ACI 17 (обзорный курс), Занятие 04 (прогон ГМР, Нью-Йорк 1999) — стенограмма

Class 4, part 1
Transcribed by: Karen Becker

(cut)

This is a custom of on major holidays to try to act like a
Bodhisattva or an arhat for a whole day, so the idea is in the
morning you take, you swear, to keep certain vows, like, I won't
kill anybody today, I won't steal anything of value, you know,
and also, I won't eat after noon and I won't eat meat and and
things like that...there're certain...they're easy vows, not such
a big deal, and it's a very powerful thing to do, you know, on
major holidays. To me this is the most important holiday of the
year, it's the day that the Buddha first decided to teach
something. He was enlightened for a certain period and didn't
want to teach. He stayed in the forest and said, "nobody will
get it". And then finally he decided to start teaching. So,
it's a very auspicious day to...you dedicate the whole day to
watching yourself very carefully, your mind and and what you say
and what you do to other people, so it's just like a special day
of of watchfulness about your own behavior. And it's a very good
custom...to do it, and if you do it enough times it starts to get
into your subconscious. Okay? If you get there late, just go
home because...please don't ring the bell 'cause we we're on very
we're on probation there, we made too much noise, the other
owners of the building complained and we have to be very
sensitive. All we need is for someone to ring the other owners
bell at five in the morning (laughter) and (laughs), you know, so
please be considerate. Try to be there by five. If you're
waiting out there on the steps at four fourty-five 'cause you got
there early 'cause you didn't want to be late, try to be quiet.
Okay. Pretend you're the homeless person who's shooting up on
the steps (laughter), okay, which they seem not to mind. Okay.
(laughter) (laughs) All right. Okay. Okay. (laughs) All
right. We're doing second part of Bodhisattva Vows. Last week
we covered the...well last class we covered the (laughs) all the
root vows, whether you remember it or not (laughs). Tonight
we're gonna talk about some other issues about the vows and about
a few of the special secondary vows. I'd like to get in your
mind the role of the vows and what they're supposed to do for
you, okay. I think it's important to know the whole evolution of
what's supposed to happen here. So I'd say, you know, first you
do your past lives...we don't believe that your mind began with
the beginning of the physical body. Okay. Due to your past
memories you're attracted..you know, you have some attraction to
Bu to to a spiritual path in this life. And and different people
have different attractions, and and different people have
different levels of attraction and different people turn on at
different times in their life. Some people it may be when
they're fifteen years old, some people maybe when they're thirty.
 Some people when they're fifty. But it...we call (bak chak
sepa) at some point your mind gets attracted to spiritual things.
 We believe in Buddhism that is because you spent, literally,
thousands of years working on it, and if you come into this life
and you have any attraction to spiritual things, there's a reason
for it, and it's because you've been working on it for a long
time. Okay. Then you normally you have some kind of disaster.
Okay? This is very desirable. (laughter) Okay. For me my mother
died, you know, young. My father died, my brother died, all in
the same year. It wakes you up to the nature of this life, you
know. You get a wake-up call. I I know very serious Buddhists
in their sixties who the the important moment was when they were
thirty or twenty-five and and the one I'm thinking of, her
daughter was crushed by a truck in while her husband was holding
the daughter's hand...and and things like that. You know.
Something wakes you up to the fact that you must die, and that
there's nothing else in this realm, in the world that we live in,
what you have to look forward to is is death, old age, losing the
people you love, losing the things you love and and then you
begin to question, is there anything I can do about it or is that
just inevitable? So so at some point you get a a a wake-up call,
all right? Then you need, you know, I guess normally you read
some books, right? Or you hear about it in the newspaper, you
know...people pick up a book by the Dalai Lama or they're
watching TV and they see His Holiness for a few minutes, or I
remember reading a comic book...I think it's Dr. Strange or
something like that, and he's in a Tibetan cave and he's learning
all this great stuff and they got these cool robes and, you know,
it just caught my eye, you know what I mean? Then I get to
college, my mom's dying of cancer, who never hurt a fly, you
know, and and I pick up this Buddhist book about suffering, and I
thought "wow, they...at least they are asking the right
questions", you know what I mean? So, I think you make your
first contact, some kind of loose contact, you know, and then it
may take years before it really sinks in. Then you go to your
first classes and...I remember my first classes. I think that's
why I can appreciate being a student. I remember my first
classes...I was very nervous. I remember getting off the bus in
India. I remember tried to read my first Tibetan book, not
understanding half the words, too many Sanscrit words in there.
I remember trying to make the sounds of Tibetans (nga), I
remember walking up the mountain trying to say (nga) (nga) (ng)
(ng ng) (laughter)...you know, I'd go into class..."it is (nga)"
they'd go "no, go back home, you know, come back tomorrow", you
know, and I remember all these things and I remember how
uncomfortable it was. I remember feeling very uncomfortable when
people prostrated, you know what I mean, and and how
uncomfortable that felt to see people do that, and no...I
remember how weird it was to see a man in in a dress, a red
dress, and barefoot and things like that, you know. I still
remember all those things and so those are...you go to your first
classes and they're they're a little bit...the cultural stuff is
sticky, you know, hopefully we can smooth that over in the
future, but their cultural issues where they they doing certain
things that are unusual for us and they don't mean the same
thing. To walk around with your head shaved in New York for a
guy means you're dangerous. For a woman it means you're looking
for another girl (laughter) (laughs) and you know, and if...and,
you know, you get called a Hari Krishna when you walk down the
street and and, you know, it's all cultural things that have
trouble, and you have trouble with those things, but you overcome
them, you get to your first classes, I think then you get your
first intellectual understandings. I mean...understandings. And
this is, this is where you start to go to more classes, and you
get the intellectual framework of Buddhism. Okay, I understand
it's it's not just coming from nowhere...there's a reason why
people die, there's a reason why people get old, there's a reason
why the accidents in my life happened, you know, there's some
kind of intellectual reason why I might be able to get out of
this problem, and you start to have some understanding of it
intellectually. You start coming to classes, you do your
homeworks, you do your quizzes...things like that. Some people
between this stage and this stage takes a long time. You know,
they come to their first classes, and and they keep coming, but
they don't really think, you know, they keep coming 'cause it's,
they like the people there, they like the feeling of the place,
but the real intellectual work is is going on very slowly. Then
at some point it it sort of...the the screw turns up and you
start getting more serious and you start thinking harder and then
certain realizations start to happen to you, okay. Then you you
start your first daily practice...I saw an interesting article
about...when Time Magazine did an article about Buddhism in
America, they were saying "the interesting thing about Buddhism
is that people do it in their home and not at church, like it's
not an hour a week on Sundays at church". I think in almost
every form of Buddhism that has reached the United States,
although they're all very different, mostly you're encouraged to
make a an altar in your home, make a place in your home where you
meditate in the morning, and most Buddhists are considering it
like half an hour to an hour and a half every morning is not
unusual to be praying or meditating in front of your altar, every
morning and and that's a big difference. So at some point in
your career you start you start doing your daily practice. If
you meditate every day, you start to have unusual things start
happen to you, like very good things, like if you start
meditating regularly you notice that you're better able to focus,
you're better able to do your work during the day, office work or
whatever you do, you find yourself happier, you find yourself
more compassionate towards other people, you find your
relationships improving...things like that, they, all this affect
the meditation starts to starts to happen to you. Then you hear
about vows and and we're getting into that. We said last week,
last class, when when I say "vows", I hesitate to use the word
vows. It has so many negative connotations. When you say "vow"
to somebody, what you often think of is somebody in Europe in
fourteen hundreds, you know, they got pregnant out of wedlock,
the family wanted to get them out of the picture, they send them
to a convent, the child is given away and the woman never comes
out, and she's under vows. And...or something like that.
There's always this connotation of, in my mind, when I was
growing up, people who are frustrated, restricted by their vows,
they don't really like their vows or they're struggling against
their vows and the vows are like chains that are holding them
back from their true nature, and they're struggling their whole
life against against their real nature, and and that that was the
impression of vows that I had as a young person in this country.
You...again, as we said last time, you have to think of vows in a
different way. "Vows are like", Matthew Ricard said, "wings".
You know, it's a list of things that if you do it, your whole
life changes, okay, and you you just have to think of it that
way. I I feel very strongly that before people give vows they
should explain what vows do for you. I mean, each of these steps
you've been through, you know, up to the vow thing. Each of you
has gone through some part of this process and you got here, and
a lot of you have finished a lot of courses, so you have the
whole intellectual outline of Buddhism very clear in your mind
and if you are meditating regularly you are getting some kind of
really special changes in your mind from that. But you have to
go one more step and think about vows, okay. You have to think
about making a commitment to certain kinds of behavior, okay.
And these are not like stupid things, like you can't eat ice
cream, you can't go see a movie, you know, it's not like that.
These are...the Bodhisattva Vows are very powerful vows that all
relate to serving other people and getting into the idea of of
devoting your life to other people, making a commitment to devote
your life to other people. And then that is a very liberating
experience. When you start keeping those vows, your whole world
changes, and what I meant to say was, each time you move from one
of these steps to the next step, your reality shifts. Okay. And
and that's what I want you to appreciate. Each time you go up
another step along this ladder, your reality shifts, okay. I'm
not saying you have a different attitude about your life, I'm not
saying you feel better or worse about other people or something
like that. The colors and sounds and the people you meet and the
things that happen to you shift another ten degrees, okay. You
gotta get used to that, okay? We're talking about changing
reality itself. When you move to from here to here, your reality
shifts ten degrees. And there are still a certain percentage of
people who are in their old reality who don't really understand
what you're doing, you see what I mean, 'cause they don't see the
world that way. The, we say that the...there's an energy or a
power, the closer you get to acting in a spiritual way, the more
your reality will shift. And and people who are still down here,
you know, who don't have any interest in these things, they
literally see the world differently then you, you know. To them
the world is a more threatening place, to them you have to be
tough, and you have to be aggressive, and you have to watch out
for your own interest because the world is dangerous and the
world is is is is a competitive place and and you must take care
of number one or or you're gonna be taken advantage of or or you
won't have enough to eat, or your family won't have a house to
stay in or something like that, and as you move up, reality
itself changes. As you start to get around here, it's totally
shifted around. Your perception of the world is that other
people are starting to change all around you. The people around
you are actually taking care of you, you know, you start to...as
you get higher and higher in the process, you become more and
more like a child, and the whole world is taking care of you, and
you don't have to worry about a thing, and and it's not a naive
thing. Like, I was in business for sixteen years, corporate
life, millions and millions of dollars. It's not naivite and
it's not avoiding the real world. It's the real world starts to
change. And and everything starts to work better because you
know how to make things work, you see what I mean? And anything
you want to accomplish, you can accomplish. And and
extraordinary changes around you start to happen. Extraordinary
