ACI 17 (обзорный курс), Занятие 06 (прогон ГМР, Нью-Йорк) — стенограмма

Class 6, part 1
Transcribed by: Karen Becker

Okay, we'll start. First of all I'd rally...really like to thank
all the people who brought food and people have been coming over
every night and cooking for me at Michael Wick's house and
there're about fifteen people, volunteers working on any given
day and it's been really nice. It's very very much in keeping
with the ancient spirit of Buddhism, you know, that the people
teaching or helping to arrange the teachings should work for free
from their side and then from the people who are benefiting from
it from their side that they would offer them something to eat
(laughs) okay. So I like it. It's right for both ways, you
know, the people doing all the work to help with these classes
and all our projects are are working for free and then all the,
you know, they can have some nice healthy meal...it's very
strange to eat three healthy meals in a row, but (laughter)
(laughs) but, thank you for that. It's been really really nice.
Okay. Tonight we're on the second part of a course called "Death
and the Realms of Existence". Last class we talked about the
existence of three different realms, and I know when I first
heard about them, it sounded like some kind of Buddhist mythology
that I didn't believe in, and then, as I got older and as I
understood more, I think it's pretty clear in your mind you get
the feeling that you may really be in a separate corner of the
universe called "the desire realm" and that you really are here,
due to you own state of mind, especially as you died in your last
life, and that this is what we call a broken realm...it doesn't
work, you know. And I think as a Buddhist it's important to come
to a point where you admit it. It's actually renunciation, to
come to a point where you say, "there's something funny about
this realm, there's something inherently defective about this
realm", you know, because by now you're thirty forty fifty years
old and you've been trying...you've been giving it your best
effort to try to find the right recipe for life, you
know...should I make more money, should I make less money, should
I eat this food, should I not eat this food, should I exercise
more, should I not exercise more, should I care about things or
not care about things, especially personal relationships, you
know...I've tried every different mode and it still doesn't work
out, and then, I think, at a certain age you get to this kind of
a realization that there may be something inherently defective
about this particular world that we live in, which the Buddhists
call the "desire realm", and then you have the motivation to
really start a spiritual path. And you can count on Buddhism
fixing the problems with this realm, okay? This realm is
inherently defective, if you don't take drastic methods outlined
in Buddhist paths, it will not change and it does not work the
way it is. You will not be happy in this realm. You cannot be.
You know, don't...you know...I don't know I'm back of my
mind...if I could just have an hour more a day, or if I could
just meet different people, or if I could just find an occupation
that suits me better, or if I could just get a little more time
to exercise, or if I just stopped eating ice-cream and ate more
salads, (laughter), you know, then maybe things would straighten
out, you know what I mean? No, in the back of you mind it's
there all the time, it's like, if I could just make slight
adjustments in my life. The point of the desire realm...get used
to it...there's no adjustment you can make to make this place
work right. It's broken. It can't work right. You have to find
a radical method out of here. You see what I mean. And then
people say escape from the desire realm, you know, how do you do
that, you know. Is it...because when you say escape you you get
this idea of going to Alaska, living in an igloo by yourself, or,
you know, taking some drug and going up to a different plane,
or...or, you know, you always have this idea of some kind of
physical I...physical removal of yourself from this realm. It's
not like that okay. It's a spiritual, internal process that by
the time you're...called the Buddhist path...and by the time
you're done with it, the desire realm changes to suit you and it
turns into a a Buddha realm, okay. You won't don't have to go to
a different geographic area...there is no different geographic
area. This room is the animal realm and this room is the human
realm at the same time. It...they are two realms that co-exist
in the same room and so, samsara, you know...the realm of
suffering of which the desire realm is the cornerstone (laughs)
okay, and and a Buddha paradise, a (tantr)ic paradise, are occur
in the same physical space, okay. It's a radical transformation
of your mind and your behavior that will force you to see this as
a different place. And I'm not saying it's a question of
attitude. It doesn't matter how positively you think about the
desire realm. It still won't work, okay. It's not a question of
like trying to see it in a nic...find the silver lining in the
desire realm...it's not like that, okay. I'm not suggesting that
you consciously try to cheer up and try to see things as not
being so bad or something like that. They are bad. They are
deadly. And and up to the time you die they're miserable. So
miserable plus deadly is (laughter) is the desire realm
(laughs)...no. And it's...you can't try to see it as a nice
place or something. We're not saying that. We're saying change
your karma radically. Change your vow keeping radically and
force a change in your perceptions of this realm. And it will
just go away. And that's freedom from the desire realm, okay.
And you gotta get used to that. Okay. It doesn't help to go
live in Arizona in some mountain where nobody will bother you
because (laughs) the main person who bothers you is going with
you (laughter) okay, (laughs) all right, no really...people have
great hopes for Arizona, and I'm like, "calm down, you know, you
take your baggage with you wherever you go", okay and it won't be
any happier there...within six weeks, okay. You have more
conditions for meditating and practicing, but your basic level of
happiness is independent of your location, okay. You carry your
happiness, whatever level it is, wherever you go, and it doesn't
change because you changed your address, okay. You have to
follow Buddhism. Okay. I'm gonna let the class teachers go over
the first question on the homework where concer...it concerns in
the (b: Abhidharma) there's a very beautiful presentation about
four different kinds of sustenance in this realm. In other words
you can live off of solid food but you can also live off of other
things, and this is in the most basic school of Buddhism and then
by the time you get to (tantra) these things take on new
significance. You know, what is it that makes your body run...is
it really food, and what is it about food that makes your body
run, and could you do without food, you know. I always say no
because I enjoy eating is so much, you know, but...are there
others ways to exist beyond food. We'll cover that, okay. And
the the roots for that teaching, like all the roots of the
highest (tantr)ic system are sitting there in the lowest schools
of Buddhism, and you have to realize that Lord Buddha is this
mastermind who's setting you up for something ten years from now,
fifteen years from now, okay, with (b: Abhidharma)...lowest
schools, okay. Then there's a section on the eight different
kinds of hot hells. These are the major hells...there're eight
hot hells, eight cold hells, there are what we call "secondary
hells", there are what we call "near hells" which are in this
pla...on our earth, and we'll be covering that in your in your
breakout sessions. All I would say about the hell realms is
that...we did it in a (tong len) up at Godstow recently. We did
a meditation on the hell realm and I think it's it's try to
imagine a place...I I said, start out with Kansas...if you've
ever driven through Kansas it's like totally flat and all you can
see in every direction is the same sky and the same corn fields,
so imagine a place like that, the cornfields are not there, the
ground turns into steel...without a rivet, you see, just pure,
smooth, flat steel stretching to the horizon and then this people
milling around on it like in a Fifth Avenue...like thousands of
people pushing, shoving, moving in like flows and eddies...you
know what I mean, like how sometimes a whole group of people move
one way and then move another way, and then naked. People have
no clothes on. And then just the ground starting to heat up to a
red heat, like burning steel, like hot steel, and then the idea
of millions of naked people that look like you or me...just
running, and and screaming and pushing at each other and trying
to run to the horizon but there's nothing there except another
horizon, you see what I mean...like no possible place to go.
Just...but they are compelled to run 'cause they hurt so bad and
they're just running. And then they're screaming and they're
shoving into each other and and violently pushing each other,
trying to go somewhere but there's no place to go, and living
like that for years, and being unable to die, okay, it's one of
the ne...part of the hell realms is that you can't die. You
know, things that would normally kill you, you can't even get
killed, you know, if if things got really hot and your feet
started to fall apart or something, you wouldn't be able to die
anyway. You'd be running on your ankles and on your wrists or
something. And you can't die. And that's a nature of a hell
realm. So I can describe it...you get a feeling for it. They do
exist. These places do exist. There are beings there like that.
 And all it takes is a slight change in your perceptions to be
there, okay, and very very terrible place...so those..and you
have a instinct for that...you've been there thousands and
thousands of times. People say, young people especially, they
say, "death is romantic", you know...what's that guy, Kurt
Colbain or you know...it's so romantic to have a nice, beautiful
girlfriend and play for Nirvana rock band and and then end your
life by taking some heroin or something and and it's a very
attractive thing to the X gen...generation X?...gen-X. And they
say that. They say, "oh, the great adventure of death. I look
forward to it," but they have no idea what...it's really really
bad, you know what I mean, it's hopeless after that. To be in
this realm is like a very brief vacation and then most of the
beings in the world are are in those realms, and it's no...it's
no big romantic mystery or anything like that. It's just basic
terror and suffering, and deep down inside every human being
knows it and that's why you take someone up to a tall building
and you get them towards the edge and you hold them by the
shoulder and you go like that...and they fight you, you know,
there's this internal reflex. It's not a reflex, it's a
knowledge subconsciously of what it's gonna be like ten minutes
later 'cause you've been through it thousands and thousands and
thousands of times. You may not remember it, but you have an
instinct for it. That's why people fight to live. When it
really comes down to it, only crazy people kill themselves, in a
fit of craziness, and then everyone else is like, "we'll do
anything not to die", you know what I mean? And that's because
you know what you were in before. You have an instinct for it
and that's why you fight death. You will fight it at the at
anyone's expense, you don't want to die, you see what I mean.
And that's...that's the nature of our of the desire realm. Okay.
 Really don't wanna go there. I mean...I don't like to talk much
about hell realms because I rather...I think positive
reinforcement's better. I rather describe a (tantr)ic paradise
and inspire you to try to get there. The paradise is...they say
the the goal is is total bliss and the path is total bliss. And
get used to that, okay. I mean, the Judeo-Christian thing is you
have to suffer to get to paradise. The Buddhist thing is you're
getting to total ecstacy, and towards the end, the the the
exercise is total exercise ecstacy, to get there involves very
beautiful, happy, pleasant life and way of living and the whole
way to to live as you get closer and closer is more and more
pleasant. Your body starts to change. You get younger. Your
mind starts to become this beautiful, happy place to live in and
you're happy almost all the time, and almost everything makes you
happy, and almost everything can send you off into this mood of
deep bliss. So, even the path to get there is pleasant and the
place you're going to is even better. As you accelerate towards
the goal. So I I'd rather sell you that than say that...by the
way, if you turn around there's this hell realm (laughs) you
know. But really you have to have both motivations, okay. There
is a hell realm, you can get there easily by making small
mistakes in your pratice. And you have to be really careful and
you have to understand that, okay. Yeah.

