ACI 17 (обзорный курс), Занятие 09 (прогон ГМР, Нью-Йорк) — стенограмма

Class 9, Part 1
Transcribed by: Karen Becker

Okay, tonight we're gonna be covering...what course is that?
(laughter) Ten?

(student: Ten)

Ten. Okay. Courses ten, eleven and twelve were devoted to the
(b: Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life) by Master Shantideva
and originally in the five year course or seven year course or
whatever it was, it ended up taking a year to get through the
whole (b: Bodhisattvacharyavatara). Rinpoche took ten years, so
it wasn't so bad, all right? (laughter). And we studied a very
famous commentary by Gyeltsab Je, one of Je Tsongkapa's...the the
 primary disciple of Je Tsongkapa, and hasn't been translated
yet, but we translated most of it and we went through it for
three courses. It's interesting that in the monastery they don't
study the (b: Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life) as one of
the five great books, but we added it and there was a reason to
spend a whole year on it and that was because it's simply one of
the greatest books ever written in the history of mankind. It's
been translated...I don't know, five six times into English. And
I don't think you can read even a bad translation of it and not
be impressed by it. It's amazing. And there've been some good
translations. So, and His Holiness has given commentary on
it...for example, whe...I saw him in Tucson give an extraordinary
commentary on the Patience chapter and they're trying very hard
to get him back to do the chapter on Wisdom, which is one of the
greatest presentations on emptiness ever written. And I think
triggered a lot of the teachings that have gone on here since.
The ninth chapter is dedicated to how to view your world, and I
think as we went through it...I personally and I think a lot of
other people, had a profound change in the way they viewed their
life and their world. Especially I remember the Halloween night
lecture. (laughs) I don't know why, but on Halloween night we
got to the heaviest part of the whole book and and it was
basically a challenge to the whole western civilization's world
view and I think it was so much impressed all of us that we
decided to call this whole organization "Worldview". So you know
you...we've broken it out I think into fourteen different
projects or activities that this Institute does and I think
you're gonna get a little booklet about them next week or
something, but decided to call the whole thing "Worldview". Why?
Because basically the the main reason to study Buddhism is that
there's a difference in the world view, in the entire world view,
how you see the world, okay, between our civilization and what
Buddhism teaches. The way the world works is described in
contradictory manner. And a Buddhist walking into American
civilization would say that we just got it wrong. And it and the
way we're trying to relate to the world is incorrect...meaning,
you know, we relate to the world in a way which will never work
and it doesn't matter how hard you try, or how sincere you are,
or how loving you are, or or how intelligent or sensitive or
compassionate you are, if you relate to the world in a certain
way, the way that western civilization has taught you, you will
suffer, 'cause it doesn't work. It's broken, you know. And the
whole concept of our civilization, our whole activity, what
people do every day, what people do all day long is just hopeless
and it doesn't work and it's like trying to make a a car go
without a without pistons or something and for millions, hundreds
of millions of people to labor from morning to night trying to
reach something that doesn't work, in a way that doesn't work,
it's just like watching children with razor blades cut
themselves, you know. It's like...it's it's sad and it ke...it
won't work and yo...I think Master Shantideva in his text...it's
interesting, it's supposed to be a book about compassion, but I
think what you get at the end is wisdom, and the ninth chapter,
the chapter on wisdom is something out of this world and in a way
it brings you back to compassion in the best way a person could,
you know, which is to say the view, the worldview, the way that
you view reality, the way you think things work is so wrong that
you hurt yourself all day long. And and from the time you get up
until the time you go to bed, all the people in this realm, and
especially those who are following the beliefs of western
civilization are actually hurting themselves every hour they're
awake. Better to go to sleep, okay (laughs)..than to than to
continue like that. It'd be better to go to bed actually.
'Cause then you wouldn't hurt yourself so well, you know. And
that was the challenge that that Master Shantideva threw out.
And that to me, this is the...one of the greatest books ever
written, and urge you stick with it. We'll do the first third
this class and then when we get to the last of the three review
courses, we'll get into the into the meat of the of the (b:
Bodhisatvacharyavatara), okay, of the (b: Guide to the
Bodhisattva's Way of Life). But I think, get the feeling that,
he's going to end up with one of the most extraordinary
presentations of emptiness ever given. And he's using it because
he's compassionate and he's trying to teach us about what
compassion is, and what compassion means, okay. So, I'm gonna
start by putting out the structure of the (b:
Bodhisattvacharyavatara), the way he does it. We've talked about
the ninth chapter. There's about nine other chapters we have to
talk about, okay. First I'll do the name of the book. I'll give
you the short name. Say (chun juk) (repeat) (chun juk) (repeat).
  (Chu..chu) means "activities" and it refers to the things that
bodhisattvas do...what bodhisattvas do. We were in Ireland, we
were struggling for a word for bodhisattva...we didn't want to
freak out all these guys (laughs) and we say...we ended up with
"warrior saint" and they liked it, they got it, you know, so
(chu) means "the kind of activities they...they do". The kind of
things that bodhisattvas do. (Juk) means...in Yiddish it means
"roach" and it's what they used to call me in the diamond
district (laughter)..."hey Juk", but in Tibetan it means (laughs)
(laughter) in Tibetan it means "to enter", okay. Like entering
the activities of a bodhisattva. It's been translated as (b:
Guide to a Bodhisattva's Way of Life". I like it. I think...you
know usually I hate all of the translations, but this one's good,
(laughter) okay? Even though I didn't make it up. So (chun juk)
The the author is...say (Lopen) (repeat) (shiwa) (repeat) (hla)
(repeat). Okay. Good. (Lopen) means "master". A professor
from Harvard once complained about my lectures. He said, "you
say 'master', you keep repeating the word 'master'", you know,
which actually one of our vows okay, we're not supposed to refer
to a great Buddhist wiseman as "Shantideva". It's considered
improper. You're supposed to say Master Shantideva. Or, "the
imcomprable, brilliant, fantastic Master Shantideva". Okay? You
should get in the habit. (Shiwa) means "peace" or shanti. And
(hla) means "god or angel, deva", okay. And his name is
"Shantideva"...Master Shantideva. You remember his nickname,
right? I like it. (laughs) (laughter) Say (dushe) repeat)
(sumpawa) (repeat). Those of you who are learning Tibetan, when
you...when a (den bu) drumps...bumps into a (tsa...chen juk)
(unclear) secondary suffix, it's a changes almost to a (gyi gu)
sound, so if you want your Tibetan to sound better, it's almost
like (du shi), okay (du shi) (repeat) (sumpawa) (repeat) (Du shi
sumpawa) (repeat). (Du shi) here means "thinks about", (sumpawa)
means "three things". The guy who only thinks about three
things, okay? And you know the story. But if you don't know the
story, I'll tell you very briefly, okay? Master Shantideva in
Nalanda Monastery ancient monastery in India, one of the great
monasteries of all times, he would sit in his room and lay around
on the bed and people would come by to check on him and he'd be
sitting there, laying down and not doing anything. And then he
also seemed to be quite interested in meal time and as a result
of mealtime, he used to go to the bathroom a lot. And he didn't
seem to be interested in (laughs) meditating, or studying or
memorizing or reciting or anything else and they got fed up with
him in the monastery, and af...you know, he's an embarrassment to
Nalanda Monastery. So, they started to call him Mr. Three-
Thoughts, (Dushe Sumpawa). Only thinks about sleeping, eating
and pooping. (laughter) Okay. In Sanscrit it's "busuku" okay.
And he got this name "Busuku". And they they started to call him
that and then it got so bad that he was so useless that they
decided to try to get him out of the monastery, so they said,
they came to his room, you know, and they said, "you know, all
