, number three. And if you do them one by one correctly it
has to come out right, you now what I mean. Like, if you could figure out the
illustration, which screw is which, [laughter] you know. And, and you just don’t
get impatient, you know. If you go through, it’s like your income tax, you know
what I mean. If you just sit down and calmly go through one by one each step
then, theoretically, you can’t screw up. By the time you finish, your taxes are
figured out or the lawn mower’s sitting there complete. One time I had all these
screws left over. I didn’t know where they went, you know. But, but it’s a
certain order which you have to go through and you have to think Lam Rim is
like that, okay. And I’ve had all these debates with some people. They say, it’s
not necessarily true that, that there’s a certain number of steps to enlightenment
and it’s also not true that you can’t skip some of them or, or jump around, or go
out of order or something like that. And then I get into this debate with them
about is it the same as the lawn mower or not? See what I mean? Is it possible
that Spiritual things are just like the lawn mower? You know, is it possible that
you have to do it in a certain order and you have to have certain parts or the
thing won’t work? And then they say, yeah, yeah, but I read this book, you
know, about this guy. He wrote a new book and it looks really good and a lot of
it is very similar to Buddhism, you know. Look, it’s got a death meditation in it
and it’s got this in it and it’s got, like, half the stuff is there, you know. And then
you say, well, if you used half the parts that were in the box for the lawn mower,
would it work?
You know, Sears Roebuck are not going to put in parts that they don’t have to
pay for, you know. You know what I mean? If it wasn’t necessary it wouldn’t
be in the box. And then I get into this debate with people. And they say, no
spiritual things are not like that, you know, it’s kind of variable, you know. It
just depends on where you are or what century you’re living in or stuff like, you
can leave out some stuff. As long as it has, you know, this has, definitely it has a
death meditation very similar to your Buddhist thing and it has this other thing.
And then you say, but does it have emptiness? Do they teach karma? And they
say, well, not, not directly, not like you guy’s say, but it’s kinda there, you know.
That’s like saying, well, you know, it’s got a couple of wheels [laughter] and it’s
got a thing that looks a lot like a carburettor, you know what I mean. And then
people say, no, no, you’re being sectarian, you know. And I say, no. What I’m
trying to say is it’s possible, I’m not, I claim it’s true but I won’t, okay, that you
must have certain parts there or it cannot work, okay. That you must have
certain elements in your spiritual career in the same way that you need certain
parts of a car or a lawn mower for it to work or it just won’t work, you see what
I mean. It can look like a lawn mower. It can make some noises like a lawn
mower. But it won’t cut the grass, you know what I mean. And, and it’s very
possible that it’s the same in spiritual things. The trick is with spiritual things,
because they’re so slippery, you know, it’s so hard to judge whether or not you
have the parts. It’s so hard to tell if you’re making progress. It’s so hard to
know which parts you need and which parts you don’t need ‘cos the thing
you’re fixing, is trying to talk you out of fixing it, you know what I mean. So, it’s
extremely difficult in spiritual things to know if the lawn mower’s complete or if
it’s working or things like that, you see what I mean? Like, they’re invisible.
Half the things that you ever have to get through to reach enlightenment,
especially tantric enlightenment, are invisible, you know what I mean. Like, you
can’t tell if you’re making it well or not. And it’s very difficult for another person
to look at you and say, yeah, you’re doing okay on step number four but step
number six is not so great. You know, it’s almost impossible to judge whether a
person is doing well in those things, you know. And it’s very difficult for you.
It’s like trying to teach yourself piano. It’s like trying to teach yourself to play
concert piano and, and maybe you’ve never heard a concert piano or something
like that. I mean, what you’re trying to do and what we’re trying to do to reach
enlightenment, especially in one lifetime, involves so many invisible processes
and so many unmeasurable things that it’s almost impossible unless you follow a
certain directions well, you know, and that you have someone to help you.
Otherwise, it’s just totally, forget it, you see what I mean. It’s just impossible.
Half the things we’re talking about are very, very subtle internal attitudes or
worldviews or ideas that you can’t judge if a person has them very easily, you
know what I mean. You can’t tell if you have them very easily. And then, they
have to come in the right order and they all have to be there. And then you’ve
got to come up with some guy who’s gonna watch you and say, you need more
of part four or you’re not gonna make it before you die, you know. And, and
they have to be able to judge all this just from external, the way you act, the way
you seem to talk, you know. So the Lam Rim is very delicate and, and what I’m
trying to say is an omniscient being named the Buddha, you know, has put
together an outline called Lam Rim. Lam Rim, wasn’t invented by Tibetans. It
comes from the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. The name comes from the
Perfection of Wisdom Sutras and Lord Buddha has designed this specific
instruction manual, like a lawnmower manual, that goes through a certain order
and you must have all the parts there or it won’t work.

And the thing is, you’ll never know it until you’re, you like, you just die and you
won’t know, you know what I mean. Like, you’ll die and you won’t know that
you left out part number fourteen and if you’d had it you wouldn’t have had to
die.
And so it’s very, very delicate. You have to learn the Lam Rim thoroughly. The
good side is that if you just do the Lam Rim in order, without leaving out
anything, you must get enlightened, you see. It’s very cool. It’s like you must
come up with a lawnmower that works. And they’re exactly the same. Never
think they’re not the same. Never think you can just leave out a piston here and
there or, you know, three wheels is okay or something like that. Or, it looks like
Buddhism or some of the things are very similar so it must be good, you know.
It looks like a carburettor, you know. It doesn’t mean it works, see what I mean.
You got to have all the parts there and you have to go through them one by one
in order. And the good news is if you do it that way, you’ve got to get, you will
get enlightened, okay. But as you get towards the end it becomes very, very,
very subtle, you know. The spiritual things that happen inside you are invisible
and very subtle and it takes a really great master to help you, you know what I
mean. You have to have someone close by to help you. They need to be
watching you and saying, okay you need a little bit more of that, you can slow
down on that. And they have to be doing, the final adjustments have to be done
by a master who you’re close to, okay.