(student: I...this question comes up)

Yeah.

(student: My ignorance as in the desire realm is very ignorant
(unclear) but I wonder about what Buddhism says about the
experience of the near-death experience. I had a near-death
experience that was blissful. I mean, I I was dead for moments
and what does it...I mean if if it's all horror why would I
interpret beauty?)

The beginning of the death process you have certain
hallucinations. Standard hallucinations...like five standard
hallucinations. And the beginning of those hallucinations is
some kind of extraordinary feeling of power. What we call "bardo
being", a being in a state between death and rebirth, the
beginning of that process is quite pleasant. You can fly, you
feel your body's very light, you're relieved from all the pain
you used to have, you can understand people's thoughts, you can
understand foreign languages, you can pass through solid objects,
like that...you ca...you have this clairvoyance for a while and
that ends about five minutes later and then the real
hallucinations start. So, until you really die you don't get to
those. Near-death experiences can involve the start of that
process, which can be pleasant. Then about five to ten minutes
later as you're really dead, the serious hallucinations begin
which are very terrifying and then things get worse, okay. So,
yeah, the beginning could feel like that. But but once death has
occured, very terrible, very terrible thing. Yeah?

(student: This desire realm that we live in is inherent in
inherently defective realm we live in. We invented it. Are we
perfectly (unclear)?)

No. Not perfect. We have a seed for perfection and

(student: (unclear))

I don't know, no, what we say is look at your body...aging, look
at all the thoughts in your mind, especially...you know we say
you have six standard terrible ways of thinking, twenty others, I
mean, jealousy, anger, irritation at other people...I mean there
may be perfect beings among us, any percentage of the people
around you may be perfect beings masquerading as normal people,
okay, but if you are a normal person, the the condition of your
body and mind is is is something terrible. It's get it's nature
is to get older, more and more sick each year, more more and more
weak, less and less energy and the nature of the mind is to
constantly have anger, desire, jealousy...at some level all day
long...based on your own selfishness. And in a a kind of
selfishness that is turned on twenty-four hours a day of wanting
to take care...naturally spending most of your time and attention
taking care of you own needs and ignoring other people's needs.
People are proud if they spend an hour a day at a hospital.
That's still twenty-four...twenty-three to one. You see what I
mean. And we just don't, we don't...we don't live well either.
We have a

(student: What's more important than loving yourself and taking
care of yourself?)