of the monks are expected to give a teaching to the assembly
every once in a while. We wondered if you'd like to come and
give a teaching and if you don't, you know, we kinda don't know
if you should stay, eating all our food and stuff", so they they
said, "will you come and give and teaching?" And he said, "all
right, you know, if you insist I'll come, you know, and I'll I'll
teach something", you know. So they laughed and they said, "oh,
he's never going to be able to teach anything". And then on the
special day that he came to teach, they got the the chapel ready,
 you know, the assembly hall and they purposely put a a throne
which was too high for a person to get up on it. Like we built a
throne in New Jersey for His Holiness and for ten years he
couldn't get a visa to come, you know, to the United States, and
it just sat there, and we never had any stairs to go up to it
because...and it's about this high, you see...they made his much
higher, Master Shantideva's and and you have to have a separate
set of stairs that you wheel up to it...it's like a airplane
stairs...and the Lama comes up and gets there...we didn't even
have them because His Holiness couldn't get a visa. And we kept
asking if he could come and the Government kept saying "no". And
then finally, I think it was eighty-one he got his first visa.
But, so for Master Shantideva, they just decided to leave it
without the stairs and to embarrass him, 'cause he wouldn't even
be able to get up on the throne to teach, so on the given day he
came in to give a talk and he he made his three prostrations
customary to the throne, meaning, you know, the Buddha is much
better teacher than I am, and, but I'll, you know, I'll sit there
today. And then everyone was waiting, giggling, you know,
waiting to see him try to get up on the throne, and then
suddenly, he's on top already, you know, and everybody's like
"how'd he do that?" (laughter)(laughs) and he's like looking
down, and he says, "would you guys like me to teach something
you've heard before or something new, you know (laughter), and
they're like, "yeah, right, something new" (laughter), and so he
says, "all right.
I I wrote this little thing called (b: Bodhisattvachayavatara)
and I'd like to teach it to you today". So he starts teaching
this thing, the (b: Bodhisattvacharyavatara), extraordinary, you
know, like one of the greatest books every written. And the
monks are just freaking out, you know, so they
just...unbelievable beautiful poetry...in Sanscrit it's really
beautiful poetry, and they're just, they're just...can't believe
what...and he's just talking extemporaneously, he's memorized the
whole thing in Sanscrit, he's he's teaching it from memory, and
they're freaking out and then he gets to the ninth
chapter...ninth chapter's really hard, like people throughout
history have written explanations of the ninth chapter. You guys
gotta really good ninth chapter and we'll do another one in
October or November, but he he goes through the...all the fight
between the Mind Only School and the and the and the Middle Way
School and everybody else's extraordinary teachings, so they're
all like really anxious when he gets to this part about
emptiness, and everyone's like paying attention, and they're
listening, and then he suddenly he starts going off into this
stuff that no one can grasp, you know, and then he's slowly
rising off the throne, you know (laughs) and then people
are...the the great monks in the audience are like going into
meditation so they can follow him, you know, and so their minds
are like projecting out and following him into the air, and he's
like flying up into the air, like everytime he gets to another
new subject, he's like getting higher and higher in the sky and
most of the monks are just lost already, you know, and they're
like "where'd he go, where'd he go" (laughter) and he's just
flying, he's just...finally he just disappears like a spot in the
sky, you know...he just disappears. And people are like "what
did you hear? How many chapters did you hear?" And they say,
"it's eight". They say, "no, nine...I heard nine", you know and
somebody says "no ten", you know (laughter) and there's this big
argument about...they can't even figure out how many chapters
there were 'cause half the people couldn't...they couldn't use
like clairvoyance to keep up with him, you know what I mean? And
then I I I don't know the story...they find him like six months
later in...just hanging out near the stupa down in south India
like he's a nobody, and they send a big contingent of monks to
beg him to come back, you know, and they apologize and for
judging him...you know what I mean...and and he says, "well, you
know, I don't really feel like coming back to your monastery."
(laughter) "but I'll tell you what. I left the book in the
rafters of my room. I wrote the Sanscrit out and the poetry is
all there and if you look in the rafters you can find it", you
know. And that's the...that's why we have it, okay...that's why
we have the book. Then he wrote another book called (b: Chi shu
cham bu chia) which is rarely taught in the monastery. And His
Holiness is teaching it in Bodh Gaya. He's half way through I
he...I understand. So that's what we're going to hear for the
millenium so that's not a bad way to spend...it's the other great
book by Master Shantideva and I think it will be a classic also
once it's translated well and and taught. So anyway, that's the
story of Master Shantideva. I think what you can learn from it
is is not to judge people in this class, your fellow students,
you know, I I tend to judge people constantly, you know. I I was
on a vacation the last week and I was going through these country
towns and seeing these rough tough guys and thinking, "oh, you
know, they probably just think about bulldozers all day or
something", you know, and then I was reflecting that the rancher
who's selling us the property in Arizona turns about to be this
extraordinary, spiritual genius, you know, and and then I began
thinking, well, maybe I shouldn't judge these guys with the
bulldozers, you know, and I think you get the first thing to
learn from the (b: Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life)
you...is before you open the book, is to reflect that you don't
know who's in this class and you don't know what other people are
doing. In the monastery in Sera there're these older Geshe's who
sit there quietly in the assembly and they don't say anything,
and then there's a big debate and they'll get up and you know,
those other guys are looking really handsome and they're like,
you know, (unclear) and you know, and these guys get up and and
they go (laughter), you know, and and they take some position
which is indefensible, you know, like they take some silly
position and they...this really gun-slinger, hot, forty...thirty-
five year old Geshe, you know, defending, you know, and they'll
go up and they'll say, "well, you know, is blue a color", you
know, and and then the guy will say "of course it's a color".
And then they got him already, you know, and then they
just...they just wander around and then and then pretty soon you
see this checkmate, you know (laughter), and this guy's
like...you know, the guys sitting down (laughter) and and then
they just...they say, "oh, I just wanted to check", you know.
(laughter). And they sit down, real quietly, you know, and
everyone's like...(laughter) (laughs), you know, and people do
that. I think you reach a certain spiritual level, you start
to act like Joe Schmo...and...seriously. I think people reach a
certain spiritual level and they just don't care who who knows
anymore, and they just look like Joe Schmo, like (Du she
Sumpawa). Mr. Three Thoughts. And and they don't care if you
think that about them for ten years, twenty years...they don't
care. You know, maybe they got enlightened three lifetimes ago.
You don't know. And I think the first lesson of the...of this
book is the circumstances under which it was first taught, and
and to keep that in mind. Who knows who the people around you
are and don't worry about it, you know. You have eighty-four
thousand mental afflictions he...up here (laughs) to take care of
(laughs) you know, and why double it or triple it by worrying
about other people (laughs), you know what I mean? I mean, you
have enough to work on the rest of your life, so I think that's
the first great lesson for me in this book is is that one, okay?
Now I'd like to go through the structure of the book. And I mean
 anybody in the class. Okay. I don't mean the people who look
like they might be Master Shantideva, okay. I'm talking about
the people who definitely don't look like (unclear) Master
Shantideva. Those are the most dangerous ones. Okay. Ten
chapters of the book, okay. And I'm gonna abbreviate the...