shifts in the reality around you as you move up...and and that's
the whole point, you see what I mean, and if this person, meets
this person, they they see the world differently, you know. This
person, thinks this person is naive. This person feels sorry for
this person (laughter) that they're still struggling, you know,
for what? To collect things so you can die with them, you know
what I mean? I mean, and and still this person doesn't
understand how to get things the right way and this person has
more things than they know what to do with. This person has
trouble getting rid of all the money and things that people give
them. You know what I mean. And and, you know, filling out
financial reports to account for all the money they were given,
you see what I mean? Stuff like that (laughter). This is...and
and it's not any kind of...it's just happening to them because
they understand karma and they understand vows, you see what I
mean, so what I'm I'm trying to say is this. You have an
opportunity with Bodhisattva vows to switch to a whole different
reality. It's a whole higher level of seeing the world. If you
start acting day by day, hour by hour according to your
Bodhisattva vows, you can count on a major shift in the reality
around you, and I'm not saying that you'd become different person
or like that...the actual reality, the sounds, tastes, physical
world around you and your own mind start to change, and and isn't
that the whole point, you know...isn't that the whole idea, isn't
that why you went on a spiritual path in the first place? You
were hoping something like this happens. Okay. So you go
through, take your Bodhisattva vows...by the way, you start with
Pratimoksha Vows, okay...which you can call Freedom Vows. These
are very basic, okay. Agreeing not to kill a human or a fetus,
agreeing not to steal any major amount of money, agreeing not to
commit adultery with another persons's wife or husband, agreeing
not to lie about your spiritual life, agreeing not to use drugs
or alcohol, okay. I mean basically those five, okay? When you
take those five for your life, and then when you start keeping
them carefully, your reality shifts another ten degrees. And
people who haven't taken them can't appreciate it, you know. You
try to explain to them...I've been keeping these five vows now
for about three years, and food tastes better, music sounds
better, I'm meet nicer people, my finances have changed, you
know, and they they can't understand it 'cause they're just in a
different reality...they're in a different place. But if you
take these vows and keep them, life starts to change. That's the
whole idea. By the way, when you get around three hundred and
sixty degrees...I guess it's a hundred and eighty, okay...to be
eighteen major spiritual levels or something, you're in heaven.
You're what they call paradise. We believe you can do it, we
can believe you can go there, we don't believe you have to look
weird or act any different, to us you might look exactly the
same, but your personal experience of reality would be totally
blissful, total totally happy, and you would be surrounded by
extraordinary people. And then as we walk through, you might
look like a normal person. Okay. So you have to get used to
that idea. Each person's perceptions of their reality only
depends on how far along this ladder they've gotten, and there is
no base reality. There is no standard reality. It's only what
each person is seeing. Okay. So, so which way do you want to be
is the only question...you can design it. You gotta take your
Pratimoksha vows. Then you take Bodhisattva Vows and the idea is
just to get a new list of vows, a new list of activities that if
you keep these, your reality shifts another ten percent. You get
ten percent closer to the opposite of what you grew up with.
What you started out in this life with is certain death, certain
loss of all the things you've ever owned, certain loss of all the
people you've ever met, certain loss of your identity, your mind,
your body, everything...that's what you started with, and each
time you go up a little bit, it shifts. The reality shifts like
that. Everytime you move up the spiritual ladder, you you start
to get shifts like that. Okay. Then you take your secret vows.
And if you keep them well, it you accomplish the...the whole
hundred and eighty degree turn, okay. You're about here when you
take your secret vows. You still have friends from high school
are back here, not interested in spiritual things at all. But to
try to talk to them about what's happening to you is very
difficult. You know what I mean. I mean it's a Buddhist
principle that no two people see the world the same way exactly,
because the world is empty, meaning you only see what you've
prepared in your mind. If you've been good to other people, you
see the world in a certain way. If you've been bad to other
people, you see the world in a different way. So as you move up
the vows, you're becoming different from other people. You're
seeing the world differently, you're having different
experiences, you you might look even strange to them. You
probably do actually. Okay (laughter) And by the way I'm not
saying it in a way that you say, oh, you poor guy, you know, you
never took vows, I did, I'm much better than you, you just don't
understand what's happening to me, you know, go away, or
something like that, you know...not like that...I'm not saying
like that. And you can't never tell that the person that you're
looking at is not a fully enlightened being already, okay. Never
sure of that. I'm not saying it in a way of judging other
people, I'm just saying, if you go through this process, your
reality starts to shift in clicks. In in the diamond business we
call it "clicks". When you cut a diamond you have clicks, you
know...ten degrees, twenty degrees, thirty degrees, it's a called
a click stop, so your reality's just moving up different clicks
and then it reaches enlightenment, okay. So the trick here is
called "six times". Many Americans, many Westerners have taken
vows, different sets of vows...some have taken basic morality
vows, some have taken ordination vows, many have taken
Bodhisattva vows, many have taken secret vows, okay? And then
you say, "hey did you notice all those those shifts in in your
world when you started to keep them", and they say, "no". And
then you say, you know, "can you tell me just how you're keeping
them"? And they say, "well, you know, I generally know them and
and I try to be a good person". And you say, "no no. I I want
to know, are you checking them?" And they say, "what do you mean
checking, you know, when I do and I watch and I don't kill
people, I I I try not to kill people in general", but you say
"no. Are you checking them throughout the day, like every two
hours or so, do you check them"...and this is a custom in
Buddhism. You have to do it. Okay. Whether...whatever vows you
have, you're supposed to check them throughout the day. Six
times a day by tradition. You stop. You stop what you're doing,
wherever you are, whatever time it is. I love the Muslim custom,
I love the Hassidic custom...I worked in a Hassidic diamond
cutting factory. Every couple of hours, they'd...Moise would
stand up and go stand in the corner and he'd and he'd go like
this, you know, and they're doing their prayers. And they don't
care if the guy's waiting outside with a hundred thousand dollar
order of diamonds, the prayers are more important. In the
diamond dealer's club in New York, there's a special room for
prayer, and when the hour comes, everyone goes in. And that's
it. And that's more important that the business...you see what I
mean? We're supposed to be doing the same thing, okay. Every
two hours or so, six times a day, stop, check your next vow. You
must do it. What I'm saying is that it's one thing to take these
vows, well, it's one thing to learn them, it's a second thing to
take them, but it's a whole different thing to keep them, okay?
If you don't keep them then these vows don't do anything. And if
you come to eighteen different courses here, and you work your
butt off for seven years and learn all this...the details of
Buddhist philosophy which are endless, you won't change, okay.
It won't change you that much. You must be following some noble
code of conduct, you know, and you must be checking yourself
every few hours or just to have a general mood where you'd like
to be a good person doesn't work because we we come into this
world pretty wild, and and you have to have some discipline. You
have to be able, every few hours, check your mind, see where you
mind is and and check the next vow, you know. Did I lie to
anybody in the last two hours, okay. By the way, by tomorrow you
won't remember all the lies you told today. Okay. That's just
human nature, you know. Those of you, like me, who go to bed and
forgot to check their last two vows, by the next morning you
can't remember what happened yesterday, you know. It's gotta be
fresh. And and unless you change your behavior, your conduct,
unless you examine yourself every few hours, you can't expect
that Buddhism to do a thing for you. You're just fooling
yourself. You can be you can be able to answer every single
question on these homeworks and do all the quizzes in Urdu and in
Sanscrit and in Tibetan, but if you don't understand the vows,
and then take them and then watch them, it won't have any effect
on you. And and there are...I meet hundreds of Americans every
year who can attest to that fact. The i...if you're not, if you
don't believe me, I can refer to you to a few of them, you know
(laughs) they took vows twenty years ago, they never learned them
properly, they don't know exactly what they are, they definitely
don't check them hour by hour, and they haven't changed, and
nothing's happened to them. And then there's people who do keep
them...the the beauty of Bodhisattva vows is you can start out a
real schmuck, but if you keep them every few hours, you actually
become a beautiful person after a while. You see what I mean?
They work. They really work. So it doesn't matter what your
original condition is, you know, however you start, it's okay.
Just know them, check them and then inevitable you start to
change, and what's changing really is the reality around you, and
you gotta get into that mode. Then when you take higher vows,
everything makes sense. Everything they talk about in the higher
teachings makes total sense, totally clear, everything's coming
true, all those experiences that you ever read about in Dr.
Strange comic books start to happen to you...or the New
Testament, or whatever. They all start to actually happen, you
know, to you. I was in Ireland and and they were so exciting.
The people were keeping their vows and and things were starting
to happen to them and they said, "this is exactly what was
described in the Bible. It...I thought it would only happen two
thousand years ago. I didn't think it could happen nowadays",
you know. They, like the idea was that all the amazing things
you read in the Bible were only happening two thousand years ago
and can't happen now. And that's not true. If you keep these
vows, all those extraordinary things that you ever dreamed of
will start happening to you. So what I'm trying to say is, this
class, tonight, about Bodhisattva Vows is really important. It's
the way to go up about another twenty degrees. Automatically.
And like exercise, it just requires maintenance on a regular
basis. It requires a small amount of effort every couple of
hours. It doesn't take more than two minutes to for the exercise
of writing down how you did on that vow. In fact, once you get
used to it, you can do it in about ten seconds. But it just has
to be done every few hours. And then things change. All the
miracles you ever heard about in the Bible start to happen. And
it doesn't matter how dumb, spiritually, your mind was when you
started, the beauty of the Bodhisattva Vows is that an omniscient
being has chosen sixty-four things to concentrate on and if you
do it, no matter how bad you are, you start to get incredible.
You just have to keep doing it on a regular basis, okay. So it's
like, you can go from sixty-four pound weakling to a Arnold
Schwartzenager, without the heart attack, okay. You just have to
keep them, okay. You just...all you have to do is check them
every few hours. Doesn't matter how how grumpy or how
uncompassionate your mind is. Understand the vow, check them
every few hours, you'll be Mother Theresa in short order. I'm
not kidding. That's the power of of this system, okay. Okay.
Now we'll go over the actual class. I'm not gonna do much
Tibetan 'cause we don't have that much time. Having covered the
major vows, we're now discussing some details of how you keep the
vows, okay. And I think, the first thing to say is, when you
take Pratimoksha or Freedom Vows, they are lifetime vows. When
you take the vows, they say (je she tsaway par du)...means "until
the day I die I will keep these vows". Now Bodhisattva Vows are
different. You don't lose them when you die, and the same with
(tantric) vows. Okay. Once you take them once, you don't lose
them even if you die. You carry them on to you next life. Okay.
 People have asked me, "well, what's it feel like", you know what
I mean? "How do you know when you're six months old in your next
life and you're just trying to get the bottle out of your mom's
hand, how're you supposed to keep your vows and how do you...do
you remember them"? No you don't. Okay. At a certain process,
at a certain point in your life, you might be fifteen, you might
be twenty, something like that...twenty-five...(bak chak se pa),
the the seed reawakens and you start following them, you start
keeping them, you start to be exposed to people who are keeping
them, you start to meet teachers who know about them, and and
that's just a natural process for somebody who's been keeping
them.