That’s why this famous lam Rim that we’re gonna study is called {yon-ten shir
gyurma}, okay. Say {yon-ten}[repeat] {shir gyurma}[repeat]; {yon-ten} means,
it’s a very difficult word in Tibetan, it means good spiritual qualities, good
qualities, okay. Like, compassion is a {yon-ten}. I modern Tibetan {yon-ten}
means education. {…} means he is well educated. But in spiritual Tibetan, in
Scriptural Tibetan, {yon-ten} means high spiritual qualities, inner qualities. {shir}
means the basis or the foundation. In many philosophical texts it can mean the
source of something as opposed to the foundation of something. And then
{gyurma} means the book about the source of all your good qualities, okay.
{ma} is a feminine ending and it’s used to denote a book, especially about
wisdom, okay. So, like, the Heart Sutra’s real name is {chomden de ma},
baghavati, which is the feminine ending; means the conquering lady or
something like that, okay.
So this is a book about, the {ma} is implying wisdom, and it’s a book about the
source of all these very subtle invisible good qualities that you want to develop
inside of you, okay. Like, it’s one thing to learn, like, dance, you know. They’ll
teach you how to move your left foot, then they teach you how to move your
right foot. Then they teach you left, a left move and then teach you a right twist.
Then they teach you how to move your arm. And then, by the time you’re done
with, like, ten years of, then you’ve moved all the possible parts and anyone can
stand there and say, okay, they can do a left turn and a right turn and they can
do this move and that move. But, but spiritual things are much more subtle, you
see. The person who teaches you has to be able to say, oh yeah, they know how
to find a good Lama, oh, they learned that already. Oh, they have renunciation.
Oh, yeah, they have renunciation. Oh, they know how to get yelled at by their
Lama and still come out alright, you know. Oh, oh, and they figured out that the
Lama doesn’t always say what they mean. They figured out {tragne}, you know,
like, they got over that part. They figured out that they have to make the
decisions on their own and, and do the right thing regardless, you know. And
then there’s certain, like, very subtle stages, okay.




 Oh, they figured out that, you know, taking care of all sentient beings means
doing the right thing with the people that are sitting next to them, you know,
and not all sentient beings in the universe, you know what I mean. And then
there’s just certain stages or signs that a person has matured to certain spiritual
levels and they’re very subtle. They’re really very subtle. So {yon-ten shir
gyurma} means, who’s gonna be the source for all those qualities for you? You
see, who’s gonna guide you through those stages and, and make sure you get
up to the next one before you die because it’s a race against death, you see what
I mean? It’s life and death question. They have to be pushing you at just the
right speed over certain spiritual obstacles that you have. And, and that’s your
Lama. Okay. So {yon-ten shir gyurma}, the text Lam Rim, this Lam Rim or this
book, the name of it is the ‘Source Of All My Goodness’, meaning, Lama. Okay.
The person who can guide you.
And that’s the first lam rim. I mean, you have to go out and find this person,
okay.
It’s the first step of the Lam Rim. It’s the first step of every spiritual path. You
have to go out and find this person, okay. And I can’t overestimate the, what it
means. It doesn’t mean a person giving lectures in New York City in front of a
hundred people, okay. You have to find your Lama, you know. You have to
find the one that fits you, firstly, and then you have to seek out with them a very
personal relationship, you know. You have to find a person who’s qualified and
then you have to find, you have to have a relationship with them that’s very
tight, very close. They have to be monitoring invisible subtle things in you from
day to day. That’s very difficult, okay, and you have to find a person who can
do that, alright. That’s {…}, first line of the text, you have to go find this person,
okay. That’s your first job, alright.
What’s this got to do with meditation? This is gonna be the first step of the
meditation, you see. When you do your meditation now don’t ask me what to
meditate on. Should it be a green blob? You know, should I just let thoughts go
through my head? Should I just try to be calm, watch my breath and try to be a
nicer person this afternoon? No. Do a Lam Rim. Do a {shar gom}, okay, do a
{shar gom}. What’s a {shar gom}? You’re gonna go through these steps one by
one in your mind. Okay, what’s the first thing I need? I have to go find a
teacher. Then you can switch over to a {che gom}. Why? Why do I need that?
There’s lots of books been translated now. I can call up Snow Lion and, you
know [laughter] get any book I need. Who needs a teacher, you know? And
then you have to debate with your own mind, you see. You need someone who
can take you through these invisible subtle stages of spiritual development and
know where you’re at everyday and know how to help you onto the next stage.
Or else what? I’ll die. Okay. And then you have to debate your own mind, you
know. You own mind says, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s cool but you can just go to
class once in a while, that’s enough, you know. And then, and then you have to
say, well wait a minute, I don’t know, I might die before the next class. You say,
no, no, average expectancy just went up to seventy-seven, you still have time,
you know. And then you do a, you have to debate your own mind, okay.
That’s a {shar gom} and a {che gom}, okay. So that’s the first step in the Lam
Rim meditation, you think about finding a Lama, okay. And finding them
means establishing a relationship with them where they are monitoring you
closely and you have that relationship, okay. And you have to. I mean, all the
great musicians, all the great artists, all the great dancers, all the great baseball
players, they had, they had a close relationship with someone. Sooner or later
you have to, okay. Who’s that guy that just broke the most games in a row
thing, couple of years ago? Yeah, Rivkin. There’s two of them, right? Why?
‘Cos their father. No, who’s that guy? Anyway. [student] Yeah, Carl Rivkin
and his brother, right? They’re great baseball players ‘cos their father’s a great
baseball player and they grew up with him. [students] Really? How? The
father? [students] Oo, okay. Didn’t, okay, not the right kind of lama. Alright.
[laughter] Anyway, you see, it’s not just an accident, ‘cos he’s so close to them,
you see what I mean. You have to have somebody like that. Okay. Next thing.
I’m gonna take you through four steps of a Lama meditation, okay.
Say, {depa …}[repeat]; {depa} means faith, {..} means develop faith or develop,
develop faith.
And this means, you have to try to think clearly of what you want, you see.