(silence)

Say (pen yun) (repeat) (pen yun) (repeat). The first job of
every Buddhist author in Mahayana is to try to sell you on the
idea of bodhicitta. Is try to sell you that it...on the idea
that it would be good for you to be a bodhisattva. So, you know,
that's always the way we always start in Buddhism. We try to get
you excited about how great it would be to be a bodhisattva. So
(pen yun) means "the benefits of being a bodhisattva". That's
the first thing that Master Shantideva does. Trys to describe
the benefits of it, okay. There's basically two kinds of
bodhicitta, or or what you call the "wish for enlightenment".
One is...well, there's three, okay? (Bu rang gyi shing ta bu sem
kye) means "the bodhicitta which is like sugar cane...they call
it sugar cane bodhicitta". And this is like a preliminary
feeling that you get. Like you get a little bit...you feel some
kind of sympathy for other people or you feel some kind of sweet
feeling towards other people and that's like the...why it's
called "sugar cane" is that it doesn't have strength. It's not
strong like oak. It's like sugar cane. It's hollow on the
inside, and it's like you start to get a taste of what it would
be like to be a bodhisattva. And that's called "sugar cane
bodhicitta". It's not real bodhicitta. Okay. Then you then you
have a some kind of a feeling of...how do you say...you have the
lead-up to bodhicitta which is all the the feelings of bodhicitta
like compassion for other people, love for other people, you
start to have feelings of care for other people, okay. And and
then you get a what we call like a an elementary bodhicitta, the
first basic bodhicitta, is...goes under that second one, okay.
And that's where...it's actually a kind of renunciation, okay.
It's a kind of disgust with this world. We described the desire
realm already. We talked about the desire realm being a broken
place. We talked about the fact that in this world, nothing you
can do will help at all, okay. You always have in the back of
you mind, that "if I made some adjustments to my life, it would
be all right, if I ate better, if I got enough sleep, if I could
eliminate two or three people from my world"...you know, "if I
could, you know, study a little more, if I had a little more time
to meditate, then I'd be all right, or if I could just change
this relationship"...it doesn't work. There is no
adjustment...forget the idea of adjustment. Right now your mind
works on the idea, "if I could make certain adjustments in my
life, it would be okay." The point about the desire realm which
you are stuck in is that whatever adjustment you make, won't
work, okay? The minute you eat those vitamins, the minute you
get more sleep, the minute you get a little more income, the
minute you change you husband or wife, the new suffering will
start again (laughter), and it will be evident in about six
weeks. You know what I mean? And that's all. You can't fix
this realm. It doesn't work. And bodhicitta is is realizing
that that applies to everybody else also. That's all. You take
your own knowledge of you own crappy situation and then you just
turn it around on other people. There's this thing in the back
of your mind that says, "if I'm not happy, somebody else must
be", you see what I mean? You walk down Fifth Avenue...I used to
do it, and you imagine, okay, ten percent, five percent, one
percent...somebody's gotta be happy. Somebody in this on this
street's gotta be happy, you know. Somebody must be have made
all the adjustments necessary and they're actually happy. I just
have to find them, you know. And in the back of your mind you
have these two ideas. (a) If I could adjust certain things in my
life it would be all right. (b) There must be someone who's
happy, you know, there's probably somebody who's having a happy
marriage or some somewhere", you know what I mean? And the fact
is no. Okay. No. It doesn't work. The realm doesn't work.
You know, it's not like people aren't trying hard or something
like that. The realm doesn't work. It doesn't matter what you
do. It won't work out. You see. And then, just to imagine that
that's true of every other person around you is some kind of
liberating thought. That's bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is
renunciation applied by logic to other people. You can't be
inside of their mind directly most of the time. But by logic
observing their own suffering you decide that they must be
suffering as much as I am. Then later especially with the direct
perception of emptiness, you have a a the perception of
bodhicitta of an arya, okay, of a person who has seen emptiness
directly. And this is like some very powerful, direct,
immediate, ultimate compassion and love and you have it. And
it's a whole few minutes of some extraordinary, physical reaction
in your body and knowledge and vision that you have and then you
are a bodhisattva, okay, you have this...an arya bodhisattva,
okay, you have this direct experience of ultimate compassion, and
that's where I want to start from, okay. Assuming you could get
there, which is the subject of this book, you know, assuming you
could reach that point where you have this happen to you during
meditation, okay, and you have...you will have, if you haven't
had already and who knows, okay, you will have or have had this
direct experience of bodhicitta. Do you know it when you have
it? Yes. Is it something like extraordinary and definable and
and you won't question it...you won't say, "maybe I had it maybe
I didn't. Let me go ask Michael", you know. It's not like that.
 You will know when you have it and you have it and it's this
extraordinary experience. The first moment of perfect compassion
and love for other beings. Okay. And what do you do the rest of
you life, you see? The rest of your life, after that experience,
you are a real bodhisattva. And then you you...I don't know how
to describe...you know, I meet different kinds of people...I I
re...worked in business for a long time and we used to go around
the world opening offices in different countries and and I
would...like when we went to Bangkok we didn't know one person in
Bangkok and we're supposed to open this big office, you know...we
don't know a single person. Nobody knows Thai, we don't know a
single person in Bangkok. I'm supposed to open a twenty-five
million dollar office and staff it, you know. And so what do we
do? We went to restaurants. We tried to see which waitresses
could handle like fourteen orders at once (laughter) and then we
stole them (laughs) and even to make the offer was funny 'cause
we couldn't speak Thai, so you had to get someone to talk to them
and said, "you want to come work for an American company" which
most Thais don't like and and then that was another experience,
but, or or you'd just find some guy who's a busboy or a or a
porter in a hotel but you'd see that he could handle twenty-five
things at once and then you you take them, you train them for six
months...we'd used to take people from the generals...as the
Thai...what's it called...northern...Chang Mai, yeah...I remember
one lady, you know...we offer her a job, we say we'll pay you
like so many thousand bhat per month or something, forty dollars,
and she says "no no no no" and there's a big fight with the
translator, you know, and I say "that's all we're giving her",
you know. "She she doesn't know anything about diamonds or
rubies, you know" and the guy explains and there's another big
fight and and then I said, "what's the problem, you know?
Everyone get takes that salary?" And she says "she says, it's
too much and she refuses to take it". (laughs) (laughter) And
these people...these are the kind of people you'd start with.
Then you train them the business and now they run the whole
operation. Twenty-five thirty million dollar operation being run
by these farm girls from Chang Mai, you know, but you just take
them. The human mind is extraordinary. What I mean to say is
that having working in a big corporation, what dawned on me is
that you could take almost any person from anywhere and train
them and the human mind is so extraordinary that if it's
challenged and if you give them authority, you know, if you say,
"hey look, this whole office is yours. Here's twenty million
dollars. I'll be back next year", you know, "try to make it
thirty, okay" and they just do it, you know, like anyone. 'Cause
the human mind is like that. I mean, what I mean to say is that
anybody in this room could probably do the same thing if they got
the chance, you see what I mean, if they just someone gave them a
chance and trusted them and taught them a little bit and then
threw them out into it and let them take their own ri...chances
and their own risks and not, you know, just inspire them and make
them happy and let them go for it, then the human mind is such
that you can do anything. I mean we realized that busboys in
restaurants in Thailand can run huge corporate offices, they just
never get a chance. You see what I mean? And the same state of
mind that can handle four bus bey short bus boy trays can also
handle, you know, forty million dollars of orders and juggle them
and stuff like that, it's...every mind in this room has the same
capacity. Just the human mind is not challenged and so life is
boring and this is not listed by Shantideva, okay. I'm making
this up (laughter). Life is boring, I mean, you're just not
challenged, okay. Frankly, okay. I mean, if if you do finally
reach a place where you have enough money to have a place to
stay, enough food, enough time, you'll just find that it's
miserable anyway, you see what I mean. I mean, it's miserable to
work and it's miserable to be freed from work (laughter) okay?
Because you find out that out that's it's just miserable to be alive, (laughter) you know,
and and it's it's miserable, you know what I mean, and you don't
have any real big purpose. I mean, if you didn't have to
struggle to make a living and someone fed you and said, "okay,
you don't have to work", you'd go crazy, you know. You'd you'd
try it, you know, and people just...you just can't do it. And
and my...what I'm trying to say is that after you have that
experience of bodhisattva, you see clearly, the only way to spend
a human life and the only way to challenge, really challenge this
human mind. You see what I mean? When you first become a
bodhisattva and you see...you have this vision of your future,
you can see the whole thing laid out into the future, and you see
what they're gonna be doing for the next...what...five hundred
years or so, you know and you see it clearly and you can think
and you say, "man", and and you know what you're gonna be doing
for the next five hundred years and it is unbelievable, you know
what I mean? You're like, "I will spend every waking moment of