To to even hear about these holy methods of conducting your life
is very rare. It...according to us it takes many many years of
effort on your part to have the karma to meet a person who will
explain them to you. By the time you've heard the explanation of
them, by the time you've taken them, and especially if you're
keeping them, we say that you probably won't come out of contact
with those people, you see what I mean? If you just keep them in
a pretty general way, in a pretty sincere way, you will be taken
care of after you die also, okay. The people will be there, they
will bring you up, they will help you, they will be guiding you,
you will make contact with it again, and that's an automatic
thing for a person who has been sincere in in keeping this coat
of life...this code of conduct, okay. But you can lose the vows,
okay. Now if you can't get rid of them when you die, how can you
get rid of them, (laughs) okay. Three different ways. All
right. Three different ways. First one is what we call "wrong-
views, wrong world views". Okay. I'll give you the classic one.
 The classic wrong world view is if I hurt another person and if
nobody's watching, I can get away with it. There are no
repercussions. There is no moral law like gravity in the world.
You know, there is no universal law that is for every moral
action there is a moral reaction, see what I mean? To say that
and to believe that, if I hurt someone else and get away fast
enough, nothing will happen to me. You see what I mean? If I
can steal money from their room and they don't see me, you know,
if I can close my door and do bad things and no one sees me, then
then I'm home free. Okay? To believe that, to have that
viewpoint deeply held, to commit yourself to that viewpoint,
ruins the vow. You will lose the vow, okay. It destroys your
vows. Okay. Now some of us have doubts at times, okay, and I
think if you think about it by definition, if you ever hurt
another living being, you are expressing doubt in this principle.
 And we do that all day long, you know. We continue to lie, we
continue to cheat people, we continue to be irritated at people
or to say...now does that constitute giving up this vow. What do
you think?