Oh we say you have to start with that but the but the bias is so
obvious, you know. I mean, no, you have to take care of yourself
 but but the relative time you spend on one person as opposed to
a few dozens is obvious, you know. That disparity is obvious.
And and it's a reflection of our of our natural mental state
which is defective, and, but but the purpose to be a Buddhist and
the purpose to follow this path is to reach the perfection which
you you do have the seed of that perfection in you. Every human
being has what we call Buddha nature, meaning "a capacity of
becoming a perfect being, perfectly loving, compassionate, and
physically perfect being, but this is...to say this is physical
perfection, I mean I...I I wouldn't have a bald spot (laughs) and
I wouldn't have wrinkly hands and I wouldn't be getting
weaker...you know what I mean. It's not. It's really not. We
can do...there is a body of light that you can get to and it
works better and, you know, it's it's not a nice realm to be in.

(student: How long do I have to wait for the next realm
(unclear) coming in the next realm?)

Oh. It comes as quickly as you practice the path.

(student: So it could happen here then.)

We say if you practice (tantra) properly in this lifetime, then
before you die everything...you would reach everything. Total
perfection, physical and mental perfection...yeah, in a perfect
world, okay.

(student: Is that this realm you're talking about...this
imperfect realm?)

This realm would then be transformed into a Buddha paradise

(student: Oh, it would be transformed, right?)