my time serving other people and doing heavy duty dharma all the
time, and I know what I have to do and I know what I'll be doing,
I know how to do it, I know most of the details of what I have to
do and you have this mission, you know what I mean. And you have
this future laid out for you and every single moment of it is the
most sweet, holy, sacred use of a human life that you can
imagine, you know...and then your whole life is taken care of.
It's just extraordinary. You know, that whole feeling of knowing
that you have something important to do and that you can do it
every moment from here on out. For the rest of your life, that
what you will do will be the most holy beneficial thing you can
do with human life, and it's a whole different feeling after
that. You know what I mean? I'm trying to convey what it would
be like to have that feeling of knowing what your life is gonna
be and knowing that you, of all people, will be spending it in
the most holy, sweet, beneficial way that a human being can spend
their time and this whole, you know...most people are working
hard because they don't want to face the fact that there's
nothing meaningful to do, you know what I mean? Like...period.
Okay. Even the people here in this room who are successful and
who have found a niche for themselves...great artists, great
filmmaker, great businessman, great author, whatever...you're
really just trying to keep yourself busy...'cause life is so
meaningless and there's so many years left to to burn up (laughs)
you know. And what I'm trying to say is, once you get to that
realization, bodhicitta, then you, for the first time, you see
how to spend human life and it is totally brilliant and
beautiful, and every single moment, waking, sleeping...they say
standing over the toilet or sitting on it, whichever you are,
even that much time is spent, you know, thinking about other
people and thinking about the wonderful things you can do to help
other people and in an ultimate way, you know. We're not talking
feeding people or finding them a place to sleep. We're talking
about teaching other people not to die. Or teaching other people
to get out of this broken realm and reach a (tantr)ic paradise,
you know. In your whole...even when you stand over the toilet or
sit on it, okay...your whole life you see clearly ahead of you
what you will do and that every single moment will be engrossed
in that activity and you can't imagine what it feels like, you
know, seriously, to spend a whole life like that, with meaning,
something meaningful, because everything else is not meaningful,
okay? And that's that's my advertisement for bodhichitta, okay.
That's (pen yun). That's (pen yun). That's...imagine what it
feels like to be totally engrossed in every moment, waking or
sleeping, in a totally meaningful thing that will help every
living being...all the time. Imagine what it would feel like to
to be like that, okay? And that's that's what a bodhisattva
feels like. This book is a instruction manual for people who
want to live their life like that, okay? At the beginning you do
it artificially, okay? It's called (kun tsok), you know. At the
beginning you...it's called (chu pa), you you fake it, you try to
act like a bodhisattva, okay, and trying to act like a
bodhisattva makes you able to do it later, okay. But at the
beginning, it's just reading this little instruction manual, "How
to be a Bodhisattva"...Master Shantideva is very kind and
Gyeltsab Je too. He starts calling you bodhisattva from the
beginning of the book. "Oh you bodhisattvas. Wanna to know how
to do it?", you know. And it...really you're not, you see what I
mean? And they're being very kind. From the beginning of the
book they kin keep calling you bodhisattva, you know, "okay,
bodhisattva, here's what you do first. Think about the (pen
yun)s of this way of life, spending the rest of you life in
something which is ultimately meaningful for other people, which
saves them from every form of pain and gets them straight into a
(tantr)ic eternal paradise, you know. Hey, how about that for a
career." Okay? And that's the advertisement. That's how the
book starts and I...you gotta get that feeling. If you study
this book, that's what you're trying to reach and you can't
imagine how it feels to spend every moment of your life like
that, knowing that everything you do is saving people's lives in
in an infinite way, okay? It's just a whole different level of
how to spend you life. And anything less than that is boring.
And is not satisfying. And you can smell it and you feel it,
especially if you happen to get more than two weeks vacation to
think about it, you know. Like the only thing that saves most of
us from going insane is that we've managed to keep ourselves busy
enough at a job so we don't have to think about it, you know what
I mean? But it's meaningless. Everything else is meaningless.
To serve others, to spend your whole life serving others in an
ultimate way, it's the sexiest thing to do. And it's fun. And
it's twenty-four hours a day, you know, and it gets better and
better every day, okay. I mean, it starts out fantastic.
Gyeltsab Je, Master Shantideva says, "blissed out going to
bliss"...that's how he calls it, and the the path is bliss and
the result is bliss and it gets better every single day and
that's the bodhisattva's way of life. It's just amazing. It's
just...like...finally something to do, okay. Number two. Say
(shak pa) (repeat) (shak pa) (repeat). (Shak pa) means...(shak
pa) means "to cut wood, to split wood" and by extension it has
come to mean "to open your heart and to admit your failings, like
to purify yourself of bad deeds, bad karma". (Dikpa shakpa)
means "to admit your bad karma openly, like splitting open wood,"
okay. The reason this chapter is here...this is chapter two...is
that we all have mental blinders. You know, horses have those
things...I don't know what you call them...blinders? Yeah, and
they keep them from seeing what's off to the side because they
would freak out, you know, and we all have these inherent
obstacles in your mind, meaning...there's a diseased part of your
mind that says, "oh, fifty weeks a year of collecting money to
spend it for two weeks a year is...makes sense. Okay. That
makes sense. You know, to...yeah, ninety-eight percent of the
time I give to them, and I get...no sorry, ninety-six percent of
the time I give to them and I get four percent back. Good deal,
you know. And then (laughter) and then and then you have these
blinders that that refuse to admit that this life is a waste, you
know...refuse...violently. Somebody gets up and says that, you
say, "no no no no no...no no no no no no no", you know, "my life
has meaning, you know, I have mean...the my life has meaning.
I'm not just going to work and collecting money and gonna die
someday and lose everything I'm working for. No there's
meaning", you know. (laughter) And and your mind, and your mind
doesn't want to to face it, your mind avoids it, you know.
Everytime you get close to it your mind...there's something about
your mind that says "take care of yourself. Don't think about
other people", you know, "you can't give away everything, you'll
you'll be in trouble", you know, "it's not a good idea. It's
naive. It's fanatical. It..that guy is getting you to act like
a cult", you know, and, and no, these things are meaningful and
your mind is, your mind is is comfortable with that. You know.
It's meaningless but it's comfortable. And and to try to think
differently is is painful. And what (shakpa) does, (shakpa) is
the process of admitting your own bad karmas. Like, okay, you
you had an abortion, or you you hurt somebody bad, or or you you
you did something to hurt someone deeply or something like that,
and to admit it and to clean them from your mind...stream, and
then suddenly you wake up one day...because of the cleansing
process, you wake up and say, "you know what? It makes more
sense to take care of other people", you see? Just to come to
that position in your mind is is extremely difficult. You have
all these mental obstacles to reaching that place where you say
to yourself, you wake up one morning, and you say, "you know
what...it's a lot more fun and a lot more meaningful, and in fact
the only meaningful thing to do with my life is to help other
people, you know. It's a lot m...it makes a lot more sense to
help others than to spend a whole grubby, grubbing life trying to
take care of myself when I'm just gonna be rotting in a couple
years anyway. You know what I mean? Just to wake up one morning
and have this realization it's...is the result of doing chapter
two. Get it? Okay. Like, if you could purify your own mind by
admitting the mistakes you've made in the past and getting rid of
that bad karma, at some point the hurdle would be low enough that
you could make it over it and realize that you should spend your
life for other people. Okay. And not for number one. 'Cause
number one is a lost case anyway. Okay. And that the best thing
you can do for number one is to take care of other people. Okay.
 That's just...to get to that point is very difficult and it
takes a lot of mental purification. It takes a lot of spiritual
purification. That's why Master Shantideva puts this as chapter
number two, okay. You will never get to compassion unless you
get rid of a lot of your old bad karma, okay. Unless you clean a
lot of your old bad karma off your mindstream, you will never
understand compassion. Compassion will always seem stupid, or
naive or fanatical or simple-minded or cultish or something, you
know. That whole idea of taking care of other people, not
worrying so much about yourself is is naive, you know. Try to
tell it to half the people in New York. They'll say, "come on.
That guy's taking advantage of you. Are you crazy", you know.
"He's just trying to get you to donate to his Arizona project or
something,", you know...okay? And I say...that's the it's it's
to be accused of being naive or something like that and to
believe it, when you believe it, it's because you have this bad
karma...you have old bad karma in your mind. To believe that you
have to take care of yourself and not worry about other people is
 is an obstacle and you you have to go to chapter two to get
through the rest of the book or you won't be interested in the
rest of the book. Okay. Number three. Say (jang sem) (repeat)
(sungwa) (repeat) (jang sem) (repeat) (sungwa) (repeat). (Jang
sem) is short for "bodhicitta", okay...the wish for
enlightenment. (Sung wa) means "obtaining it or getting it",
okay? If Chapter Two was getting rid of the negative karma in
your mind that keeps you from realizing that taking care of
others is the smartest thing you can do and the most exciting
thing you can do with your life, then what is...what do you guess
number... Chapter Three's about?