Like, if you’re gonna study, I don’t know, any subject, say, mathematics, you
know, you have to come to some kind of belief that this person knows what
they’re talking about. And that’s {depa ..}, okay. So, like, you’re checking out
this person and you’re watching them and you’re trying to decide do they know
what they’re talking about or not, you know. Is this person qualified or not.
And this has to be a very important step for any person. It’s one thing to learn
how to play piano badly, it won’t kill you, okay. And you know, I mean, you’ve
had teachers who they either were incompetent from the beginning, you know,
like, I had one in seventh grade, [laughs] okay. I mean, the sixth grade teacher
was incredible, like, a star at everything and a great compassionate holy being.
And the seventh grade teacher didn’t want to teach, didn’t know anything, didn’t
like to teach, didn’t like the kids, didn’t learn anything from them. {depa ..} is
you have to check this person out. You have to see if they know what they’re
talking about, okay. Then there’s other ones that you get all excited about at
first then later you find out they don’t know as much as you thought, you know
what I mean, something like that. Okay. But, bit your mental real estate, your
spiritual real estate is very subtle. It can be impressed very easily, you know. If
you get in with a person who’s not qualified they can subtly affect you so that
for years you don’t make any progress. You have to find, you have to be very
careful about your choice of who you open up that real estate to, you see what I
mean, because those decisions about who you’re gonna try to think like can
affect you for decades, you see what I mean. They can, someone can take you
off on the wrong direction. That can affect you for many, many years.
According to Buddhism it can ruin you for lifetimes, okay. So you have to be
very careful about who you expose your mind to, okay. It’s one thing to have
someone teach you to play piano wrong or someone teach you to dance wrong
but if someone teaches you to think wrong, then you’re in trouble. So very
important to check them out. {depa ..} means, come to a point where you have a
certain faith in this person because you’ve checked them out carefully, okay.
Say {.. tenpa}[repeat]; {tenpa’s} a very difficult word in Tibetan, {tenpa}, the
spelling of {tenpa} means to take yourself to someone, like a doctor or it can
mean to rely on a medicine. It can mean to go to a Lama and learn from them,
okay. {…} means, in your thoughts, okay. So it means how you’re gonna relate
to this person emotionally. How you’re gonna think about this person, okay.
And that’s a whole stage in the Lam Rim. Once you make this connection with
this person, once you have a relationship with this person then how do you
commit yourself to them mentally, okay. And there’s some kind of mental
connection that you make, okay. And this is very important, okay. At the last
step, which was {depa ..}, you checked them out, right. You decided whether or
not this person’s going to be your Lama and, and you have to do that process
carefully. I mean, in Scripture some people took twelve years to check out their
teacher, you know. For twelve years they didn’t say will you be my teacher,
you know what I mean.
They took their time, checked them out, talked to their students, find out their
background, find out about their personal lives, everything, check them out
carefully. And once you’re decided on them then how do you think about them?
You see what I mean? And in America I think we don’t quite have this attitude
towards teachers, you know what I mean. And I’m talking about your high
school teacher or your college teachers or things like that. I mean, if you become
like an Olympic skater or something, you see them come off, they skate around
for the competition and then they’re back in the back. And the camera comes up
and they’re going [breathing sounds] and their coach comes up and you can see
this relationship with somebody who’s been teaching them for ten years every
hour of the day, you know. And there’s this look in their eyes, you know, and
that’s what we’re talking about, okay. There’s this connection that you have
with them and, and {..} means don’t break that connection, samaya. You don’t
break it after that. You think of your teacher in a certain way, you know. It’s
like getting married a hundred times over and, and it’s that kind of commitment
that you make at that point, okay. Once you’ve, after you’ve checked them out.
And this could take a year or two years or five years. Take your time. It’s your
life at stake, you know. Check them out carefully and then, and then, {..} means,
once you’ve checked them out and made the commitment, make it, you know.
And then just decide this person is gonna be the one, you know. And, and then
you think of them a certain way. Never change your thought about them, okay.
You think about them as being the person who’s going to save your life and, and
you never stoop thinking about them that way, okay. That’s called {..}. This
person is gonna save my life. Out of all the people I’ve met in the world I believe
this person has the capacity. If you don’t think they do then don’t, don’t make
them your Lama. You can still go to classes of a person or something like that.
That’s fine. Especially if there’s nobody else around, okay. But I’m talking about
a different commitment. This is like, okay, this person’s the one who is gonna
save my life and I commit myself to this person. That’s{..}, okay.
Now, there’s a thing about your mind, okay. It’s called the ‘high school
girlfriend effect’, alright. [laughs][laughter] You know, you see her in a class, I
still remember, right. And, and you’re like, wow, she’s really cool, you know.
And then you, like, make excuses to go by her window all the time or bump
into her next to her locker or stuff like that. And then, you know, finally you get
up the courage to sit at the same table in the lunchroom, you know. And then
you slowly start, and this is called {depa ..}, right, you’re checking out the
qualities of this person. And then you decide, okay, I really want to go out with
this person and you ask them. And during this whole time they look glorious,
shining, not like your last girlfriend, you know. [laughter] And they’re, like,
unbelievable and really cool and different, you know. This is gonna be different.
And they’re all special and everything and you meet them and this is the one,
you know. And then you actually go out with them and then you get to know
them and you get familiar with each other. And then you have your first fight,
then you have your second fight, then you have your third fight and then,
finally, you meet the other girl in the other lunchroom. And that’s the one, you
see what I mean. And this whole process that goes like this, you know, which
you’ve been through, right? It goes like this, this, this, this and then it goes like
this and then it goes like that. That’s not a change in the other person. I mean,
that’s the big thing that Buddhism did for me, you know.               It made me
understand something. The other person is not changing, okay. They’re the
same person they were before you sat down next to them at the lunch table.
They didn’t change during the six months that you knew them.                   Okay.
Something else changed. What’s that? Your own mind changed, okay.