(students: No)

No. I mean, in practice it's an expression...it's like spitting
on the principle of moral universal moral principles, but but in
your heart you're not like rejecting it, you know. You're
saying, "I'm too weak to follow it properly, but I don't reject
the principle. I know that every time I...I know intellectually
that every time I hurt some living thing, something will come
back to me". Now I may be too weak to follow, you know, to
reflect that in my own behavior, but, but I don't reject the
principle. As long as you don't reject the principle actively,
strongly, you don't smash your vows, okay. Je Tsongkapa has an
interesting thing in there. Well what if I have a twenty minute
attack of wrong-view. Do I lose my vows? You see what I mean?
And it like tries to figure out how long does it have to go on
for (laughter), you know, and I think the general thing is it
would be like weeks or months, you see what I mean. It's not
like...all of us have days when we think the whole world is, you
know, terrible and everything doesn't matter what we were doing,
and and you don't lose the vows. It's a it's a it has to be an
extended period of weeks or months, something like that, where
you actively and consciously reject the principle that mo...all
actions have their reactions, that all moral actions, good or bad
done to other people, somehow comes back to you. Okay. That's
the first one. First way to lose your vows forever. Okay. Not
forever but until you take them again. By the way, you can take
them again in this life. You can take them ten minutes later,
okay. It's okay. They will be restored. They will not be as
perfect as they were the first time and it does have a in
indelible affect on your ability to see emptiness directly, for
example, in this life. Okay. It it greatly reduces your
changes, but but otherwise you can take them again, okay, and
they're okay. They're real bodhisattva vows. Okay. Second
way...to actively give up the idea of compassion for other
beings, okay. To say, "I formally give up on the idea of
bodhicitta". I give up on the idea that I could become some kind
of a holy being and be of service to other people. That I I
myself could become a Mo...Mother Theresa or a Jesus or a Moses
or or a a Manjushri and be of help to other people. To give up
on that principle, to say "that's impossible and I reject the
idea and I refuse to try to do it myself", which is to give up
bodhicitta. Then you then you break your, you break your root
vows. You lose the vows, okay. By the way, when you lose one
vow you lose all of them, you see what I'm saying. When you lose
this vow, you lose all of them, okay. And you you can't just
have to take the one over. You have to take all of them over.
Okay. You have to get used to that. So the...now these are two
very extreme views...by the way, they can't be just a bad day.
You have to entertain and hold these viewpoints strongly for
weeks or months, you know, and formally in your mind say, "I give
up on the principle of trying to reach a high spiritual level so
that I can be of help to other people. I I reject the idea, I
reject the principle, I refuse to think about it for six more
months", you see what I mean? It has to be that strong. Okay.
What if you have doubts about these principles? I mean, what if
you have honest doubts about the idea of karma. What if it seems
to you like certain things can happen outside of the laws of
karma. Do you break your bodhisattva vows? No. Okay. Active
questioning of the principles of Buddhism is required. Okay? If
if you come up against an idea in the teachings that you have
trouble with, you're required to not accept it. Okay. And you
have to get used to that. You're required to to put it on a
shelf. Maitreya says, "let's make a distinction. You don't
reject it actively but you say, for the time being, I can't
accept this particular idea...for example future life", okay? I
don't have any personal proof, my own perception, of future life.
 You hear in the National Enquirer that certain guy remembers his
uncle's dog from his last life, you know, (laughter) but it it
doesn't seem convincing to me, you know what I mean? And I heard
Michael Roach's logical arguments, and they don't convince me.
They're they're they sound good, they kind of lead me to believe
there may be a future life, but I have trouble accepting it
undoubtedly, you see what I mean? Without any kind of doubt.
And that's honest and that doesn't break your vows, you see what
I mean. That's actually keeping your vows. And then you say,"I
I will shelve that idea for right now". So there's a big
difference between active rejection and active doubt. Okay.
Doubt is encouraged; rejection is foolish. Okay. Don't reject
something you can't see because it might be there. My boss in
this huge corporation, I used to go out and beg for some money
for the refugee children, and he'd give me like ten thousand
dollars, like boom, and then I'd say, "why are you doing this,
you're you're not Buddhist, you're Jewish, you're Israeli", you
know, and he'd say, "hey, I'm covering my bases", (laughter), you
know. (laughs) You know, and, that that's the attitude, you
see, you...Maitreya says, "put it on the shelf", you know. Just
just say, okay, maybe it's true, I'll get back to you later. I
I'll come back to that one next year...when we take another
course, you know, but right now I'm not ready to buy that.
You're supposed to think like that. That's not losing your
bodhisattva vows. Bodhisattva vows...ruining them is saying, "I
reject actively...there's positively no such thing as a future
life". Okay. Then you then you're actually destroying your vows
because wha...we got wrong viewpoints, worldviews, strongly held
over an extended period of time, decisively held, and then we got
losing your compassion for other people. Deciding definitely you
will not try to help them by reaching some high spiritual level.
Okay? Now, last week we talked about...how many root vows?

(students: Eighteen)

Sixteen?

(students: Eighteen)

Eighteen, okay. By the way, so two of them you can...two out of
the eighteen you you can break your vows and you lose the vows
and you have to take them over again, okay. Now, that leaves
sixteen others. What happens if you break those? If you break
them in what we call a major booboo, then you lose you vows,
okay. What's a major booboo? Four things have to be present,
okay. So we're talking right now...this is question one on your
homework, okay? That always gets attention. Four major booboos
you have to make. Sorry. Four parts have to be complete for you
to make a major booboo that wipes out your vows. Okay. And I'm
gonna give them to you now. Those of you who know (tun druk),
(gan gu ngo tsa trel me kuntri shi), like that, okay. Here here
they ar...they're called the four chains, by the way, (kun tri)
is a ancient word in the (b: Abhidharma) for "a a chain" or
something that binds you, okay? (Chu druk ma lokpa - chu druk ma
lokpa) means "you'd happily do this thing again", okay. What's
the first bodhisattva vow?