(student: (unclear))

It's the opposite. Okay, what's that? It's getting together the
good karma that would help you to get bodhicitta also, you see
what I mean. So Chapter Two is like how to clean out all the
crap. Chapter Three is how to collect the good energy that you
need to get up to bodhicitta, you see what I mean. So it's not
just enough to remove all the bad karma old bad karma in your
mind, that makes you think selfishly. You have to collect a lot
of good karma too, okay. And actually Chapter Three is
devoted... although it's called "Obtaining Bodhicitta", it's it's
main function is all those three things of how to collect good
karma. Here we're talking about like (Ganden Hla Gyama), you
know, the Je Tsongkapa practice that we learned, or the Seven
Limb Puja thing, the seven limb practice...what you got in the
seven limbs is a bunch of limbs devoted to cleaning out your
negative karmas, especially (shakpa), okay, and then you have a
lot of limbs to charging up your battery, you know, collecting
enough good karmas to take you over your spiritual obstacles.
Okay. So you have a two way process. You're cleaning away the
old bad karma and you're charging up your spiritual batteries
with new good karma and you need to do both, so Chapter Three is
dedicated to the...to to to certain spiritual practices which you
do every morning when you warm up for your meditation, they're
there, okay...straight from Master Shantideva. Most of them come
straight from here, okay. The whole process of making offerings,
prostrations, rejoicing, requesting teachings...things like that,
those are all found in this chapter. Collecting heavy duty good
karma. Okay. Charging your batteries...to try to get up to the
point where you realize that the only meaningful thing to do with
your life is to help other people, okay? And it feels so good,
okay? I mean...you know, when you come out of the hospital, you
visited someone you didn't really want to visit, and you feel
like a hero, you think that the guard is going to put a medal on
your, (laughter) you know...you come out with your head up and
your back straight and you just feel so good for like ten
minutes, you know, like like you know when you've done something
really good, and then imagine how that feels all day long, every
minute of the day, to know you're doing the best thing...for
everybody, all the time, is is that feeling, okay. Number four.
Say (ba yu) (repeat) (ba yu) (repeat) (Bakma) in ancient Tibetan
language means "a bride", you know, who was supposed to be this,
you know, you know, and she's coming to get married to some guy
and you had to move into their house and you become the slave of
the family and and whatever the mother-in-law wants...you have to
wash all of the dishes forever and (bagma) means like "to stay
shy and modest and, you know, don't say anything ever" and (bak
yu) came from that word. (Bak yu) means "careful in everything
you do", you know, very careful, okay. Mindful. Careful. Call
it carefulness. Okay. This refers to not blowing it after you
get pretty good compassion, okay. It means like how to watch
yourself that, okay, now I've...he he taught about compassion, I
get it, and he's taught the bodhisattva activities, I understand
that...what a bodhisattva has to do, and now I have to try to
protect that state of mind. I cleaned out my old bad karma, I
collected a lot of new good karma, now I've finally reached the
place where I halfway sense that it would be important to live
for other people". Now take care of that state of mind like a
new...like a little baby bonsai plant or something, you know what
I mean, like a fresh sprout, you have to protect it and take care
of it, and feed it and nurture it...that's (bak yu). That
chapter's devoted to methods of prepar...protecting your baby
bodhicitta. Okay. Carefulness. It's all a process, right. He
doesn't just call it "Six Chapters", six perfections. He doesn't
do that. He's got it all designed a different way. What's he
leading up to? Chapter nine. That's where he took off, right?
All right. Here we go. Chapter five. Say (she shin) (repeat)
(she shin) (repeat). (She shin) means "mindfulness", okay?
Technically, in the study of meditation, it's the state of mind
that watches your mind and rings the bell when you get (jing wa)
or (gu pa). What's that?

(students: Agitation and dullness).