Like, they didn’t change dramatically. They didn’t become, they didn’t go from
most cool girl in the high school to horrible monster in the high school in six
months, you know. Something else changed. Your mind changed. You see
what I mean? What is means is your karma to see this person as beautiful is
used up when? While you see them as beautiful, you see what I mean. For as
long as you see them as beautiful your karma to see them as beautiful is wearing
out. And sooner or later it wears out and then they start to look worse and
worse and worse and then you have your last fight with them. This is always
this curve like this. And this is, this is not their fault and they’re not changing.
You’re changing, okay. Your karma is wearing out.
Now the same thing happens with Lamas. Okay. That’s the point. You know,
you go to a lecture, this guy looks wonderful, you know. Not like my last Lama
[laughter] you know. And, you know, you get all excited and, and they look
really cool and they teach you, teach you, teach you. And you’re, like, getting
really excited. And then you peek out and your karma starts to change. You
start to see faults. You say, like, oh, oh, I never knew they would act like that. I
never knew they would do that. I can’t believe it, you know, six months ago I
thought they were perfect, you know. And you start to see all these things. And
you think that those things were there six months ago but you didn’t see them.
And you believe that and that’s a wrong worldview. {..} means you have to try
to stop that worldview. You can go on skipping from Lama to Lama and what
you’ll find out sooner or later is that it’s just like your high school girlfriend,
okay. It’s something else changing. It’s your own perceptions. And it’s not that
you are seeing something that was there before. You’re creating something that
wasn’t there before, okay, because your karma’s wearing out. So you have to
be aware of this effect and you have to deal with this effect, okay. And you have
to try to handle it. You have to be aware that it’s your karma shifting and you
have to fight it, okay. And that’s very important otherwise you’ll just skip from
Lama to Lama, you know, like that, ‘cos your own karma’s wearing out. What I
mean is at a certain point in {..}you have to decide that this person is challenging
you in some way. They’re trying to reach you something, okay. Once you
make the karmic connection with this person {..}, once you say this is my Lama,
now everything changes. Everything they do after that is a challenge for you. If
they decide you need to have your faith tested they’ll test your faith. If they
decide you have to have your anger tested they’ll test your anger, you know. If
they decide you have to have your patience tested they’ll slap you around a little
bit, you see what I mean. And you have to say, oh, this guy’s helping me.
Thankyou, you know what I mean. And your whole attitude, once you make
the connection, that’s why it’s so important to be careful before you make the
connection. But once you make the connection you now have to have a whole
different way of looking at this person unlike any other person you ever met,
you see what I mean. And this will be your first tantric practice. Okay. Very
heavy; very, very heavy. And, if you succeed, you’ll get enlightened in this
lifetime, very subtle, okay. What I mean is, you are deciding that there’s one
person in the world who can read your mind, who knows your future and who’s
challenging you, knowingly, every moment of the day. And then you don’t give
up. You say, I know this person’s trying to get me enlightened, you know.
Every time they tell you to go wash the dishes, every time they yell at you,
every time they say the opposite of what they said yesterday, you know, now
your whole perception of this one person is changed, see what I mean. This
person is out to get me enlightened and I’m gonna pass every test they can give
me. Then what happens? It wouldn’t be a test if it wasn’t difficult, okay. Every
time you get over one they come out with a new one, okay.
And this is a sign of a successful relationship with a Lama, okay. This is a
dynamic that’s working. Why? Your faults are coming up and they’re smashing
them one by one. If you feel comfortable around your lama for more than
twenty-four hours something’s not working, [laughs] okay. Alright. That’s their
job, okay. I mean, they have to be constantly shoving you up to the next level.
It’s like when I used to weight lift, you know, in high school something. And the
coach would come up and say, you know, you gotta put five more pounds on
that. You say, why. He says, ‘cos you lifted it, you know. And, you know, you
can’t, I mean a good Lama’s doing that. They have to keep pushing you forward
but not too hard, you know. Add twenty pounds and the person’s, something
breaks, something rips and you don’t want to do that. But they have to be
constantly shoving you up to the next step. What I’m trying to say is, once you
get to number two, once you decide that this person is the one, then you have to
shift into this other mode of seeing whatever they do with you as being the next
challenge. They are designing challenges for you, okay, and you have to think
like that.
Yeah. [student] Well, when you said, he said, do you want to believe that they’re
doing it from their own side? You know, ultimately, it doesn’t matter, you see.
It doesn’t matter if it’s intentional or not. If your {..} is perfect the right challenge
will be produced from them, by whom? By you, okay. It’s very interesting.
You know, I’ve seen this relationship, there was this one lama that, I mean, I
knew that he was, like, abusing his students and it was disturbing to watch, you
know. Like, always trying to get money out of them. They never had any time
to study. They had to work all day long on building these buildings and then
he’s sell them and then get another one. Then they’d be working. We’d sit there
and watch them and say, these people are crazy, you know. How can they, and
then they’d swear, you know, that this is the most wonderful lama they’d ever
met, you know. And you’d say, come on, wake up man, this guy’s just after
your money. And then the lama eventually died, you know, and all these
students came out wonderful, you see what I mean. That’s the way it works. It’s
a very strange thing. The dynamic is that, you know. If you, if you’re virtue is
enough, the tests will come to you and you will pass them and you’ll become
enlightened. The other guy, could be could be a schmuck, you see what I mean.
It doesn’t, it’s not the point. It’s very interesting, you know. But I don’t say to
do it lightly. I mean, you check the person out. Tradition, in Scripture,
sometimes for ten, twelve years you check them out, then, you make the
commitment. But after you’ve made the commitment, you know, if they, if they
tell you to build a nine-story building and then rip it down, you know, this is a
challenge.      They’re designing a challenge for you.        After you make the
commitment, okay.
And it may be that they challenge you with some extraordinary behaviour
that’s, that’s immoral and then they’re trying to see if you have the brains to
leave them. Which you should, you see what I mean, and that’s another, you
know what I mean. It always has to be that you do the right thing. That’s what
they want. I mean, there’s a very famous story of a lama who had five students.