(students: Praising yourself)

Of praising your particular...actually it's Mahayana religious
tradition, and putting down another religious tradition. Okay.
And knowing that it's all false, for example, like like accusing
a certain teacher of something and knowing that it's not true but
just you want people to admire you and give you money, or or or
like that, pay respect to you so you you you maliciously say
something about other people...other people's religious
traditions. Like this is totally, this is the most wrong thing
you can do, okay, in a bodhisattva vow. Now if you did it once,
and you caught yourself, you said, "oh, hey stupid, don't do
that", because you were checking your book, right? You don't
lose your vow. You see? If you, if you say, "I'm sorry I did
it", you see. But if you say, "I'd be glad to do it again",
that's the first of the four chains. Don't forget all four have
to be present for you to blow your vows. So it's it's already
hard to do. If you have the slightest bit of compunction about
having broken a vow, you don't lose your vows, okay. Je
Tsongkapa...guess what he's asking in his commentary? How soon
do I have to have the compunction? (laughter) Okay (laughs).
Like do I have to be sorry within twenty-four hours or can I be
sorry a week later or, you know (laughs) and he he he's not very
clear, to tell you the truth, it's it's more like...let's say a
few weeks or months you don't retract yourself, okay. You say,
still six months later or a few weeks later you're still saying,
"yeah, and I'd be happy to do it again". Yeah, I did, I did
lie...I did say something malicious about that other Dharma
teacher so I could get all the money in town, and I'd love to do
it again, you know, if another guy shows up. Okay. Second one.
We call (ngo tsa che me...ngo tsa che me) means "two different
versions of consideration or shame and I'll explain the
difference, okay. There's two different versions here. (Ngo tsa
me pa) means "you have no regret about what you did as far as
your own image of yourself", you see. What I mean is, you don't
have any pride in your own image. What I mean to say is, you
don't have any regrets about it...like if no one else ever knew
you committed this thing, but you knew, you'd you'd be able to
live with yourself. See what I mean? Is that okay? All right.
What's the opposite of that? Which is what we're supposed to
aspire to.

(students: shame)

Ea...yeah, shame. We call it shame, but what it what how we
define shame in Buddhism is, even if no one else ever knew I did
this, I'd be embarrassed to know that Michael Roach did it.
Okay. That's called shame. Okay. It's it's avoiding a bad deed
because you yourself wouldn't like to think of yourself as being
a person that would do that. Okay. It's just some kind of self
image you have of yourself and you'd be embarrassed if you looked
in the mirror in the morning and said "that guy did this thing".
Okay. That's the first one. First half, okay. Second half is,
you could care less about the affects of your action on other
people. We call that lack of consideration, okay. Like if I
break this vow, it will hurt fifty other people, and you're like
"I don't care". You know, I could care less about how this is
gonna impact on other people. That's called "lack of
consideration", okay? If you break one of the eighteen?...root
vows, with this attitude, I don't care how I look to myself and I
don't care how I look to others, I'm gonna break it anyway.
Okay. Then you've got two of the four elements required to blow
the vows completely. Now we're already in a situation which is
very difficult to attain. I'd be happy to do this terrible thing
again. And I also don't care about how I look to myself or how
I look to other people, okay. That's already pretty hard...it's
getting hard to break this vow, right? It's getting hard to lose
your vows. What's number three? (Gang gu...gang gu) means "when
you did this bad thing, you felt g...happy, like great pleasure,
take pleasure". You don't just break a vow, you're like breaking
it with relish. You know, like "heh heh heh, that felt good",
you know, okay? "Yeah, I maligned that other Dharma teacher and
and I saw those people's faces, and I saw the checkbooks come out
for me, and I...boy, I felt great". Okay. That's how it would
feel to break the first one, for example. Okay. So, it's
already getting to be...you gotta to be almost an evil person I
think to to really smash a bodhisattva vow properly, okay. So
those are the first three. Okay, what's number four? (Nye mik
mi ta) This is the worst one, by the way. (Nye mik mi ta) means
"if someone came up to you and said, 'don't you realize that what
you did is a bad thing'?", you'd say, "no it's not a bad thing.
That's not a bad thing". It's not to consider it wrong, okay.
Not to consider what you did wrong. Do you realize that you just
broke your first bodhisattva vow, that out of a desire to clean
these peoples' pockets out in your class, you were maligning this
other religious tradition or this other teacher, and you say,
"yeah, I understood that". Okay. "And I don't think there's
anything wrong with that", okay. And to believe it...you see
what I mean? In your heart. Then you've then you've got the
fourth element. When these four elements are present, with any
of the root bodhisattva vows, you have destroyed the vows. You
must take them over, okay? And you already see how difficult it
is...you gotta have all four present, okay? Yeah?

(student, Axel: But to have the presence, the fourth one, that
you're don't consider the deed as something wrong)

Yeah

(student, Axel: what's the connection to the other two?)

Say again?

(student, Axel: If you have to...if the fourth one...)

Oh, yeah yeah, I mean Axel points out that by the time you...if
you get number four by itself, you're probably gonna cover the
other three automatically. Yeah, there's a discussion like that
in the scriptures, you know. Pretty much, by the time you get to
number four you're probably...oh, you might not consider it bad
but you might not feel happy doing it, how's that? You see what
I mean. That's conceivable, right? All right. Those Germans.
All right (laughs). And this guy...covered all this. I want to
talk about one very special vow...yeah?

(student: (unclear))

Yeah...I I didn't catch that...what'd he say?

(student: (unclear)

Oh yeah yeah yeah. Karmically speaking, you know, for example,
if you don't believe that a human fetus is a is a living being,
and you and you abort it, karmically speaking it's not as strong.
 In other words, if you don't recognize it for what it is, it's
less it's less repercussions for you personally. Yeah.
Generally that's true. So that's true. There's sort of a
paradox here. Okay. All right. There's a very special
bodhisattva vow that if I don't talk about it, you might get in
trouble. There's a vow that says, "under extraordinary
circumstances, you are required to break one of the first seven
of the ten basic vows of morality", okay. Now these are three
that you commit with your body, which are killing, stealing,
sexual misconduct, and then four that you commit with your
speech, which is lying, divisive talk, harsh talk and then idle
talk, okay? So these are seven. So under extraordinary
circumstances, for example, a guy runs into your house, Keanu
Reeves (laughter), you know, and he's being chased by the agents,
(laughter) and these heartless robot beings, and he runs in and
he says "you gotta hide me in a closet", you say, "okay, go to
that one", you know. And he hides in the closet. And then
there's knock on the door, and you open, there's this guy with
sunglasses and the wire down the thing (laughter) and he says,
"have you see Keanu Reeves?", you know, and he's got a gun, you
know, like big lump here, you know and you say, "haven't see him
today". Okay. You're required to say "I haven't seen him today".
 Under special circumstances, okay...that's all. That's all.
Now. (laughter) There are (laughs) there are rules about this
vow that you have to know, you know...Rinpoche...when we put the
vows on a calendar a couple of years ago he was very hesitant to
even see this written where where people might be able to
misunderstand it. There's a couple of exceptions here, and you
have to know the exceptions. Technically speaking, this vow only
applies to you if you've been on the bodhisattva path for
thousands of years and keeping it well. Technically speaking...I
mean, the book says, "millions", okay? But, I'm trying to make
it easier (laughter). All right. And so if you're not on a high
spiritual level already, you don't have to worry about this vow,
okay? All right. It does no, it's doesn't technically apply to
you. Now, should you still lie...that's a long question...I'm
not gonna get into it, but I just want to say that these this is
a very special vow, it's obviously a very dangerous vow if it's
abused by people. So, just be aware, it's to be used with
caution, it's a very special vow, it's meant for people who are
already very very advanced in their practice, and and who can do
extraordinary things. Now. Why can't you break the last three?
No one's allowed to break the last three for any reason. Why?