Yeah, dullness and agitation...dullness is like, spacing out.
(Gu pa) is like thinking about what's for lunch, okay. And (she
shin) watches your mind and when he sees you spacing out or
thinking about what's for lunch, blows the whistle he goes
(whistles), you got a problem here, okay...and then it bring you
back, you see what I mean? And then you say, "oh oh yeah, I'm
meditating", okay. (laughter) Okay. And (she shin) is the one
that catches yourself, okay. Now Master Shantideva names the
chapter on the second perfection (she shin). What's the second
perfection? Of the six?

(student: Tsultrim)

Yeah, (tsultrim), okay...ethical way of life, okay. The
perfection of an ethical way of life, okay. I don't like the
word "morality" much. I always think of Billy Graham and can't
smoke and can't read certain magazines and stuff like that, you
know. I think, to me, ethical way of life means every moment of
my day I have to be honest, I can't lie, I ca...you know what I
mean...like that. And that's perfection number two is gonna be
covered in chapter five under the code word "watching yourself",
okay, being mindful. All right. Because that's the main
component of of being ethical...is to catch yourself when you
start to lie, okay, or catch yourself when you start to sneak
something, or something like that...doing something sneaky, okay.
 That's (she shin). What happened to perfection number one?
What is perfection number one?

(students: Giving)

Giving. A little bit comes in (tsan tsan tsu mo) where you're
collecting new good karma, right, like offering and stuff like
that, but hey, that's not the only kind of giving. Maybe it
comes later. We'll see, okay. Six.

(silence)

Say (su pa) (repeat) (su pa) (repeat). You can call it
"patience". When I think of patience, I think of waiting for a
bus or a dentist. To me it's like the art of not getting angry.
You know...that's too long, but anyway, it's the art of not
getting angry, when the time is right. Usually you have about
three seconds to pull out your (su pa) and then it's too late,
okay? Personally that's what happens to me. I usually remember
fifteen minutes later, twenty-five later, okay, but you have
about...between the time the person says something and the time
you start to respond, you have what, three-four seconds. That's
that's the window of opportunity for this perfection. (Su pa)
That's it. You have to respond in...you have to catch yourself
within three-four seconds. That's all the time you have. It's
not very pleasant and it's very destructive. Anger destroys good
karma like nothing else in the universe, okay? Ang...a few
minutes of anger can destroy years of a relationship and the
karma also, good...years of good karma can be destroyed in a few
minutes with true anger, okay. (Su pa) And that's perfection
number three, okay? Chapter seven...

(silence)

Say (tsundru) (repeat) (tsundru) (repeat). (Tsundru) has been
translated as "effort". I like to translate it as "joyful
effort". What it boils down to is having a good time doing
Dharma, okay. It's it's to get off on doing Dharma and I love to
translate it that way and you...I love it if you think of it that
way. You know, effort sounds like sweat and grunting to me,
okay? (Tsundru) is like giggling and laughing and sharing food
and and, you know, going out and doing another Dharma project
together and getting excited about, oh, here's another way to do
something cool to help people, you know, and just...you know,
bonding with the other people in your group who want to do stuff
like that, and working together and and, you know...to me it's
like sitting around on Michael Wick's stained carpets, and and
talking about our next new thing we can do to help people, you
know, and that's what it is, okay. (Tsun dru) is like that.
(Tsun dru) is like, "hey man, you know what else we could do",
you know, "we could just...let's let's print (b: Diamond Cutter
Sutras) and give them away again in Mongolia...yeah yeah, yeah,
good idea. Let's get somebody to pay for the cloth too. Yeah
yeah yeah", okay (laughter), you know what I mean?" And then you
go out and do it and and the feel, the feeling of giving them
away...thousands of people rushing up to the stage to get their
free (b: Diamond Cutter Sutra), you know, and that whole energy,
you know, that's (tsun dru), okay...that pure, happy energy.
Happy energy. Okay...is like that. It's not like, "oh, I gotta
meditate again, you know, and I gotta do that (dak kye) thing
again...oh my god" (laughter) "I don't have enough money for the
bus...well they're doing it in New York...I don't have enough
money for the subway", you know...okay...anyway. What is the
next one? (Sam ten) probably, right? Yeah. Say (sam ten)
(repeat) (sam ten) (repeat). Meditation, okay. Meditation.
Perfection of meditation. You've gotta have it to see emptiness
directly. Period. We've talked about it before. Hour to two
hours a day, in deep meditation on a single object, okay. Must
have or cannot see emptiness directly, will not escape the desire
realm in this life. Your...choice is yours. Okay. Stay in a
broken realm that cannot work. Why can't you meditate today? I
have something else to do. What? It doesn't matter what.
You're dealing with a broken thing. It's not gonna work whatever
else you have to do it's not gonna work. And that's an excuse
not to meditate, you know what I mean? It's funny. It's it's a
it's a sad thing actually, okay. Whatever else you're gonna do
doesn't work, it won't bring you what you want, just doesn't
work. What do you think causes money, what do you think causes
security? Taking care of other people, that's the only thing.
If you happen to get any money or security it only came because
you did something for other people in the past. It has nothing
to do with your current intelligence, your current dealings, your
current effort at work...nothing. They're not cause and effect.
Okay? No connection between your income and how much you sweat
at work. No connection at all. Get used to it, okay. The only
source of money is to take care of other people. Okay. And the
more you do the more you'll get. Period. That's Buddhist
worldview. It clashes with western worldview. Now you gotta
choose, okay? Get your name in the New York Times...what page?
(laughter) Front page or the obituary, you know? "Founder of
such and such a company" (laughs)...that's all their is. You go
straight from the front page to the back page. And that's his
story (laughter)...no that's his story. That's the best you can
do, you know, be in there twice and, no, it doesn't work. It's
wrong. It doesn't work. Okay. Okay. Nine. (Sherab).
Sweetest chapter of all, I think. This is where Master
Shantideva dukes it out with Indian worldview, you know...what
was it...seven hundred AD, something like that, okay. He's
duking it out...by the way, the Indian worldview is the same as
the western worldview, hasn't change any, ignorance hasn't
changed, okay. He's duking it out with those guys that say, "the
world is made from a big explosion" or the guys that are saying,
"the world is made by this big powerful guy". "Oh, who was he
made by...some other big powerful guy?" "I don't know." Okay.
Stuff like that. All right. And he dukes it out. He he sets up
all these worldviews and there's this big boxing match. It's
like watching Mohammed Ali and a bunch of other guys fight it
out...or Bruce Lee, you know, and really, it's just like that.
It's a it's a war for your mind. Okay. It's a war for your
worldview. And he sets up those other worldviews...and they're
not wimpy. They're not stupid people. These are sophisticated
people. These are sophisticated arguments. And then he stands
there and he destroys them one by one. On their terms, okay. He
actually addresses each one of their questions and demolishes it
and at the end he's the only guy left standing, okay. It's a
brilliant...it's a beautiful chapter, okay. It's like, by the
time you get to the end of that chapter, you don't have anything
else to believe in except that worldview, okay?