For you. Only. Yeah. (laughter) (laughs) No, now people around
you might think you're still a schmuck or something, you know
(laughs) okay (laughter). No, I mean, they might look at you and
say, "he's just as bad as he was ten years ago". And and you can
be looking in the mirror and seeing a (tantr)ic deity...you see
what I mean? Because you've kept your vows perfect, and then
your your realm will change, but they may still see you as a
normal person. In fact, they probably they would have to
actually, unless they had also followed the path in a very good
way, okay. So, that's important to say, okay. All right. We're
gonna talk a little bit about a death meditation. I think it's
important to talk about it. There...it was very popular in
recent years to talk about death per...meditation and and there
were a lot of things come out about the experience of going
through death, and I think it became sort of a thing where you
thought death meditation was sitting down, closing your eyes and
seeing purple lights go by, and then red lights go by, and then
yellow lights getting fainter and fainter and then white light
and then some kind of clear light and then you do (powa), they
say, or (chu...chod) and they snap their fingers and suddenly
they're in a Buddha realm. You know, if you can just do it at
the right moment of your death process. And this is a very
popular teaching. It's been spoken a lot in the United
States...more and more. And you have to understand this. When
we talk about transforming this realm into a different realm,
that has to be done while your mind is lucid. It's a result of
years and years of devoted effort and work on your own mind and
your own heart in meditation and and then at a...you you can best
do it...frankly, in your twenties and thirties or something like
that...I mean, while you have energy, while you're mind is sharp,
while you're physically able to sit for long periods of
meditation, and if you work very hard and if you follow to the
letter the instructions of authoritative scriptures and Lamas
then you have a change of pulling off a (tantr)ic paradise in
this lifetime. If not, then you must enter the death process.
You must go through the death process. And it's always chaotic.
As your mind starts to break down, as the electrical currents
start to go wild, there's a standard set of hallucinations that
you have. They are not pleasant. There are very very
freightening. Universally freightening. And then you actually
have a special kind of pain that you undergo as you die, and this
pain is like nothing you've ever felt before, and it's the pain
of the moment of death, and it's just a...all the scriptures talk
about it, and this is what the normal death process is, okay.
Your mind at that point is actually started to break down, okay.
It's not working as well as it was before. You're unable to
think clearly, you're overcome by waves of fear, emotion,
you're...if you think about how upset you'd be if someone came up
and and cut your finger off, then imagine how upset you'd be if
someone come at came up and cut all (laughs) your fingers off,
and it's the combined upsetness of having every piece of your
body cut off and losing it and on top of that, all the years of
care you've taken about your body, you see what I mean. The
years of combing the same person's hair, the years of brushing
the same person's teeth, the years of looking for clothes to fit
this particular body, you know, the years of finding a house for
this body to live in and a job for this body to have, and a car
for this body to drive in, and then all of those accumulated
desires for this particular body are all being expressed in the
moments of death. You are being cheated out of seventy years of
intense effort to take care of this body, and you're very upset,
okay. I mean, the accumulated affect of worrying about this body
minute by minute for seventy years...can you imagine the amount
of feeling you...the the internal feeling you have for this body
is is unthinkable, you know, and and then to think you're gonna
lose it at that moment. We say your mind goes into a special
horrible place of like rage, that this body's being destroyed.
The one that you combed for fifty years, whatever was left, you
know (laughter) and, okay, and then there's this rage that this
thing's being taken away from you. And the point is, you don't
wanna wait till the last minute to do something about it.
You..they say there are teachings that if you do special
practices as you die, you maybe have a good chance to change
realms at that moment or something like that. In theory this is
possible. In practice it's impossible, okay. You are totally
upset. You are totally freightened. It's the worst nightmare
you've ever had. It's the worst hour of your life that's ever
happened and to imagine that you could go into a deep state of
meditation, see emptiness that you didn't see in fifty years of
lucid thought on on the comfort of your meditation cushion
(laughs) you know, it's ridiculous. It's flatly ridiculous. The
point of a death meditation has nothing to do with those things,
okay. Death meditation is, take care of things now, okay? If
you're doing a good death meditation, you are getting your mind
into a state where you believe you're going to die tonight, and
every moment of your day you act as if you were going to die
tonight, okay? That's a Buddhist death meditation. Forget the
purple lights. Forget...if it was easy to get to a Buddhist
paradise by thinking something as you die, Lord Buddha would have
taught that, we'd go around giving coolaid injections to
everybody after giving them the instructions and that'd be it
because Buddhas love us, they want us to get to paradise, if it
was that easy that's all they would do. It doesn't work that
way. It just doesn't work that way. It's it's obvious it
doesn't work that way or else the Dalai Lama himself would be
going around doing Dr. Kavorkian or whatever for people, after
giving them the (powa) instructions, you know what I mean? It
doesn't work like that at all. You must do death meditation.
What is the goal of death meditation? It's not to be able to die
with some kind of special lights in your head or something like
that. It's that starting tonight, starting now, as you sit on
that chair, you begin to get into a special frame of mind. What
is that frame of mind? I'm dying tonight, now what do I do, you
see what I mean? And every hour of your conscious life you are
examining your activities, you're examining your work, you're
examining your state of mind and you're saying, "do I really want
to die like this", you see what I mean? You you just evaluate
your whole life hour by hour, am I ready to die tonight. Is this
what I wanna do for my final four hours, you know. Is this what
I would be doing if I only had four hours left, and if you start
thinking like that all the time, you've mastered Buddhist death
meditation. Okay. Then you're ready to study (powa). Okay.
Then you're ready to study how to do special death practices, but
in the meantime, much more powerful. And I can't describe to you
how good it feels to be a good death meditator. It's amazing,
you know. Peo people asked His Holiness, "sounds pretty
depressing", you know. He says, "hey, no way. It's liberating,
okay". Imagine how it would be to live every day as if you're
gonna die tonight. Cut all the crap of your life one hundred
percent now, you see what I mean? Throw out every possession you
have that doesn't immediately serve your physical needs. Just
clean out your house. Get rid of it. Move into a small room,
you know what I mean. No more rent to pay, no more worries.
Have one or two sets of clothes in case you wanna change before
you die tonight (laughter), okay...die in a fresh dress, okay,
like that. What else do you need, you see what I mean? And it's
liberating. You can finally do all the things you wanted to do,
okay. I say start with the worldly things. Go parachuting. Try
sky hang...hang glinding (laughter), you know, do the scuba trip,
you know, tell your boss to go to hell, (laughter), walk out, you
know, you don't need any money, you see what I mean. Just just
de, I mean...the first, the elementary stages of the death
meditation are quite interesting. Yeah, I always wanted to write
poetry instead of working in that company. So you just leave at
lunch time and you don't come back and you go to the park and
write some poems, you know, and it's liberating. I'm not
suggesting that you shouldn't have a career or you shouldn't have
a job or you should walk out on your wife, or your kids, or your
house payments or anything like that. I'm just saying if you do
a good death meditation, gradually, inexhorable, your life will
become an incredible, happy, extraordinary, creative thing.
Because your mind is totally freed...what would happen...if you
kept this way of thinking up regularly for six months, can you
imagine what your life would be like, you know...no more
magazines laying around your apartment, no more junk
possession...ninety percent of your possessions are junk
possessions. You don't use them, you don't look at them...you
clean them, you pay for them, you take care of them, you find a
place for them to be and you don't even use them and you don't
need them. Just get rid of, you see...if you're in this state of
mind, I'm gonna die tonight, think of how many things you'd quit.
you know what I mean, all the junk you'd just quit...go into some
really beautiful two-hour meditation...'cause that's all that
really matters at that point or something like that, but start
with all the stuff you always wanted to do. What I'm saying is
that if you become a good death meditator, you might wanna go try
to learn to dance or play guitar or you know, do all the things
you wanted to do, give up the things you don't really love,
you're gonna die anyway. So why not die doing the things you
wanna do. Then as you get more sophisticated you'll find that
those don't make you happy either (laughter), really, and you
will quickly get to the Buddhist path, you see what I mean. Then
all that illusion that there's a few more things that you wanted
to try will be taken care of, you see what I mean? All the stuff
you thought you might want to try, do it, you know. Do it.
Change your job to what you thought you really wanted. After six
months you'll find out it's not and then you'll be able to
meditate better, okay. But what I'm saying, it's a very
liberating thing. Real death meditation. And we're gonna go
over all the steps and the nine reasons and the blah blah blah,
but the bottom line is this. Act at every moment as if you were
gonna die tonight. Okay. And your Buddhist practice should be
just the same way. Streamlined. No crap. No practices which
are nice and which don't get you liberated by tonight, okay...I
mean, clean up that too. Most people most people's practice is
very similar to their apartments (laughter), okay, I mean I'm
talking about people who are even practicing, okay, which is only
a few, but even those people your practice is junked up with, "oh
I I kinda wanted to do this, I'm halfway through reading this, I
kinda studied that, I got a little bit of this memorized and I
have four meditations that I do but I don't really do any of
them". You know what I mean. And if you knew you were gonna
medidate to...die tonight, then just cut the crap in your
practice also. Get it down to the one or two heavy, intense,
karmas that will help you when you die, which frankly is (b: Guru
Yoga) and (tantra), or something like that, which are really the
same thing, so, you know, clean it down to that. Don't try to do
sixty-three different things and you're not doing any of them.
You are going to die tonight. Now what what do you want to
happen as you die...what's your goal. You know, I have people
come to me, "I have thirteen saddhanas I commited to. Which ones
should I do. Which twelve should I do", or something like that,
you know. You gonna die tonight, I suggest you take a few lines
out of your favorite saddhana and meditate on them. Something to
do with your root Lama or something and then forget the rest.
You know what I mean. You don't have time. You're gonna die
tonight. So, I mean, live every moment as if you're gonna die
tonight. Don't wait and say, "Oh, I can't get to that practice"
or "I'm not good enough, or I I don't I don't understand that,
I'm afraid of that" or something like that. Forget all that.
You're gonna die tonight. Be a more thoughtful of that poor slob
who's gonna be dying...which is you. You know what I mean? You
now are not being fair to him or her. A year from now or two
years from now or a week from now, who's sitting on the deathbed
dying and it's too late to do anything because you wasted your
time. He will curse you. You know what I mean. And you also
have to be considerate, you know. He is your future self. She
is yourself a year from now. You should be only doing those
things which are directly, immediately, powerfully getting you as
close as you can to a Buddhist paradise in this lifetime. Or
you're not really being fair to them, you see what I mean? So
you have to examine...even those people who are practicing have
to examine their their motivation for doing the practices they
do, how serious are you, or is it just that you like the
practice, you see what I mean? Did you really wanna get to a
Buddhist paradise or were you more attracted to a new set of
clothes or or a new language or or you know, this philosophy that
you can impress people with on Thursday nights, okay. You know
what I mean. Cut the crap. Get down to the practices that are
important to help you if you're gonna die tonight. That's all.
And by the way, you will never regret it. And everyday you spend
like that is ano...one more incredibly happy day. If you get
your life streamlined by a good death meditation, your mind is
clear, your heart is clear, you're happy, you're relaxed, and Je
Tsongkapa says, "then you can really die right". You know. The
only people who go into death right are the people who year after
year, day after day, hour after hour have been living as if they
were going to die tonight. Because then when it happens, they're
 like, "ha ha, I knew that was gonna happen". (laughs) You know.
 I took care of that two years ago, you know (laughs). "I went
straight to the teachings that were important and I practiced
them and I mastered them. I'm not afraid to die." It's only
these people that die well. They die happy. They took
everything. They've already achieved what they had to achieve.
Okay. Time to go. Relax. To be relaxed, happy, contented in
the knowledge that you have practiced perfectly. Only those
things which were most important as if you were gonna die tonight
for the last few years, then you can die well. That's a real
death meditation. Okay. And you hafta try to reach that state
of death med...it's not colored lights. Okay. It's not like,
"oh, booga booga when you die", you know. It's not like that,
okay. If you practice this way, then as you die you have a real
chance. You know what I mean. You have a real chance to do some
extraordinary things. Okay. But actually I don't think you will
die, okay? That's the whole point. I think when you teach death
meditation to your students in the future or this evening, it's
important to say, "look, if you lived each day as if you were
going to die tonight, you wouldn't die anyway. You would enter
into a (tantr)ic paradise in this lifetime." And and it would be
a moot point should you look at the red colored light or the
purple colored light, okay. There won't be any colored lights
'cause you don't die, okay, and and I can't describe you even if
all this Buddhist stuff is BS and even if all this stuff is not
true, it's still if you lived your life as if you were gonna die
tonight, you can't imagine how pleasant that is after a number of
months and years, you know what I mean? To keep living like that
every single day for years is extraordinarily pleasant and
exciting and creative, okay...you're just totally liberated from
all the the heavy weights of all the junk that we carry around,
okay, physically and mentally...and emotionally. Totally...you
feel like you weigh ten pounds, you know. You feel like you're
walking on air on all the time...it's a it's beautiful. It's
really cool.