They’ve already made the karmic connection. He says, I need money; I want
you guys to go out and rob this village, you know. And four of them go out and
rob the village. One of them stays behind and says, with all respect I can’t do
that, you know. I’m your lama, I’m telling you to steal something. He says,
you’re my lama and I know you’d never tell me to steal something and that’s
why I’m not going. And then he gets everybody back, comes back. The other
four guys got lots of money for him. The other one guy’s got nothing. He says,
you know, I’ve only got one good student. That’s the guy who didn’t go. You
see what I mean?
So it always boils down to you having to do the right thing. So I’m not just
saying blindly do whatever they say because that’s a test also. They could be
challenging you that way also, you see what I mean. And, ultimately, you must
do what you know to be right, you know what I mean.
Yeah. [student] That’s true, yeah.
Okay. Say {jorwey tenpa}[repeat] Write it first. {jorwey}[repeat] {tenpa}
[repeat]. See, {.. tenpa} is how do you think about them or watching your
thoughts about them. {jorwey tenpa} means, how do you act towards them,
what do you do with them, okay. The point here is that to for you to succeed in
your spiritual life. People ask me, what’s the best way to see emptiness directly,
you know? Should I study Kamilashila or should I study Je Tsongkapa or you
think Nagarjuna or Chandrakirti? I say, {jorwey tenpa}, you know, which
means help your lama, okay. And there’s all these levels, you know. People
think, and I’m not criticising, but to bring a flower to your lama is, I mean,
there’s certain levels of relationship with your lama. First level is where you’re
kind of just sitting in class and soaking it in, you know. And this is the
relationship you have. They put out all the effort, the room is here by it’s own
self, all the expenses pay themselves, the heat comes in by itself, you know, the
guy got here by himself, he lives by himself, he doesn’t eat or spend anything.
He just shows up and we have a class and I just sit there and take it in. He makes
me do homeworks but that’s okay [laughter], you know. That’s one level one,
you know. Then level two is where you start to say, okay, maybe I’d better help
out a little bit, you know. I’ll take a flower over there once in a while. I’ll stay
five minutes but not ten minutes to fix the altar up afterwards. And you start to
feel like maybe I’m supposed to help out a little bit here.
And then, third level, is like, okay, maybe I’ll go over there on a Saturday and
help out in the afternoon a little bit or something like that.
And then, fourth level is something like, you know, I’ll help with a major project,
you know, like, I’ll grade these papers for this course, you know. And it goes up
by levels, you see. And it goes up to the point where you cannot distinguish
your needs from your lama’s needs. In other words, Lama needs a house, you
build a house. Lama needs to get to California, you, you, the ticket’s in his hand
and he doesn’t have to think about it, you know what I mean. Lamas shouldn’t
have to worry about whether we’ve rented a place or who’s paying for it or
anything else, you know. I’m just grateful that Lama is there, you see what I
mean. Lama never asked us for any money. I’ve never been asked for money
in my life from a lama. Never, ever in twenty-five years but, but it’s my, at a
certain point my money is their money, you know. I mean, I’ve showered lamas
with money and have them throw it back at me. We’ve had these fights, you
know. Take it. No, no, I don’t want it, you take it. No. You know, at a certain
point it has to become where you’re just one person with them and you’re one
family with them. And everything you do is in the service of this lama. You
have to get to that point. And I’m not saying with me, okay. I’m saying with
any, the lama that you find that fits you, you have to go up through these stages
if you want to get enlightened in this lifetime. Sooner or later you’ll have to
make that relationship with them. Start out and I’m not saying do it before
you’re ready. What I’m saying, go find a lama that fits you, make this
commitment mentally, which is {…} and then {…} means slowly, in your actions
you become to them their helpmate, you know. You become to them the one
who, who helps them in a serious way, in a major way with what they’re doing.
You know what I mean. And they, you’re trying to take load off them. You’re
trying to help them in a, in a serious way to do what they do, which is, to get
people enlightened in one lifetime.
You see what I mean. So sooner or later the relationship has to go up through,
you know, helping out once in a while to making little offerings and then, finally,
it becomes, like, I’m here. I’ll work eighteen, twenty-four hours a day for you,
whatever you need I’ll do ‘cos what you’re doing is the most important thing.
And sooner or later it has to reach that point. I’m not saying with me. I’m
saying you go, you have to find the one that fits you and different people need
different lamas, you know. People have this sick attitude that my lama’s better
than their lama or this lama’s better than that lama. That lama’s stupid and that
lama’s good, you know. That’s all stupid. Each lama exists because they help
somebody, you know, and you have to go find the one that fits your
personality. And you’re never going to have one lama that fits everybody’s
personality. It’s impossible, you know. You have to go find the one who, who
fits you and the way that fits you. And then you have to go up in these stages.
First, you have to think about them in a certain way. Well, first you have to
check them out. But after you’re through checking them out you have to start
thinking about them in a certain way and after that you have to start acting
towards them in a certain way. And then, towards the end, if you really want to
get enlightened in this lifetime, it has to be total commitment. You know, like,
anything they need, you’re trying to supply it for them. They don’t have to ask.
They don’t have to push you. They don’t have to beg you. They don’t have to
whine about it. It’s just there, you know. And you take all the load off their
head, you know. You say, you know, whatever you need, I’ll do. You know
what I mean. And that has to be the relationship, okay.
For them? They don’t need it. This person, for example, has seen emptiness
directly, they don’t need anything you can do for them. Seriously. Okay. They
don’t need you. Until you reach the highest point of your development you’re
just a drain on them. You’re just trouble for them, you know. They don’t need
anything. They could go sit somewhere and be happy [laughs] you know what I
mean. It’s one more problem in their life [laughs], you know, to take care of, is
having one more kid, you know.
It’s not for them, okay. Never think like that. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s for you, really,
it’s for you. Okay. And it’s an honour to be asked to do something for your
lama. And it’s an honour to be spending your money for other sentient beings,
you know. And it’s an honour to spend your time and your life and to stay up
late to help other people. And, and you’re, you’re one of the fortunate few who
has the opportunity and, and really you have to see it like that ‘cos it’s true.