(cut)

Say (ngo wa) (repeat) (ngo wa) (repeat). (Ngo wa) means
"dedication", okay. Normally at the end of class, we say (ge wa
diyi, kye wo kun)...by that time your mind is already on the
subway, right? Try to think till the second line, okay, which is
(laughs), "by this virtue that I collected during this class,
hearing these holy things that nobody ever talks about", you
know, "may everyone get a holy (tantr)ic angel's body and mind",
you know. Basically that's the prayer. Who wrote it?
Nagarjuna, okay. Master Nagarjuna. All right? Direct, from one
of his works. We say it every class. That's dedication.
Dedication is taking the good karma that you just did and putting
it in the karmic bank before you have a chance to blow it by
getting irritated on the way out at one of your fellow students.
Okay. Because that irritation destroys the good karma. So,
actually you consciously at the end of class say, "I did
something good today, I give it away to other people", you know,
and then all that energy goes out to other people. It's like
invest it...reinvestment. The whole idea of a good Buddhist is
reinvesting your good karma. Okay. Reinvestment of good karma.
Okay. By the way, there's only ten chapters, right...far as we
know. Where did giving go? This is giving, okay. Giving was
saved for last and it it's extraordinary chapter. In Tibetan
monasteries we recite the tenth chapter by itself as a prayer.
Just because it's so beautiful, you know. He's like praying that
he could turn in his body into rain and fall in the hot hells and
help people and stuff like that. He...every woman who's giving
birth at this moment, may I take away their pain with this karma
that I just collected...stuff like that. Beautiful beautiful
over and over like that...hundreds of lines over and over again.
He's thinking of every person in the world who's having a problem
right at this moment..."may my body turn into what they need and
I give it to them", you know. And he's like...extraordinary
chapter, last chapter, okay, that's giving, okay. That's the
structure of the (b: Bodhisattva's Way of Life). And think about
it okay. Think about...I mean, deep down inside, I think, most
intelligent people have a...a pretty clear awareness that
they...that their life is meaningless, you know, and and they
hide it...I think the most talented people hide it by keeping
themselves too busy to think about it. And I'm speaking from
personal experience, okay?

Like you you hide it, you hide from it by keeping busy. Because
to be faced, starkly, with how meaningless your day is is just
too much to think about, and so you make sure you have enough
appointments so you don't have time to think about it, you know,
and...in...what I'm trying to do is imagine a a kind of life
where you are literally saving thousands or tens of thousands of
people from this broken realm and taking them to some like holy
paradise or something, that you could do that and that would
be...the most beautiful way to spend your life and the most
meaningful way to spend you life, and you don't have to quit your
current meaningless job (laughs) to do that, because then it
would become a meaningful job, you see. Bodhisattvas hang out
wherever they are. It doesn't matter. You can work in a
company. You can have a family. You can be a normal person, but
you gotta be a bodhisat...you gotta be thinking like a
bodhisattva, and you gotta be doing these ten things while you're
at your place, whether it's the the your office, or it doesn't
matter. Bodhisattvas don't just go around in red suits teaching
Dharma all day, you know what I mean. They they work in normal
companies, they do normal business, they have normal
relationships with other people, they have meaningful family
life, they do everything a normal person does but with a totally
different frame of mind. And that's that's a bodhisattva's way
of life. I'm not saying you have to change your external life.
You probably shouldn't. You have to change your internal life so
that it becomes this mission, constantly. You're at work and you
are a high, holy, sacred being warrior, you know, carrying out
the sacred acts of a bodhisattva in your office in Manhattan and
if you think you have to go somewhere else to do it, you don't
get it, because there isn't any place else to do it, okay. You
have to do it where you are. And and you can be this holy
warrior wherever you are, wherever you work, wherever your live,
with whomever you are, and that's the whole point of this book.
People might not know it. They might call you...(Dushe Sumpawa),
right (laughs)...Mr. or Mrs. Three-Thoughts. It doesn't matter,
okay. But again, you can do it anywhere and you have to think
about it, okay. We'll take a break there...and talk to you
later. Okay.

(break)

Okay, we'll start. (laughs) Just very briefly. This series of
talks at the end has been about how the Dharma might spread in
the west and I wanted to talk very briefly about priorities,
okay...the question of priorities. And I think what's happened
in the west up to now is that there's been there's been this
Dharma center thing happened. It means a Tibetan Lama comes to
the United States or someone goes to India and meets a Tibetan
Lama and they say, "how would you like to start a Dharma Center?"
or they ask the Lama, "can I start a Dharma Center?" and they
come back home and they, sometimes they rent a place, sometimes
they use their own home and then the Lama says, "I'll live
there", or and sometimes they live there and sometimes they
don't, sometimes they visit once a year, you know, but anyway, a
Dharma Center starts and then there's two or three dedicated
people who normally get it started and then they get involved
with keeping it going and then comes the question of funding it
and and finding people to help out, and things like then, and
then the teacher comes and and in the early years in the United
States there was this kind of weird thing going on where Lamas
were almost like kept captive (laughter) in these Dharma Centers
and it was considered...they were considered like improper to to
ask for money, you know what I mean? I mean, the Lama was
supposed to be like starving all the time (laughter) but their
students could have a regular job and make money and then they
would give little gifts to the Lama, you know, and the Lama ...it
would be considered impolite if the Lama said, you know, "why
can't I have a normal salary" or something like that, I mean, it
was considered weird for a...for Khen Rinpochen...we gave him a
salary of a hundred and fifteen dollars a month and that was a
big deal, you know, and then he was supposed to survive on that
and be happy with that because he's a Lama, you know what I mean.
 And it was weird. And and then you would go to school and pay
thirty thousand dollars for tuition so they could get you to read
(b: Peter Pan) (laughter) which one of my students is doing at
the most expensive college in the United States...currently.
Okay. And and then there's this weird thing, you know, like it's
no problem to pay thirty thousand dollars to read (b: Peter Pan)
but this Lama who's teaching you not to die, it was weird to give
him more than, you know, enough to live on or just barely live
on, and that's still the case at almost every Dharma Center.
It's a kind of slavery or something. I don't know. And the
Tibetans said "okay" 'cause they didn't have any money, you know,
and and, well, of course, they wanted to spread the Dharma and
help people, but but the whole the whole thing was a little
bit...I don't know...that that whole thing was weird. I'm not
talking about that tonight. I'm talking about something else.
(laughter). By the way, the Ganden Tripa, the head of the the
throne of Je Tsongkapa was kept captive in the back of a of a
factory floor in Manhattan and I used to go and visit him, you
know. He he had a curtain around the bed in the back of this
huge factory floor, nothing else, you know, and he'd say, "help",
you know, and I'd say, "I don't know where", you know...anyway,
that's not what I'm talking about tonight (laughter) (laughs). I
think they should get a decent, regular salary. I think we
should raise funds, pay them fifty-sixty thousand a year like any
other full professor and period. You know what I mean. The
whole thing...the idea that we should decide that they should
live in poverty is weird, you know. That's a whole nother story,
I'm not talking about that. (laughter). I'm talking about
another thing, it's a whole different thing, which is that this
phenomenon happens in the Dharma Center that the people who could
do the most good, you know, that if they studied and meditated
and practiced, end up trying to run the place. And I call it the
FPMT Administrator Syndrome. FPMT is a great organization.
Thousands of students. Serving thousands and thousands of people
around the world. But as I travel from center to center, the
most talented, the most spiritually talented people are often the
the directors of the centers, and then their practice goes down
the drain. You know, their own practice collapses, you know
what I mean. Like you say, "how's your meditation?" They say,
"meditation. I haven't had enough time to sleep for three days",
you know. And you say, "well, what are you doing," you know.
And they say, "I'm running this center. What do you think I'm
doing?", you know, "I gotta I gotta work. See you later".
"Gotta run, you know, there's a plumbing problem" or you
know...and they spend their time like that. I would like to
see...I'd like to suggest that in the west as we start to build
more centers...or you can call them churches or temples, it
doesn't matter...but as we start to build more places, that
it...that the very people who administer things, and that
includes this organization, right, such as it is, that those
people who administer things shouldn't ever use that as a reason
not to do their practice...you see what I mean? There should be
a prioritization of your life. Projects are good. We have
fourteen major projects. We're helping two thousand refugees, we
are saving all the Tibetan books in the world, blah blah
blah...but if you don't do you own practice, what does it mean?
You see what I mean? If you are the purpose...if you're the
person who's in charge of these projects whose goal is the
spiritual well-being of all people and your spiritual well-being
is no good because you're too busy administering the "spiritual
well-being project", then what does it mean...you see what I
mean? And I just wanted...that's just my thought about that the
people in charge of this organization, or the people in charge of
other Dharma Centers and the people who come to be doing the
administration of these places, which are normally the most
talented people, you know. You have Art Engle out in New Jersey
packing books on the weekends when he could be translating any
scripture in the world, you know I'm...because these are the
people who care, but that their own practice should never take
second seat, and and and then as you get to be an administrator
and as time goes on you tend to hide behind that. You know, you
say, "yeah, I didn't do the homeworks last class. I was
administering the last class." But that's...that's no good. I
say you have to do both, okay, like if you're up to that point
where you're helping to administer a Dharma group, you you should
be doing both. What? You should be administering it very well,
putting your heart into it, giving it your time and then on top
of that you must do your practice and if there comes a (nung
dom)...what's a (nung dom)?