(student: 'Cause they're mental)
These are mental. Okay. What's number eight, sorry. Number
eight is basically to be unhappy...I'm sorry, (unclear), to be
unhappy when somebody else gets something nice. I mean that's
basically number eight. You can call it craving...I don't like
it so much. It it's basically comparing yourself to others. Oh,
she gets to do that, but I don't get to do that. I don't like
that. Oh, she got a raise, I didn't get a raise, he pays
attention to her, doesn't pay attention...I don't like that.
Okay. It's basically being unhappy when someone else gets
something they want. Okay. Is there any condition under which
it would be useful to break this vow?

(student: No)

No. (laughs) Okay. And it's the same with the other two mental
vows...ill will, which is the opposite of number eight
really...I'm happy you messed up today, you know...oh, did you
hear? So and so broke their vows, became a lay person, ruined
their life, and you're like "heh heh, oh that's terrible",
(laughter) you know, "tell me more", you know, and (laughter),
you know what I mean? And Dharma rumors especially. Very sweet
subject. Okay. And and to be happy that any other person is is
having trouble in their life is...there's never a case where
where doing this would be beneficial for anybody. Okay. And
then the last one, obviously, the wrongviews one...we know, is
there ever a case when it'd be beneficial to say, "karma doesn't
work"? Okay. No such thing. There's a special case for monks
and nuns...ordained people. Okay. You are never allowed to
break the sexual misconduct one under any circumstances, period.
If you...if if if if you have foresight for the next five
thousand years and you see that it happened, right, with Asanga
and Vasubandu, Master Asanga and Master Vasubandu, that if this
nun were to disrobe and have children, then there would be two
great wisemen born. So you should break your vows with this
woman or something like that? No such thing. Okay. The
commentary says, "you are required to disrobe first". Okay. If
you see that this is some great benefit, or some...the classic
one in the scripture, this lady's got a gun to her head says, "if
you don't make love to me, you monk, I'll shoot myself". He
says, "okay, out of compassion, I will, but I gotta disrobe
first". Then you go to the altar and you disrobe and you...you
do it, okay, but but that's a special case, okay. You can't you
can't break that for anything, all right? 'Cause of the effect
it would have on the on the Dharma. Okay. Next one. This is a
very cool vow called the four points of virtue...I'd like you to
do that in your breakout sessions, okay, that's number ni...five.
And number seven I'd like to talk about briefly, okay. Number
seven is called the four white deeds and the four black deeds.
There are all these extra vows that they don't tell you about
when you take your bodhisattva vows, okay. It's not just sixty-
four vows, there's another bunch of them, okay...that people
never talk about much. I'm gonna go over them briefly. The
first white deed...these are called "the the four white deeds and
the four black deeds", okay...is "never to speak a lie to any
other person, even in jest", even as a joke, okay. Never to lie
to another person. The corresponding black deed is "to
intentionally deceive your teacher or any other person similar to
that", okay, intentionally deceive your teacher in any way, okay.
 These are opposites. You have to avoid one and you have to try
to achieve the other. Okay.

(student: Only the teacher?)

It says "and other holy beings", okay? Number two. The white
deed is to try to get other people to aspire to this bodhisattva
principle. Hey look, spend your whole life serving other people,
every moment of your life. Try to become a holy person and then
try to help other people on the path to be happy, okay. That's to
try to get other people to do that. The negative one there, the
black deed, the corresonding black deed is to "cause another
person to regret some good thing they've done", okay. That's like
the ultimate black deed you can do. If someone has done
something virtuous, and you're like...scoffing at them or trying
to convince them that that's not such a good thing to do or
something like that, okay. I think most often it happens in
modern world called "scoffing", you know, and it's like
considered sophisticated to scoff at religious people...in New
York especially, you know. Did you hear that Vilma Stana (?)
hasn't missed a class in seven years? You're like, "yeah, but
she probably didn't get to see all those TV shows", you know.
You know, just to scoff at somebody...say, say, "yeah, I can't
believe she's so stupid", you know. "She's never gonna get a
degree out of this place. Never gonna make any money out of
that. (laughter) Why is she doing that", you know...and to
scoff. I mean, scoffing is like the ul...it's a very popular
modern thing and then you cause a person to regret something good
they did. Okay? Number three. Actually number three is why I I
went over the black and white ones, 'cause it's my favorite vow
of all times, okay. It says, "as you walk around New York City,
(laughter), then every person you meet, try to imagine that they
could very well be an a enlightened being already", okay. Just
ea...every time you run into a person, even if it's literal
(laughs) okay, happens in New York, you know...boom! Look at
them and they're cursing at you and you say, "now, hold on.
Don't yell back. This could be an enlightened being". Okay.
Like every particular person you meet, you're like...okay, the
odds are small on this one (laughter) (laughs)

(cut)

(laughter) (laughs) okay, but the odds is there, okay, there's
always some odds, okay...there's always odds, okay, just remember
that. Any particular person you meet...could be...yeah, could
be, okay. And then they say, do it with buildings and trees and
the sky and the ocean and the Hudson River and everything else.
Imagine, hey, if I was in the right frame of mind this place
could be the ultimate paradise, you know what I mean? Like,
there's nothing to say it's not, okay, maybe I just haven't seen
it yet, okay. So as you walk around, even this school, okay...I
mean technically speaking, you know, the bodhisattva vows are
being described for one of the first times in the United States,
in this school. This school is already like a sacred place.
Maybe it was a...what do they say, out in Sedona they love this
kind of stuff...a vortex (laughter), you know, like, this is an
axis. There's a big axis going through this school and maybe
this is a holy place, like maybe the Navajo once had hogan here
(laughter), so, you know what I mean. And we think...you're
supposed to think like that, okay? You're supposed to think like
that. If you take this vow, you're supposed to think like that.
Meaning, yeah, maybe this is a holy place, disguised as a Public
School one sixty-eight or whatever it is, okay. And and you keep
this vow by walking around all day long and every time you bump
in...you know, every time you see a subway, hey...who knows,
maybe it's Manjushri's sun chariot. I'm just not at the level
yet. Okay. And and it's a very very healthy vow. It's a very
healthy way to think as you walk around New York City. Okay.
What's the opposite of that...is, it's a supposed to be a very
very evil thing to say something out of anger to a bodhisattva.
Now, I remember hearing this vow for this first time. I was
sitting in Rinpoche's kitchen, before they built the whole place.
 There used to be this little tiny house. Rinpoche was in the
back bedroom where I lived, and I'm out on the front table there,
and I say, "oh Rinpoche"...he was Geshe-la at the time, "how do I
know who's a Bodhisattva?" And he says, "you don't", (laughs),
you know, anyway. Supposed to be a special bad deed to say
something out of anger to a to a true bodhisattva, someone who's
already had a direct experience of actual bodhicitta. Okay.
Number four. White deed number four. "Total honesty towards
every person you ever meet". Period. One hundred percent honest
with them, okay, mentally and verbally. The mental part is the
hardest, okay. One hundred percent honest towards other people.
Does this mean one hundred percent frank towards them?
(laughter) "Do you like my new dress?" (laughter)
you know, (laughs) (laughter)...it doesn't mean that, okay? It
does...it's not dishonest to say..."I saw your mother the other
day" (laughs) (laughter), okay, you know what I mean? You don't
have to say, "that's the ugliest thing I ever saw", okay?
(laughter) You're not, that's not part of the vow. What it
means is that just, you know, within the normal social thing, you
don't insult people directly like that, you know what I mean, but
but you just change the subject or get out of it, but you don't
like...can't lie, okay...just total...you know what I'm talking
about. It's not the dress question. It's the...it's the...you
know, "hey, are you gonna show up this weekend and help us out
with that?", you say, "oh yeah, sure", you know, and in your mind
you're like, "yeah, after I go to the movie, if I have any extra
time", you know. Okay. All right. And in your mind you're
already...you're not saying what you really think, you see what I
mean...what you really intend. And that...then you're being
dishonest. Discrepancy between what you know to be true and what
your mouth is saying. Okay. That's the definition of a lie in
Buddhism, okay. Did you have a question? It's probably the
dress question, I bet.