(student: (unclear) the desire realm (unclear))

A..actually you're transforming the desire realm. Okay. When
you do a do good death meditation you fi...you finally designed
to decide to work on the most important things to help you by
tonight, you know, and you go quickly through the perfections
quickly into (tantra). And you work hard on it and and then
everything is taken care of itself. Yeah. This realm will be
transformed...for you. Okay. And everybody else may think
you're crazy, okay, and you gotta get used to that, okay. They
may not...if they are not doing those things, you will look crazy
to them. You gotta...they they say, (ni chen ne pi, ki chen ne
lep) means "you'll be expelled from the ranks of men and reach
the ranks of dogs" (laughs) meaning, everybody will think you're
crazy, okay. And I don't mean you have to sit on the corner and
spout mantras and act crazy. I'm not saying that. Just if you
gradually divest of unnecessary activities and and possessions,
you will look unusual to other people. If you truly try to
practice the most important practices and not even deal with less
important practices you will also look strange to oth more
people, okay, and you have to keep your motivation in mind. Why
am I doing this? 'Cause I'm gonna die tonight. I don't have
time for that, you know. I respect that, I think it's a good
thing. Lord Buddha taught a), Lord Buddha taught b). B) works
faster. Now you guys may have longer to live than me but I'm
dying tonight. I have to work on this thing, okay. And and
necessarily you will look a little strange to other people in the
desire realm. Okay. And and don't forget, and I say it boldly
and without embarrassment that anyone who's here in this realm
and who is not an emanation of an enlightened being, is messed
up, okay? Physically and mentally, okay. You're here...your
your presence here proves that you're messed up, okay. In the
desire realm. If you've made it to the desire realm, your mind
is messed up and your body is messed up and it's gonna break.
You know, the body is gonna break down, the mind is still
clinging to wrong ideas, wrong possessions, wrong ways of living,
and and you if you start to fix yourself in the desire realm you
will look strange to the other denizens of the desire realm...by
definition. Okay. Does that mean you should disrespect people
and act weird or som...I'm not saying that. You have to be more
respectful more thoughtful and like that. But but at some point
you're...there'll be a disparity between the way you act and the
way other people in the desire realm act because all of their
actions are crazy, okay. To to to work for fifty years to
have...fifty weeks to have two weeks of your own time is is that
crazy or what? It's crazy. (laughs) It's just crazy. What, so
you can have a washing machine instead of having two sets of
clothes that you wash by hand and it only takes you an hour, you
know what I mean...it's crazy...it's just crazy. It's it's
really crazy. The whole the whole exercise is crazy. You know,
to hate other people when they get something good, you know, it's
weird. People here are weird (laughter) (unclear) okay (laughs)
and you will start to look weird if you've had a...you change
yourself. Anyway I'm saying, death meditation is that. It's so
sweet, a great death meditation, okay. Two other things I would
say. It's important to know how to die right. It's important to
know what happens as you die and you should learn that. I think
what I'll try to do is hand out a a a document that Khen Rinpoche
wrote. It was mostly a result of an interview we did with
him...the only inter...the only time he submitted to questions
was when he was in a car or a plane and couldn't get away
(laughs) and we did it on a plane to India from Germany. And
asked him all everything I ever wanted to ask him about dying and
he gave beautiful answers and we wrote them out and I'll try to
hand that out next time. Okay. It's instructions on what you
should do as you die and what you should do for other people that
you love who are near you as they die, you know. What you can do
for them, and it clears up a lot of misconceptions about the
death process, okay. The only other thing I wanted to say about
death and then I think you guys can cover the rest in your
breakout classes. There is a real (powa), okay...there is a a
real death meditation for dying, okay. By the way, the death
meditation I covered so far is death meditation for what...

(students and Geshe-la: Living)

And you live like a king, okay, if you really do death meditation
every hour of the day, you know, f u to all the other junk of the
world, I'm concentrating on the most important things happily and
I'm not weighed down by all the other possessions and activities
and concerns, your mind is like...feels like cotton candy or
something, tastes like that, okay (laughs) and happy, all the
time. That's for living, okay, and that's for dying right. But
as you enter the death process, there is a meditation you should
do, okay. That's found in the (b: Lojong) text. We covered it
in the (b: Lojong) class. I didn't make it part of this reading
tonight but I'll describe it to you, okay. And you can practice
it every time you get sick, or everytime you're having some
emotional pain or any kind of problem in a relationship or
anything else, okay. Somebody you love leaves you, you know.
You find out you have breast cancer. You go home and you just
feel depressed all day, okay, you didn't get enough sleep, or you
can't sleep. This is good for...it's not amnesia, what'da they
call it?

(students: Insomnia)