(students: (unclear))

A spiritual prioritization conflict, which in the (b: Vinaya) is
a very important thing, you know. I'm supposed to go do (so
jong) tonight but my (ney Lama) just died, my personal, spiritual
tutor has just died, but I am required by the monks vows to go to
this ceremony tonight. Now that's called a (nung dom) in the (b:
Vinaya), meaning "two virtues are required of you by the laws of
the vinaya at the same time, so what're you gonna do, okay?" You
have to drop one and pick the other. That's prioritization. You
have to know which one is more important and and I just wanna say
in two minutes, that in this organization, whenever it comes down
to that that, you know, it's a question between your personal
practice and and some other administrative activity, drop the
administrative activity. You know. And if that thing doesn't
happen, or that thing doesn't get bought or that building doesn't
get built, or that stupa doesn't get...that's okay, because the
whole purpose of those is for your own spiritual practice. Well,
isn't that selfish, you know what I mean? Isn't that wrong to
choose your personal practice over all these important Dharma
projects? No. Why? Bodhicitta, okay. What is bodhicitta?
Bodhicitta is the decision to reach a (tantr)ic paradise yourself
quickly as you can so you can really help other people, because
right now you're just doing desire realm help, you know what I
mean? You're you're a desire realm being doing desire realm help
in a broken world, doing broken things, that are all gonna go
away anyway. On the other hand, if you if you perfected your
practice, then, then you would be in a (tantr)ic paradise and you
could teach people how to get there and then they don't need
another land purchase or building (laughs), you know what I mean?
In the desire realm. Get it? So what I'm saying is that,
there's a there's this bad tendency that the most talented people
get drawn towards the busy work and and you have to be very
strict, if you're one of those people, you have to be very strict
as time goes by that you hold the line on your practice, you
know, because that's what really helps other beings, is for you
to get your rear end into a (tantr)ic paradise before you die.
Okay. And the projects will give you the good karma to help, but
they can't replace the personal practices necessary. Hours in
the morning, or whenever, meditating, keeping your own books
strictly, every couple of hours, doing your (tantr)ic
retreats...I say twice a year. One and a half months
each...something like that. They don't replace those things.
You have to do those things, and then the the other stuff will
come automatically, you see what I mean? The good karma from
doing your practice means the other stuff will automatically get
done, but but the the big mistake I see happening in America is
the most talented people get wrapped up in Administration, think
it's a virtue to break their own practice or not do their own
practice, or exhaust themselves so that they can't do their
practice and then...that's not how it's supposed to work. It's
supposed to be that your practice is so fantastic that, you know,
the sponsor comes up to you and says, "here. Have a million
dollars", you know what I mean? And you don't have to go out and
struggle like that. It it...what really causes the world to
become a pure realm is your personal practice. So to give that
up for desire realm good result is is not...doesn't make any
sense, you see what I mean? So, I I think in this organization
as it grows, teachers especially, have to hold the line. There
may be in the early years, not enough doctors to go around for
all the sick people, but that doesn't mean that you drop your
practice and just help people all day because you're not helping
people all day. You you have to have your time that you do your
meditation, that you see emptiness directly, that you do your
(tantr)ic practices, that you do your retreats, and and that's
how you really help people and you have to keep that in mind.
Otherwise, just to get exhausted and then to burn out and and
drop your personal practice is a mis...that's a mistake. That's
not understanding the Dharma, okay. Perfection of giving is
perfected when? Have the Buddhas of the past perfected the
perfection of giving? Yes or no?

(students: Yes)

(Tak). Yes. (laughs) Okay. Are there any poor people left in
the world?

(students: yes)

This is Master Shantideva...you're gonna get it next class I
think. I think. Yes there are. Yeah. So they didn't perfect
giving, right?

(student: They did)

(Chi che), yeah, no, of course they did, okay? It's a state of
mind. Oh, so if it's just a state of mind, I don't have to give
real things to real people? (laughter) (laughs) (Chi che) okay.
Yeah, you have to go through that debate, okay? In your mind,
okay. And that's the debate. Okay. Did they perfect giving?
Yes. Are there any poor people left in the world? Yes. So he
didn't perfect giving, right? No, that's not what I said. Oh,
so the perfection of giving is just a thing in your mind? Right.
 So I don't have to give real things to real people. No. Okay.
That's the debate. You have to go through that, all right. You
can't you can't take care of all the...they're endless. The
needs are endless, especially in the early years when they're not
enough people to go around to teach all the other people, so
you'll just burn out. You have to keep your personal practice
because that's how you perfect yourself and become a Buddha and
help other people and that's the real meaning of ultimate
compassion. That's what real compassion wants to do, and you
gotta get used to that. "So it means I should ignore other
people?" No. (laughter), okay. You gotta get used to that.
All right. No. It doesn't mean that. Okay. Within the
capacity that you have, you have to perfectly serve other people
and then you then you have perfected the (b: Bodhisattva's Way of
Life), to the ultimate that you can without breaking your
practice, okay? And that's the...that's all. Okay. Don't get
that Administrator Syndrome. I don't like to see it and I've
seen very fine people lose themselves that way and then not serve
anybody after a few years, okay. All right. The best thing you
can do is perfect your own understanding and then perfect your
own practice, okay. We'll do a prayer. I think we
got...Puntsok...no. Yeah. Don't hide (unclear)

(prayer: short mandala)

(prayer: dedication)
Review Course 17