(student: Well, I think you explained it 'cause you used...you
didn't use the word (unclear))

Yeah, yeah yeah, like that.

(student: Honesty, not (unclear))

Yeah, like that. Like that. Okay. Last one and...no, that was
four, right? Oh, that's the antidote for the black deed of what?
 "Acting in a devious way towards any anyone". Now, how's that
differ from the one...didn't we have one like that? Devious in
this case means, and this is very delicate, having any
interaction with another person without standing there as you
talking to them about what's for dinner and calculating what you
can do to help them get enlightened. Now this is a hard one to
keep, okay? I'll say it again. Anytime you have any interaction
with another person, you are not thinking, "I have a transaction
with this person now...I'm having a transaction with this
person", you know, "I know that if I'm really nice to Bonnie
Moore she will check five thousand more papers (laughter) and
fill five thousand more notebooks". You know. And and to think
in any kind of terms about getting something out of them...money
food, attention, fame and not be actually standing there and
calculating "what's the best thing I can do to get her
enlightened the fastest in the next...what's the best thing I can
say in the next five minutes to help this person get
enlightened", you see what I mean...is is breaking this vow. And
that's what devious means. Devious means "like to use other
people rather than to be calculating in a different way". What's
the one thing that I can say to this person in the next few
minutes that would help them get enlightened the most. And I'm
not saying that you bother your friends with your Buddhism...you
know you're not supposed to do that, right? It's not like, "oh
please come to class, you know, you gotta learn about samskaras",
you know (laughter) and they're like...it's not like that. It's
like...it's like...hey, share your coffee with that other
guy...you know there's something...that even something small, but
something to get them to do a good thing, you see what I mean?
Like you...devious in this sense means "not to be calculating
what you can do to help them get enlightened". But rather be
calculating something else, you know. What can I get out of this
person. What can I get out of this relationship. What can I get
out of this transaction. Okay. Rather to have this constant
calculation in your mind...what's this person need next to get
enlightened, you know what I mean? In my best ability, to the
best of my knowledge, okay. And it might be something tiny, you
know. It might be, "hey, could you hold this flower for me?",
you know, and then they touch it, and you think, "okay, heh heh
(laughter), got got you in twenty-four lifetimes...you took the
flower", you know, and then thinking like that, calculating like
that, okay? Those are the four white deeds and the four black
deeds. Those are also bodhisattva vows. I'm gonna let you do
the rest...let's see...in your breakout sessions, okay. I I
personally like the tenth question which is all the things, the
conditions that help you break your vows...what do you...and I'm
not gonna give you all of them, I'll let your teachers do that,
but what do you guess the the first reason why most people break
their vows...is?

(students: They don't know what they are.)

They simply never heard them. They went to an initiation for
eighteen dollars, the guy flew into town, flew out of town, he
rang that bell like crazy, (laughter) and he sprayed all this
stuff on them, and he's a personal friend of His Eminence the
blah blah blah, and he didn't tell me what vows I took, okay?
that's the best way to break your vows...is just not to know
them. Okay. So that's the...did I just break a first
bodhisattva vow?

(students: No)

(laughter) Awful close. Okay. (laughs). I'm just kidding,
okay? (laughter) (laughs) Okay. I have something to right
during the break. (laugher) Okay. Anyway. I didn't mean it,
okay, I'm just...if there were such a thing (laughter) okay.
Anyway, but not to not...the best way to break your vows is not
to not to ever learn them, okay and that's what this class if
for, that's why you're here, okay? All right, take a break and
then after that we'll do the breakout sessions, okay?

(break)