Okay. To have the opportunity to, to, you know, to spend all your time, to
overwork yourself for your lama.
The word ‘shramana’, ‘shramanara’, one of the ordination vows is, means, the
person who tires themselves out helping their lama, okay. [laughs] This ancient
Sanskrit word for a student is the one who tires themselves out, you know,
trying to help their lama. Never think of it as a burden or something, hassle or
something like that. It’s an honour. And once you get into it there’s a dynamic, I
mean, there’s some kind a snowball starts rolling. Once you’re able to commit
yourself that way then everything starts happening for you. And, if you want to
see emptiness, that’s the best way. I mean, out of all the things we can do is to
get into that kind of relationship with, with, with the lama who fits you. And
then, don’t hold back anything and then you’ll get everything. You see what I
mean. It’s a dynamic like that. And you have to get to that point. That’s the first
of the lam rims, okay.
[end side A]



[side B]
That’s the first step of the path. Okay, last one.
Say {gurpa}[repeat] {kyepa}[repeat]; {…} means like some kind of love or
affection, reverence, devotion. And {kyepa} means to generate that or to start to
feel that.
And if you reach that with a person that you’re serving them to that degree or
you have that relationship with them then you start to feel this devotion for
them, okay. And it’s a very important sign of your spiritual progress, you
know.
You start to feel like this is the most precious being in the world and they’ve
been giving up their whole lives for me and they’ve been watching over me and
they’ve been, you know, this is a real lama. They’ve been setting this up for
hundreds of years, you know. And this person’s been out taking care of me,
watching me, watching over me, protecting me, guiding me, trying to make sur
that I don’t suffer, you know. And they’ve being doing that for many, many,
many years, you know. It’s not just, I mean, any lama that you meet has been
watching you for many years before that and, and waiting and setting things up
for you and preparing for you, waiting for you to get here. And this has been
going on for longer than you can imagine and then you have to think like that.
Okay. And that’s {..}, okay.
Take a break, okay, and then do your thing. We’ll talk after that, okay.
I’ll give you, like, a five minute shpiel about how did I chose what to teach in
these classes, okay, and what’s the approach of the content of this last five, six
years courses, okay. And to me it boils down between two things. What we call,
{lam rim pa}, say {lam rim pa}[repeat], {tsennyi pa}[repeat]. These are two
approaches to learning Buddhism that were popular in Tibet, okay. {lam rim pa}
means that you go through the Lam Rim, okay. You go through one of the
presentations of a Lam Rim. There are maybe eight major Lam Rims in Tibet.
There are dozens of lesser Lam Rims. Not lesser by content but shorter. And
that’s one way of learning Buddhism, you know. You can learn the theoretical
part of Buddhism through the Lam Rim. And that’s a tradition that’s been
especially strong in Tibet especially among the non- monks, okay, like, among
lay people. When big Lamas, like Pabongka Rinpoche, went to teach lay people
in Tibet, it was always Lam Rim. When His Holiness comes to America to teach
it’s usually the ‘Three Principle Paths’ or, or some kind of variation on a Lam
Rim. And this has been the tradition for lay people to learn Buddhism. Lam Rim
includes all of Buddhism in a brief, easy to practice way that anyone can do. And
this is one tradition. It’s been a tradition when lamas got to the United States or
other western countries that they concentrated on Lam Rim teachings because
they were more simple and they were briefer and they were complete. And this
is an easy way to present Buddhism to a western audience especially when you
have a language barrier. So it was easier to do it that way. And that’s been the
way a lot of Buddhism has been taught in the United States. What the Asian
Classics Institute’s theory was, as that if you could find students who would
commit enough time they could do it the monk’s way, you know, the {tsennyi
pa}, called {tsennyi pa}, okay. {tsennyi} means definition, {tsennyi pa} means a
logician or someone who works on reasoning. And this is the presentation in
the great monasteries, okay. We call {den sa sum}, the big three monasteries of
Tibet, which is, Drepung, Ganden – two lesser Colleges [laughter] and Sera,
okay, [laughter] which is the greatest of the three. And this has been the
tradition in the {den sa sum} means the great three monasteries: Sera, Drepung,
Ganden. And you would study {tsennyi pa}.




The {tsennyi pa} system consists of five subjects and I’m gonna just write them
down. And this is what the course, here at Asian Classics, was designed around.
I felt, I was brought up through the {tsennyi pa} system, you know, my Lama,
we had time. We had twenty years, so he brought me up through the {tsennyi
pa} system. {tsennyi pa} means, you cover the same material as the Lam Rim,
but you rip it apart and you go very, very great detail through the five great
subjects of ancient Indian Buddhism, okay. Sooner or later, if you do Lam Rim,
they’re all there and you can get them and you can learn them all that way. But,
if you go the {tsennyi pa} way, it’s much, much more detailed. And to me, I
think that Americans, if you can find Americans who are willing to make the
effort, that it’s a much greater result, you know. If you can find people who are
attracted to working hard and having to really study hard and to try to
understand the details of Buddhism, that to me, my goal in this Institute is that
people study the {tsennyi pa} way. That you go through the details and the hard
work of doing the detailed presentation of the great classics of ancient Buddhism.
Going through each one of the four great Schools of ancient India in detail and
learning the main points of the whole Geshe course. So the Geshe course is a
{tsennyi pa} course and that was my dream for this place and for these courses
and for the five, six year course. And what I would like this institute to be
known for and what I would like to see people teaching is the five great subjects
in detail in the heavy presentation. And I would like us to attract that kind of
student. I don’t think it’s for everybody. You know, there’s a lot of people who
are attracted to, for example, just meditation. And there are people who are
attracted to just social work or just social action or things like that. But the, the
core of this Institute’s presentation is the Geshe course and that’s a {tsennyi pa}.