Imsomnia, (laughs) okay. All right. I'm saying for all those
moments. Insomnia, depression, you just found out you have
(laughs) cancer or HIV or whatever, or or you have some kind of
emotional pain...you just lost someone close to you, or someone
died or someone walked out on you or something like that, okay.
In all of those situations you can use this meditation, which I
want you to use when you die, but there are so many other lousy
occasions during life you can use it then too and get practice,
you see. And this is the ultimate (powa) It's presented in
texts of Chekewa, Geshe Chekewa, and and this is a a beautiful
(b: Lojong), so it's basically this...and he did it on his death
bed. It...there's a record of his students standing around like
with Socrates and recording what he said as he died, okay, and
it's like this. When you die, you'll get to some kind of
incredible pain...will start to in your body and that's the pain
of dying. And this is a special physical pain that all people
have as they die. Bugs have it, cows have it, people have it,
fish have it. You can see them as they die, something's going
on...as you watch from the outside. So, meditate very very hard
that all the pain of all the people that you can imagine and all
the living creatures that you can imagine is sucked into the pain
that you're having, okay. So it's a very specific exercise of
imagining that you are going to eliminate the pain of the entire
world by dying with it. Okay. It's like that movie, the
"Exorcist" (laughs) okay, the the priest takes the evil demon
inside of him and jumps out the window, okay. It's the same
idea. You...as you're dying, when you start to feel that pain,
you say, "okay, I'm in for a bad time and I know it. I remember
that class back in ninety-nine, okay. At least let me do
something useful with this pain and but you can use this for
every pain you ever have...emotional, physical, relationships,
whatever, okay? Use it all the time when some poop hits the
fan...which is usually like once a week, right (laughter) okay
(laughs) okay. But focus on the pain that you're having...which
is not unreal...it's real, okay, has someone walked out on you in
a relationship, to find out you have cancer, to lose your job,
something like that...that's pain. Take the pain, make it a a
phsyical thing in your mind like a almost like a ball, okay, in
your chest, and then and then pray that all the pain that other
people are feeling around you should be sucked into that pain as
you experience it. Okay. As you as you're going to experience
it. So at least other people shouldn't have the pain that I'm
gonna go through, okay. By my feeling this pain may other
people's pain be taken away from them and die with me. Okay.
And then everybody else in the world is is free from whatever
pains they have, okay. Very very holy way to die. Okay. Very
very holy way to die. I don't have anything more to say about it
than that. Okay. Just do it. Okay. Best way to die. If by
chance you find yourself hit by a car tonight as you're on the
sidewalk (laughs), you know, people standing around, goggling at
you, then remember, you know, we say it's good to practice, okay.
 In Buddhism you can practice it two times. One, any time you
have any kind of disappointment or trouble during the day, just
say, okay, I have to go through this kind of pain. Apparently
I'm stuck with this kind of pain, so I pray that other people's
pain be experienced by me and that they don't have it any more,
okay. And just decide, you know. I'm I'm having a bad day. My
boss is crazy today. Well at least may I take the all the other
bad boss pain that other people are having in Manhattan today and
I will stand for all their pain, okay. So just decide. Every
time. This is practice for when you die. Very very good
practice, okay. If you don't practice it you probably won't be
able to do it when you die, okay. Secondly. As you fall asleep,
okay, imagine that you're going into a death consciousness, okay.
 Imagine as your mind goes into sleep, imagine that your mind is
going into the unconscious state of death, okay. And as you go,
practice this death meditation...say, okay. Anybody in the world
who's dying tonight as I fall asleep, may I take your pain away
from you. Okay. As I enter death, okay, I take it away from
you, all right. Very important to do that. We say then at the
final moments of consciousness in both cases, you imagine that
pain as some kind of black thing in your heart and then you blow
it off with this burst of light, like burst of golden light and
if you...that's very important, okay. You're not supposed to go
to sleep with all this pain in your (laughs) heart...you'll have
heartburn in the morning, okay. (laughter) Just before you fall
off to sleep. Very important. Boom. You know. Big flash like
a photo flash and it all that pain is gone...like your pain,
their pain in gone and then fall asleep, okay, like that. Very
beautiful meditation. The difference between waking
consciousness and sleeping consciousness is very similar to the
difference between living consciousness and in process of death
consciousness, and so, if you practice it night after night, when
the time comes it'll be a reaction, it'll be a a natural reaction
to try to take other people's pain away into your pain as your
die, okay. Now, last thing I'll tell you a story about someone
who did it and then we'll take a break. Geshe Chekawa is on his
death bed. Eleven hundred...something like that...AD...Tibetan
Lama, great Lama...he's been teaching this stuff his whole life
and he's dying and his students are standing around, you know,
"what's happening", you know, and he's dying and he says, "okay,
I'm doing it, you know. I'm feeling the pain. His...yeah and
I'm trying to take all the pain of all the living beings" And
there's this silence, you know. And he's like, "now I'm trying
to take the pain of all the hell realms", and there's this
silence, you know, and then they say, he says, "now I'm trying to
go to the hell realms, I'm trying to send my mind down to the
hell realms so I can take care of them in in my next life", you
know, and he's like he's like and then there's this long silence
he's like, "oh man it's not working", you know (laughs) and
they're like, "are you all right?", you know. And he says, "oh
it's terrible, you know". And they're like "what's going on?",
you know. And he says "I can't do it, it's not working", you
know and they're like, "what, you can't get to hell?" He says,
"nah, it's not working. Everytime I have that thought to go to
hell all I see is these Buddha paradises" (laughter) (laughs),
and he's like upset, you know, he's like angry, you know, he's
like "I can't believe it. I praticed my whole life and now these
paradises and deities and angels coming for me and I can't...so
disappointing (laughs) (laughter) and he died like that. He died
saying that, okay. That's actually what will happen, okay.
That's actually the the process that (laughs) you go through,
okay. The intention of doing that is almost like an instant
karma, okay. And I think frankly, and I'm not afraid to talk
about it, I think the final act of Christ is very similar and I
don't have any embarrassment to say I totally believe it's a
it's a beautiful death practice. I believe that, you know, the
Christian faith, take away the sins of the world or something
like that...I don't believe, we don't believe that you can take
on someone else's karma, but the intention to do so and to die
that way is the ultimate way to die, you know. If you really
want to get your mind into a Buddha paradise as you die, and if
you wanna set up your mind to be able to take away the sins of
the world by becoming an enlightened being in the future, this is
 absolutely a perfect way to die. This is a perfect act, you
know, of (tong len), on the cross, and that's, you know, you
can't read the Tibetan descriptions of how to do it without
thinking of that thing. They they almost read the same word for
word, you know, so it has to be a (crys) very holy practice that
people have done throughout the world, okay. All right. Take a
break (laughs).

(break)

Okay, we'll start. It's about a five minute thing...he always
says that, right? (laughter) First thing, last Friday morning we
took one day Mahayana precepts and a lot of people came up to me
and said, "that was really fun", and can we do it more often
(laughter), okay. And I also had a really good time, so I think
we will do it more often, like there are five or six major
Buddhist holidays throughout the year, there are other very holy
days like Khen Rinpoche's birthday, or the hol...Dalai Lama's
birthday, things like that, so I think we can come up with
excuses to do them more often, and and then I wanted to mention
and I forgot to mention during the ceremony last Friday that you
are therefore empowered to do them yourself, okay? So once
you've taken them from somebody else, you are empowered to take
them by yourself, and you just do it in front of a Buddha image
in your own home with the same rules. Now we went over the vows
in great detail during the ceremony last Friday and Winston taped
it...I don't know where he went to...he's agreed to hand a copy
of the tape over to the Moores, who are here...don't not raise
your hands (laughter) okay (laughs)...they're in charge of
production of all tapes, like they'll keep a production master
and then when you need a copy you can ask them. So I what I
suggest is you just get up at 4:30 and turn on the tape, and
(laughter) seriously, and just follow it and do the whole thing,
and after you've done that once or twice you'll be able to take
them yourself. Hopefully before going into three year retreat I
could maybe translate the the text into English, but even without
that you can still recite it in Tibetan, it's a holy language.
There's a lot of Sanscrit in there which is also a holy language
and see...you can actually take them any time you like, okay. So
get a hold of that tape...yeah?