Heh heh heh. Okay. Very short tonight. We're we're about to
enter the season called (yar ne), say (yar ne) (repeat) (Yar ne)
is in the ancient Vinaya custom called "the rainy season
retreat", and in the old days the monks and nuns during this
summer period would actually try to do a a longish, like one to
three month retreat, indoors, and I think part of the reason is
that you don't want to step on the many bugs that are growing
during the rainy season, and stuff...but the the whole idea is
that you get a sort of a a quiet summer and you spend a certain
time renewing your vows, renewing your relationship with the
other monks and nuns and you spend time together and and like
that. Then following that is a thing called (gai ye). Say (gai
ye). (repeat) By the way (yar ne) means...(yar) means "summer",
(ne) means "retreat or to stay". (Gai ye) (ga) means "the
restrictions", (ye) means "are opened". (Gai ye). So, in the
monastery a guy was shocked, you know, during (gai ye), by good
luck, I shut up on (gai ye) and (laughter) (gai ye) is, you can
listen to radio, which otherwise you can't, you can play board
games...suddenly everybody has a board game available
(laughter)...there's this thing called Carom's, you know, that
looks like billiards but cheaper, and then people can tell
stories and...I remember visiting the former Abbot, very severe
former Abbot, and he was on the front porch of his house playing
this billiards game with these kids, you know, and I said, "chu
la mei sho ne kun de du", which means...he got all red...it means
"what're you gonna do if water catches on fire?" (laughter) which
is the Tibetan way to say, "if the Abbot's playing games then,
you know, the the strictest Abbot in the monastery...ex-
Abbot...then what's what about the rest", he said "hey, (Gai
ye)". You know, and and (gai ye) means things are the...people
people can play soccer, for example...you're not allowed to play
otherwise, stuff like that. So all the...for a week or two
weeks, you just...you just...you can't drink alcohol or go see
movies or anything like that, but everything is relaxed and
people have a good time. And I think the one thing about a
Tibetan monastery that that I think distinguishes it from some
other traditions that I visited, is this recognition that there's
a time to have a good time, you know what I mean, and that
there's a time to relax and I think even the ancient (b: Vinaya)
principle is, do a kick-ass retreat for one to three months and
then know how to relax, you see what I mean? And we've
been...the reason for this series of talks after the classes was
to talk about the future of Buddhism in America. We haven't
instituted yet, proper ways of relaxing...you see what I mean?
Like you meet Dharma students who are trying to practice all day
long...we personally, the people who work on the classes, we work
seven days a week, we work eighteen hours a day on these laptops,
and then we do hard meditation, hard study, but but I think what
has to happen in America...and I don't know...we have to design a
(gai ye), you see what I mean. We have to design into the system
in America appropriate ways of relaxing, and letting people let
off steam and every great religious tradition has their
festivals, you know, like Christmastime, or Easter or things like
that, when people, when people can relax and and and, in a
spiritual way, (b: Lam Rim Chen)...I'm sorry, the, in Hlasa
Festival..."Mon Lam Chen Mo", the "Mon Lam Chen Mo) was
instituted by Je Tsongkapa. Je Tsongkapa was a severe Lama and
he founded the three great mon Gelukpa monasteries in Hlasa, he
was strict and he worked hard, but if you read his biography, he
took his vacations too, and he also knew how to relax and in the
(Mon Lam Chen Mo), which is a like a three week religious
festival in the capitol city, the police force is required to
turn over the jails and all the uniforms to these guys called
(dup doks) which are monks, and they wear these big shoulder
pads, like football pads under here, so they look like that, and
then they wear these...they hold these big sticks called (kar
wa), and then they run the city for three weeks. And, you know,
they're goofballs...these are the goofball monks in the
monastery. They get to run this the whole municiple system for
three weeks (laughter) and they have a good time. People have
festivals, there are religious processions, they put huge
paintings on the Potala, like five hundred foot thangkas, people
have butter sculpture...you you know, torma making contests
between the great monasteries, the monks get together and debate
in public and try to make a good show for the for the people, and
I think...I don't know how it's gonna happen, but I think we have
to build into Buddhism in the West a way that in their personal
practice, people can take a break. In Sera Monastery, every
night, until one or two o'clock, you could hear people walking
around the monastery, memorizing their text. But Tuesday is
market day, and on Tuesday, nobody recites anything. You know
what I mean (laughs), and that's the way it should be, you see.
Every scholar, no matter how hard core they are, on Tuesday they
relax, you know what I mean...and they have a day that they take
their rest, and and on Tuesday night you don't hear anything.
You don't hear one guy walking around the monastery. Because
they they've also been taught by their Lamas how to take their
rest. This is something in the monastery that you get from your
what we call your "house teacher", your (gyur gyen). He may not
be a scholar, but he's a "mom" and he watches out for you and he
makes sure that you don't get too intense also. Like he might
order you to go on a a camping trip...they're called (ling ka)
and, you know, you go down to the river, you take a tent, you
take two days worth of food, and you jump around in the river and
play around and then you you sit around and cook food together
and you have a potluck, and all the members of your class go and
and you relax for two days, and...this is a part of monastery
life, it's a part of (b: Vinaya) cycle, so I think we have to
institute it on three levels. I don't know how yet, you know,
I'm sure Dr. Sykes would be a good consultant (laughter)...maybe
he's doing it right now, I think...but on a personal level, how
to take proper rest and how to take proper care of yourself
'cause resting is important, you know...how to how to properly
take a a rest without endangering your vows, you know what I
mean...how to how to take a good, proper relaxation so that you
come back fresher. In Master Shantideva's (b: Guide to the
Bodhisattva Life) he talks about the need to to take care of
yourself and to take care of your mind and your body and the need
to relax sometimes. And he says, you know, I think Lama Yeshe
said something that Master Shantideva would have said. He said,
"if you've been working hard, and you've been studying hard, and
you just went to work for eight hours and you come home, don't
sit down and meditate, 'cause you won't be able to. Go to a
couch, lay down on the couch, make yourself a nice coffee, sit
back with your feet up on the ar arm of the couch, and think
about helping living beings...as you drink your coffee", you know
what I mean? And then...Master Shantideva is saying things very
similar, so I think you have to institute a way that individuals
as part of their daily practice or weekly practice have a regular
time that they can relax and and nice ways of relaxing, like in
the monastery, during (gai ye) out come all these birth stories
of the Buddha, you see...they're not studying...they're studying
advanced philosophy all year long, then they put those books away
and they pull out all the birth stories and some older monk will
come and all the little monks will gather around and they'll just
sit and tell stories about how Lord Buddha fed himself to the
tigress, or you know, and then you go up to your (gyur gyen),
your house teacher, and he says, "pick a page" and you close you
eyes, and you open the book and they just start the story from
there, and they just relax. They know how to relax. And I think
it's a problem in Western Buddhism right now that we do we don't
have a system yet for personal relaxation during the week.
Proper relaxation. Not in excess, okay. And then, some kind of
thing that happens on a cyclical basis. In each great religion
they are festivals or there are times when you bake a cake, or
or you have gifts or...you know what I mean? We have to see what
we do about that. I would suggest on the major...there're five
or six major Buddhist holidays during the year, and we have to
figure out some kind of way of making it
fes...festival...festivious...anyway, fun (laughter), okay, and
in a proper way. And then on a on a longterm basis, people have
to know how to take retreats, how to...I I suggest twice a year,
long retreats, when you're quiet and you're not talking and
you're thinking and you're alone and you're not seeing other
people, and I think there has to be this whole thing built into
American Buddhism where, on an annual basis, on a monthly basis,
on a weekly basis, on a daily basis you are taking your rest in
an appropriate way. And it makes you a better Buddhist, you know
what I mean. When you get back from doing that, you are actually
much healthier, much happier...it doesn't work to try to meditate
all day. It doesn't work to try to study philosophy all day.
You gotta have some kind of relaxation and I think some kind of
exercise built into the thing. In Tibet, they do prostrations.
There's a special board, it it's about eight feet long, it's
about three feet wide and and you do a a thousand prostrations.
And the young monks do their debating...and this also gets your
your frustrations out and your and your tension out of your body.
 I think I think we need some kind of thing that we develop that,
you know, the young monks use it for for getting their
frustration out, you know, and it's very healthy for them. And
then the older monks will be doing prostrations, or at about
eight o'clock, every night in Sera Monastery and Drepung, Ganden,
the older monks go for a walk. It's called (cham cham do gyen
be). (Cham cham) means...it's a very pleasant thing and the
older monks, like they might be holding hands and they
just...they walking a mile down the road, and they're just
looking at the fresh air and talking about things that they want
to work on and and relaxing, and then they come back and they all
feel good. They might...actually at Sera it's built into the
monastery that you can circle the monastery. There's a special
road and you might do twenty rounds. And you see the older older
older monks... they'll try to do three or they'll try to do five,
but the point is they get outside, they get fresh air, they get
some exercise, they relax, mentally. Then they go back home and
do their tantric rituals and they're fresh and they're doing them
very powerfully, and you can hear them, you know, late into the
night, doing their tantric stuff, you know, and I think we need
to think about that. I don't have any brilliant suggestions. I
just know that we have to do it and we're not doing it. And you
meet many westerners who are frustrated or (lung)y...they're like
tense, their practice is tense, their faces are tense, you know,
they're having all these problems because they don't know how to
relax in a proper way, so I think we have to think about that as
an organization, as a religion, as a...on a national level, on a
personal level, we have to figure out how to relax properly.
Yeah?

(student: (unclear))

Yeah, well down in, down in New Jersey Rinpoche used to give a
ten day initiation...he used to give ten day initiation-teachings
every year for the first fifteen years and the last day was
always goof-off day. And we would go to a local park and the
vegetarians would play against the meat-eaters (laughter) -
baseball, and Rinpoche was the Umpire and he had the he had the
greatest fun, and after we started beating them continually they
they stopped doing it. (laughter) So, the...I mean the
vegetarians were beating the meat-eaters (laughter). They felt
that, you know, you had to eat meat to be strong and we would
just wipe them out every year, and then they (laughter) stopped
eating...but anyway, yeah, we need something like that. So think
about it. I'm just throwing it out as a part of the future of
American Buddhism. It's something we have to think about. You
see a lot of American Buddhists walking around all tense, and and
they don't know how to...their their inability to relax in the
ways that are already built into Tibet Tibetan Buddhism, because
we don't have those available to us, we just like, three hundred
sixty-five days a year, trying to meditate and study eight hours
a day and you need to build in some kind of mechanism for people
to relax properly. So I'm just...that's one of my ideas about
the future of American Buddhism. I think next week I'd like to
talk about form of of Buddhism, you know, what form will the
music take, what form will the rituals take...things like that,
okay? Okay, we'll do a prayer. You ready Phuntsok-la?

(prayer: short mandala)

(prayer: dedication)

Okay, good night. Thank you.
Review Course 17