{tsennyi pa}means, you take the five great subjects and you study them really
hard and then, in conjunction with, meditation and deep retreats which we’ll talk
about another night. But as far as the content of what we learn here and what
my dream is, is that, I think any normal American is well educated enough to do
the whole Geshe course. I don’t, you know, having been through the Geshe
course, I don’t see any reason why a normal American who’s persistent can’t
excel at that course. And I don’t think, I think it’s a, I don’t know how to say it, I
think you are underestimating westerners or Americans if you think they can’t
do the Geshe course. Of course you can do the Geshe course. You’ve been
through the major points of the Geshe course. Frankly, you know most of the
material as well as most Geshe’s ever learn it even if you’re not, you may not
believe that, okay. You, you can believe it, okay. I did my Geshe exams in
ninety-five after teaching here for five years. It was a breeze. I mean, it was fun.
People came there said, why are laughing, you’re being examined by every
monk in the monastery. It was a good time because I’d been through it all again
with this, with these courses. So you don’t have to think that you’re somehow
don’t, aren’t getting the whole thing, or you’re not learning it as well, or you’re
not qualified to teach it, or you have to go the {lam rim pa} way because
American’s can’t learn {tsennyi pa} way. It’s not true. And, and you’ve learned
the major points of the Geshe course and that’s the goal of this Institute. In other
words, I don’t ever want the most serious courses of this Institute to be watered
down to something which is, you know, easy for people who can’t come
regularly, you know what I mean or something like that. I’d rather weed out
those students. Let them come on Friday night which we call a ‘cookie class’ and,
even though you get cookies, and I think the core, my dream of the core of the
teachers that we produce should be {tsennyi pas}. In other words, they’ve
covered the subjects in detail, they’re not afraid to answer tough questions about
it. When a tough question comes up they can say, oh, that comes in Abhidharma
chapter three, check it out. You know what I mean. And, and I’d like to see that
kind of thing. And not, it’s not my goal in this Institute to do the lam Rim way,
okay.
The Lam Rim is a, is a masterpiece because it incorporates all the five great books
but in a much briefer way and in a much less comprehensive way. So I’d say I’d
like the concentration of you people as teachers to be {tsennyi pa} way, which
means, you’re gonna have to learn all fifteen courses. Period. You know, my
goal is that, you know, by the time I get out of the stupid three year retreat that
everybody has finished the fifteen courses. If you’re not, if you haven’t done
like the first five or ten or something like that, we’re gonna design, during the
three years there’ll be a rotation of the courses so you’ll be able to finish the ones
you didn’t do. Okay. And my goal is that each person go through the whole
{tsennyi pa} course, you know. I could just get up and do a six month Lam Rim
and then repeat it every six months and that’s not the goal. If you want that,
you know, go find a {lam rim pa} centre, okay. This is not. You earn it here,
okay. And that’s my goal. That’s what I would like, okay. You’ve got fifteen
courses, finished, packaged, waiting for you and your job to get through them.
There will be people teaching them in a rotation during the three years and you
can probably finish them if you work hard, okay.
I’m gonna just put up the names of the five great subjects because it’s auspicious,
you know, for people who are gonna be {tsennyi pas}. Okay.
And I’m not putting down {lam rim pa} centres, you know. That’s good.
{tsennyi pa’s} better, okay. [laughs] [laughter] Alright.
Say {parchin}[repeat]. By the way, never say that, I don’t want to hear anybody
say that Michael Roach said Lam Rim was bad or something like that. That’s
incredibly ignorant, okay. Lam Rim is fantastic. This is even better. Okay.
That’s all.
{parchin} means Perfection of Wisdom, okay. The Perfection of Wisdom Sutras.
It’s the lower Madhyamika School. In the monastery, Perfection of Wisdom
means the study of the lower School of Madhyamika, the lower Middle Way
School. What we call the ‘Independence School’. In the monastery this is twelve
years.
Say {uma}[repeat] {uma}[repeat], Thurman, [laughter] no; {uma means Middle
Way, okay, Madhyamika. In the monastery this means the higher half of the
Middle Way School, okay, the Prasangika or the Consequence School. The
highest teachings on emptiness, {uma}. We do four years in the monastery.
Say {dulwa}[repeat] {dulwa}[repeat]; {dulwa} means Vinaya. This is Vowed
Morality, okay. It could be, some people call it ‘monk’s rules’ or something like
that. It’s not just monks; lay people also, okay. Vinaya, okay, the study of Ethics,
vowed ethics, taking vows to live an ethical life is {dulwa}, okay. We do for two
years in the monastery. This is the presentation of the Abhidharma Schools on
ethics. This is the first of the four Schools of ancient India, okay.
When I met His Holiness and we showed Him the courses He was very excited.
And I said, we’re doing all five great books. He says, wait a minute, how are
you doing Vinaya with, you know, big groups of people. They’re not monks
and nuns. I said, oh, we’re using Je Tsongkapa’s outline of Vinaya. He says, oh,
that’s great, you know. He was very excited about it, okay.
Say {dzu}[repeat], {..} means Abhidharmakosha, okay, the Abhidharma. We
spend two years on it. The subject of the Abhidharma is hard to say. I mean, the
first chapter, two chapters discuss the parts of your personality, your mind, all
the parts of your mind; breaks down the whole universe into different
categories, things like that.



The, the third chapter goes onto, where did the world come from, how was the
universe formed, what are atomic particles, you know, how do you measure
time, you know, how will the world end, things like that. Cosmology.
Fourth chapter is on Karma. And in the latter chapter is on how to meditate,
how to defeat your mental afflictions, things like that. So, it’s like a huge
encyclopaedia of, of Buddhist philosophy.
Again, this is from the point of view of the first of the four great Schools, the
Abhidharma Schools, okay.
Say {tsema}[repeat] {tsema}[repeat]; {tsema} in Sanskrit is Pramana. It means the
study of Logic and Perception, okay, Buddhist logic and perception. In here, you
get the second of the four great Schools. This is called the Sutrist Schools.
Sometimes I just call it the Logic schools. When you say ‘logic’ to westerners
and Americans they, they freak out, you know. They say, what’s it got to do
with me overcoming suffering and becoming a tantric deity, you know. What’s
logic, you know, who wants to study Aristotle? I just want to get enlightened,
you know, and they freak out.