(student: It's good to do on Sojong days.)

Good to do on Sojong days...fifteenth and the eighth...and the
first and of the Buddhist month, okay. Just wanted to mention
two things about two two side projects that are happening in
Arizona and I think they apply to what Buddhists can do to help
other people, and I think should be maybe a part of American
Buddhism as it goes into the future. So these wrap-up talks have
been about American Buddhism. I think the first project that
we'll be doing there...you know, when we negotiated the contract
for the land which will be signed shortly and we do...it looks
like we have enough money to buy the first parcel by about one
dollar or something (laughter) (laughs). It looks okay. Not
sure yet, but it looks okay. We we will be buying a huge u-
sheeped shaped of property of about, I don't know, four thousand
acres or something like that, and then inside of the "u" is a is
a big block of property that's five thousand acres, and if you
buy the four, you get the five. And the five belong to the state
of Arizona and they are called "state lease lands", and whoever
own the property around it gets to own the...gets to rent the
land in the middle for a dollar and...ten cents an acre a year.
And you are required to run cattle on it and sixty-five percent
of the property of that county is state lease land like that. So
we were struggling with what to do with this problem, you know,
like we would like to have the property 'cause it'll make the
place quieter, there'll be a big buffer of about a mile around
the meditation cabins and stuff, but what're we gonna do with
these cows, you know. There's like two hundred and fifty cows on
the property and and we have to take care of them and first we
went to the state, we said "do we have to kill them, could we
just let them live, you know, and take care of them?" and we're
negotiating all of this with the state. And then we went to some
like sponsors like Jains...wealthy Jains that I know in the
Indian diamond community and asked them would they like to help
us keep these cows alive, which is a big thing for them. And
then I was thinking of it just as a way to raise funds or
something like that, and then we've been having meetings with
these Jain diamond dealers and they've been expressing their
passion for this idea, that hey, you Americans, you know, if you
get into creating these...they have these special ranches all
over India supported by the Jain and the Hindu communities where
they just keep animals till they die, and it could be a cow or it
could be any other kind of animal and

(cut)

they were so passionate about the idea, like yesterday we had a
meeting with the head of the Jain Association of the United
States and this is a very powerful diamond dealer and he's so
excited about the idea, he says, "you don't even know what you're
starting", you know, "you think you're just raising some funds".
Think about it, you know. If an American...if if American people
get up and start talking about this idea, the whole world looks
to America, like all...even in India we're looking...we don't
like America but we're looking to America to see what we're
supposed to do next, you know. And if and if in America normal
American people decide that it's important not to kill these
animals, it could start a whole different way of looking at
animals and a whole different way of treating animals, and a
whole different way about thinking about the question of killing
animals for our meat, which I'm not gonna talk about that
tonight. There's a big debate about it in Buddhism,
traditionally we have eaten meat, I think, based on the fact
that when you go out with your begging bowl as a monk, you're not
allowed to say, "I don't like eggplant" (laughter), you know,
could I just have a little more of the ice cream (laughs) you
know (laughter) and, you know, you're supposed to take whatever
they put in your bowl and eat it, you know, and that's a
tradition, so I think on that basis, we've been eating meat.
People ask me "is eating meat a bad deed?". It's not listed in
the scriptures as a bad...the Lotus