And I tell you this, okay, catch this. The second most important thing for seeing
emptiness directly is logic. Okay. Is to study Buddhist Logic Schools. To study
the theories of how you perceive things. How does perception work? You
know, why does perception work? Why do you recognise things? How do you
recognise things? How, how do your perceptions work? I mean, after serving
your lama, I’d say it’s the most important thing for seeing emptiness directly.
It’s not in a, it’s not irrelevant at all. It’s one of the most important things you
can do.
Je Tsongkapa’s student said the greatest kindness he ever paid them was to
reach them logic, how to think straight. And it’s very, very deeply and
intimately connected with seeing emptiness directly. Okay. And you have to
learn it. They call it the {ume go}, it’s like the, the doorway to Madhyamika, the
doorway to emptiness, okay.
Yeah. [student] She said, where does debating fit into this? We’ll talk about it in
a second, okay.
We study {tsema}or Pramana every year. We stop, everyone stops wherever
they are in the course, everyone stops and we go to Logic for three or four
months. It culminates in the winter debates, which are big competitions,
between the great three monasteries. Sometimes we let the {tashi hlunpo’s}
come and if the {ratu’s} are nice we let them come [laughter] and the namgyal
sherab} once, but they never came back, alright. [laughs][laughter] Anyway, I
think some of them did come back. Anyway, but it’s a very intense debating
between all the great three monasteries for, like, ten hours a day for an entire
month. And, and this is every year. Logic is considered so important that
whether you’re just starting out at fifteen years of age or whether you’re about
to do your Geshe degree you’re still, every year you’re stopping and doing it for
three or four months, okay.
When I say Logic, I’m also talking about how you perceive things, you know,
that whole thing about mental images and how that plays a role in the
perception of emptiness, okay.
How does all this relate to debating? We debate all of it. Debate is a tool to
debate anything. And after we build the university in Arizona we’ll be debating
art or dance or tai chi or chi gong, whatever. You know, everything can be a
subject of debate. Debate is just a tool for, for arguing logically about things and
learning them fast and efficiently. So you can debate, we debate all of these
subjects, okay, all four subjects.
Yeah. All five subjects, sorry. [student] Yeah. It’s exclusive. You do them,
yeah. You do only {parchin}for twelve years and then you do only {uma}.
And then people having trouble shifting between them because you learn a
whole belief system and then they tell you, now forget that one and go to the
next one. And, and you say, you have to switch hats. They call it switching hats.
So people who just graduated from {parchin} to {uma} for example, are still stuck
in their thinking in the lower School and the teacher has to shock them out of it,
you know. Like, the teacher, after teaching them lower Madhyamika for twelve
years says, by the way, that’s wrong. Now you have to learn this one for four
years, you know. And they freak out, very common for them to freak out,
okay. So this is the system in the monastery.
Now, where does the Lam Rim fit in here? Lam Rim is an abbreviation of all
these five, see what I mean, Lam Rim contains all five in a brief way. In the
monastery there is no Lam Rim formal course . And I asked Rinpoche one time,
why don’t we do the Lam Rim or why do we do {drupta}, which is comparative
philosophy, ‘cos you don’t need it ‘cos when you do the other four, I mean, the
other five, you cover it but in greater detail. Okay. So you have to get used to
that idea.
Yeah. [student] Oh, that’s a good question. He said, where does Mind Only
School fit in? Alright. Which is the third of the four great Schools. It’s studied
during {parchin}, okay. It’s, as you get towards the end of your course in the
Perfection of Wisdom you start learning {tragne}. {tragne} means how to
interpret the Buddha and that’s where Mind Only School comes up. Was the
Buddha literal or figurative when he taught that everything is the mind or
something like that? Okay. So, it’s covered in {parchin}. And then, later, when
you get to Madhyamika, the Mind Only School comes as the bad guys and you
learn all the arguments against the Mind Only School. So that’s, that’s where you
study the third of the four great Schools.
So, by the time you finish this course at ACI, the point is that you’ve covered all
the great Schools of ancient India, you’ve covered everything that the Lam Rims
have in them and, but in very, very great detail.
What’s the use of spending so much time in all this detail? Okay. Why is it
necessary? Can’t we just meditate all the time? You know what I mean? It
seems like you’re hung up on all these fine points of philosophy. It’s not just
philosophy. Sooner or later, you’ll see that every single point that comes up is
one that will come up in your own mind as you meditate and you have to be
equipped to deal with those questions for yourself. Secondly, as you get older,
you will attract students, okay. Each person in this room has a personal
responsibility to start teaching in accordance with their ability and their own
personality to other people. And they will come up, they are westerners, they
are American, they will come up with the craziest questions, you know. And
they will think of all the angles that Je Tsongkapa didn’t cover or something like
that. You know what I mean. And the idea of learning all the Schools is that you
can, you can handle every different question. And the idea of studying in depth
is that you can satisfy the needs of each person, each student that you ever have.
You will have, at your fingertips, exactly what they need. You see what I mean.
And you’ll be, like, totally equipped to help any kind of personality that comes to
you because you’re going to get all kinds of students and each one is gonna be
obsessed with a different part of Buddhism and you have to be equipped to
answer them immediately and to satisfy them and to lead them, okay. So that’s
the idea of being a {tsennyi pa} and, and having all this stuff in your, at your
fingertips. And you should. And you shouldn’t think it’s a waste of time or too
much detail or something like that. If someone’s gonna come to you and ask
you that question and if you have it right there and you can help them or it’s
gonna come up in your, in the second year of your three year retreat, you can’t
talk to anybody, right.
 And you’ll have it all in your mind, you know. Sooner or later, everything we
ever cover was taught by Lord Buddha because he saw with an omniscient mind
that somebody would need it and, and never think of it as anything less that
that, okay.
We’ll do some prayers.
[prayer: short mandala]
[prayer: dedication]
Thankyou.
Asian Classics Institute

Course XVI: Great Ideas of Buddhism