Sutra does say some heavy things about not eating meat and when
you take one-day Mahayana vows you're not allowed to eat meat.
Now that's an indication that we think it's something wrong with
it. Technically you're not killing when you buy meat.
Technically you're buying meat. Un-technically you've
contributed to a process of killing and I think almost assuredly
you are dealing in stolen goods. (laughter) So I asked a Lama,
I said, "if someone offers me a radio, and I know it's been
stolen, can I buy it?" And they said, "no". So I said, "well
why?" And they said, "'cause that person who owned the radio, it
was taken from them forcefully and now it's being offered to you
for sale". So I said, "well what's what about meat, which has
been forcefully taken from its owner without their consent I
assume, and being offered to me for sale?" So I...this is not in
the scriptures. This is Michael Roach's idea, okay, and I I'm
always honest to you that, you know, in the courses you don't see
anything which is Michael Roach's idea, you you know you're
getting original readings...we put in all that Tibetan...someday
somebody'll notice it's not the same but that's another thing
(laughter) (laughs) no, just kidding. (laughter) (laughs) Still
 waiting to see if anyone reads it, but no, not...really, only
original sutras, that's my the about me, okay, but but it would
be exciting, you know. We started to get infected about their
enthusiasm which we didn't have when we went to them and they're
saying, you know, "if American people got this idea, and you
saved some cows and you took good care of them until they died a
natural death," you know, one cow is killed every minute in the
United States...and then we went to the slaughter house,
we...every second, sorry...we sent Ian and somebody else to the
slaughter house to to try to film the local slaughter house in
which these animals would be killed, and they took a lot of gross
footage of the meat hanging up, but the cows hanging up, and then
the guy said, "come back tomorrow because today we're killing
pigs and tomorrow we're killing cows, and we'll show you". And
so, there's this crisis the next morning nobody wanted to go you
know (laughter) and so Ian goes off with his camera (laughs) you
know, and and we're like kind of nervous waiting...we sent
Elizabeth with him and Rob figured out a way to do another errand
and not go (laughs) (laughter) and and then they came back and
said the guy refused to let us in because he said his lawyer
advised him that it would not be smart to let us film the thing,
but the whole fact that people are hiding it and that you can't
film it, and, you know, and that it's something you and I have
never seen, you know. I've never seen them do that. I've heard
what they do but I've never had the courage to go to one of those
places, and and Ian was messed up the whole day (laughs)...he was
still upset like two days later just seeing the carcasses hanging
up from these hooks and and the blood all over the floor and
everything else, so I think I think it'd be an interesting
project. I think to get excited about that. We do have a
concept in Buddhism called (tse tar). (Tse) means "life", (tar)
means "to free life". And it means "buy or or somehow get
possession of animals that are about to be killed and then
release them and free them, and I think if you...I was sitting in
a restaurant in Ireland. There was a aquarium next to me. There
were all these lobsters with their things taped, they couldn't
like move, they were on all on piled on top of each other, and
suddenly, for a split second, you know, I'm not like a big yogi,
but my mind went into their mind for a second and I was thinking
how it felt to know you...they have this instinct that you're
gonna die and you're in this wrong place, and somehow you can't
move like you used to move and that primal fear of that being
piled there in this thing and moving against each other and
knowing that you're going to die by being boiled, you know...just
for a second it came into my mind and then we asked the waitress,
you know, "can we buy one of them?" 'cause it was on the ocean
side and we thought we'd let it go you know, they said, "no no,
we have to ask the owner," you know, so we said, "please ask the
owner" 'cause I got this...I obcessed with at least getting one
...it's like eighteen dollars but okay, and they wouldn't sell us
one, they wouldn't let us take one, so then I'm like this maybe I
can steal one, (laughter) you know, (laughs) and I didn't have
the courage, you know, but, anyway, that's a part of what we'd
like to do in Arizona. We will be getting with the property, I
don't know, two hundred and fifty head of cattle and we'd like to
keep them alive and take care of them and just out of the sense
of what it's like to be killed. They know they're gonna be
killed. When I went to India the very first time I was twenty
years old, I'm in an ashram near the Ganges River, and I had this
intense dream about watching a cow die and it knew it was gonna
die and it had a human voice which made things terrible...it was
screaming and they were cutting its throat and it was screaming,
and I remember it still vividly and...so I think that's a neat
project. I think people we should try to liberate life and free
life whenever we can and respect life of all kinds, and I think
that will be a nice thing to do. Secondly, part of the Arizona
will be a retirement community and the idea that in this
country...and I grew up this way, you know...my parents, my step-
mother still tells me, "I'm independent. You don't have to take
care of me. I don't expect you to take care of me. I'm gonna
keep my house..." I said, "come to Arizona", she said, "no no
no. I I'm independent. I'm have my own house. I'll take care
of myself" and there's this thing in America that your parents
get to a certain age and they have to fend for themselves or you
put them in a nursing home and you...and I I used to be the
nursing home laison for Howell, New Jersey dozens of Kalmik old
people would come to me, I would put them in nursing homes for
their children, and then it would be this gradual, lonely process
of dying, this one was a resort hotel in the nineteen twenties.
It had a spiral staircase that goes up like five stories. And so
 people screaming on the bottom floor...you can hear them...it
goes through every story, all night all day and when you walked
in there'd be this gauntlet of old people in chairs, reaching out
to just to touch you, you know...just to touch a a person that
wasn't dying at the moment (laughs), you know, and and the stink
in every nursing home of urine and and and and and the way that
the the underpaid staff really treats them when no one's around,
you know what I mean. So I think there's a great man in
Australia named Salim Lee, he's be work...we've been watching his
idea of building like nursing homes and retirement communities
that are Buddhist and where you go and your death is like you get
trained how to do a nice death meditation and you practice and
you spend you time learning meditations that you can do as you
get old and studying some scripture, learning how to chant
things...you know, the idea the ancient Indian idea of when you
finally get liberated from your job, at sixty-two or whatever,
that you kind of cruise into death in a planned, compassionate
way, you know, and that and that that would be a good way for us
to spend our energy, you know. Like my vision of the place there
is that we're studying intensely, we're meditating intensely, you
know, we have intense rituals going on and all kinds of (tantr)ic
studies there, and I think it'd be a very beautiful part of that
to have a community where we're talking care of old people, by
about the time we get it ready, it'll be us (laughter) (laughs)
okay. And I'm not kidding, you know. It'll take what...ten
fifteen years to get it going well and then we'll have a place to
go and I think the idea of my generation, the baby boomers who
were spiritually minded and didn't save a dime, okay, and social
security's used up, okay, it...it's already spent...the stuff I
paid in is spent and I think there's gonna be this big crunch,
and to have like...our idea is to have very cheap, like maybe a
hundred and fifty, two hundred dollars a month housing there,
where you have your own beautiful little place, you're not like
in one big huge building but they're spread out all over the
place and you have your own like adobe meditation house and you
have maybe two comfortable rooms and a nice shower and a nice
bathroom or something like that, and you can live on the cheap
and then you can go up to the temple and study meditation or
whatever tai chi you can still do, (laughter) and, seriously, or
yoga or something to keep yourself a little strong, and then
people there who will take care of you as part of their
practice...as an important part of their practice. And then you
can study how to die properly and live quietly until you die and
I think that'd be a beautiful thing for American Buddhists to
start from now, a custom of taking care of animals and old people
 that can't take care of themselves, okay. So that's a...and
we'll be in one of those categories (laughs) okay, unless we
practice right. (laughter) So, so I'd like to put that...in
Tibetan they say (sem la jak shu) which means "keep it in your
heart as an idea for the future", you know, that's something we
could start spending some effort on. Especially I like the
retirement community idea, something where you could spend your
latter years in a meaningful way. And I see a lot of the people
teaching at the university whatever skill they used to know, you
know, all my great Lamas have been over the age of fifty-five or
sixty, you know, and I think you'll find that the people who come
to stay there in a retirement community would be...would also
have some incredible talents to give to a place like that and to
give, you know, and that's happened in our own organization. Dr.
Taylor retired in nineteen eighty-six and I stole him and he's
been running the Input Project (laughs) since then, you know.
And he's still running it and he has incredible energy, he's like
almost...I don't know how old he looks to you, but he's about
seventy-five I think or something

(students: Wow)

He's extraordinary, and and that's and and he's still running
everything, so you know, I think those people we should embrace
them and and make a a relationship which is good for both. So
I...think about those two things. Okay. Take it...that American
Buddhism should take care of older people in a way that helps
them go right, in a nice healthy, spiritual way and then
secondly, that, you know, if we played our cards right...the Jain
guy yesterday told me, "if you play your cards right, you know,
the idea of killing these animals could be a thing of the past,
eventually", you know...that if if normal Americans get up and
say, "I haven't eaten meat for twenty years and I feel fine", you
know...the rancher from whom we're buying the property was just
advised by his physician not to eat meat anymore (laughter) and
he likes the idea. You know, he's gotten used to it now. And he
says, "I don't know why I used to eat eighteen ounce steaks, you
know, they killed me. They made me weak, they made me sick, but
that's how I grew up. I didn't know any better." So I think
it's something we can pull off maybe, okay. (Sem la jak shu).
We'll do a mandala, okay. Phuntsok-la.

(prayer: short mandala)

(prayer: dedication)

Okay, thank you.
Review Course 17