ACI 18 (обзорный курс), Занятие 11 (финальное занятие всего 18-курсового пути) — стенограмма

Class Eleven: Review Class
Geshe Michael Roach
Transcribed by Angie Overy




Okay. We have a microphone problem tonight so can you hear okay in the back? Oh
[laughter] okay your karma changed.
Tonight is the review for the third review. My theory of examining a student is to give them
all the answers ahead of time and the questions ‘cos I want you to know it.
I’m not trying to trick you or fool you or anything like that.
So I’ll go over some of them and your teacher’s will go over some of them.
[student]
Yeah, you will have discussion groups, okay. [student] Alright, some teachers have them,
alright.
Here we go.
I’m just going to go over the main ones. Like, I’d be embarrassed if you came out of this
institute and didn’t know the answer to these, okay.
First one is, basically, who made the world? And don’t forget that this question has come up
in conjunction with who made the lousy things in the world okay.
And the purpose of Buddhism is to address all the problems you have. I’m not talking, like,
it’s hard to get people worried about their {bardos}. It’s hard to get people worried about
their death. It’s hard to get people worried about the suffering of mankind.
Who made your boss? You know, who made traffic? Who made the IRS? You know, who
made all the things that irritate you from hour to hour? I mean, those are really, who made
the grey hairs on your head or the no hairs on your head, you know? Why aren’t you
happy, you know, during the day?
And the question is where do those things come from?
You must address it. Now, in your culture they taught it the wrong way five hundred years
ago, right. Somebody, big guy up in the sky made these things and we don’t know exactly
why and it’s one of life’s questions you know what I mean.
I saw ‘Joan of Arc’ the other day and there’s a scene they try to figure out why did god do
these things you know.
No one in modern America really believes those things but no one in modern America really
thinks about where all the problems are coming from, right.
So, I don’t think it’s your duty to go out into the world and try to correct the idea that there’s
a big guy with a beard up there doing these things.
No one believes it anyway, okay.
You just have to try to supply some kind of information about where it’s coming from, okay.
And again, there’s three main choices, right.
Really, if you press an American about where’s all this stuff coming from, they say, well
science says it’s just a big bang and particles bumped into each other. Other particles flew
out, hit other particles, other particles and that’s why my nose is shaped like this. Okay.
And, okay, that’s one theory. It doesn’t hit you in the gut you know what I mean. It doesn’t
seem to be likely that just because a bunch of things are randomly bumping into each other
you have led your particular life the way you did and you look the way you do and you’re
having all the experiences that you’re having.
It doesn’t really seem to be random you know. It doesn’t, it almost defies logic that
something could be random especially because part of the random theory is that there was no
beginning and then something happened. Okay. Which is just totally unacceptable, even in
science, which is telling you that’s how it started you know.
Everything has a cause and that’s why we can make atom bombs blow up but the very most
important thing doesn’t have a cause because we can’t figure it out you know what I mean.
That’s just illogical. That’s like the Tibetans saying the second worldview, okay. Which is
there is some big guy who made it. And then you try to explain that to a Tibetan and they
say no, no, it was a monkey with a white deer. It wasn’t the guy who broke this guy’s rib
and made a woman and then they got together and that’s why we’re here. It’s not like, you
know, that’s theory number two.
Some big guy, be a deer or a monkey or a guy in a weird garden you know or something
like that. It defies logic.
Who made the guy if the guy made everything? I mean, it’s a children’s question and it’s
irrefutable. It doesn’t make sense that there could be a guy who didn’t get made by some
other guy. Or maybe there’s two guys. Or maybe he had a godfather or something you
know what I mean. It just doesn’t make sense, okay.
It just clearly doesn’t make sense. And then if this guy likes us why is he torturing people
you know what I mean? If he can control everything then why are people hurt?
Oh, it’s a test.
Okay, I understand it’s a test but why test babies who die of AIDS? Why test children who
get into fires you know? What’s the point of this kind of test you know?
Test people who are mature and can understand the test [unclear] fail or pass the test. But
why torture infants who haven’t had time to say anything yet or do anything yet?
Those two are clearly unacceptable.
Third idea, things come from things like themselves. Watermelons come from watermelons.
Oranges come from oranges. Good events come from good causes. Bad events come from
bad causes. You hurt somebody you have a bad event. You help somebody you have a
good event okay. That’s all.
It’s that simple. The content has to be similar and the thing must have happened before. And
that’s the rule for everything else and why not for your life and who made the bad things in
your life? Okay.
So, really you face a huge task you know. We’re going to have ten or fifteen courses going
on here next year. It’s not the point of those courses, it’s not the point of whether the home
works are going to be right or you’re going to get better refreshments than you got here or
anything like that. You know, the question is we’ve got a worldview to talk about you see
what I mean.
There’s a question of were they right five hundred years ago when they said it was a big
guy? Were they right twenty years ago when they decided it was a big explosion at the
beginning? Or is Buddhism right when it says if you don’t like what’s going on around you,
if you don’t like getting old, if you don’t like dying, then you change your behaviour. And
you take responsibility for what’s happening around you.
Don’t blame other people and don’t get angry at other people and don’t whine and complain
and also don’t sit there and die quietly you know without complaining.
I like that thing, go not quietly, how’s that go? [students] whatever, I don’t know.
Don’t just sit there and die quietly and say, oh, I can’t figure it out you see what I mean.
You are charged in the next Buddhist generation of America to inform people of this third
possibility: that their world is created by their actions and their thought and their words.
And, if you don’t like it, then keep your book. Okay. That’s all.
You know, it’s a life or death question for those people, okay, and you have that
responsibility now.
That is the most important thing about this course, about this whole institute, and about on
your final. You know, where did things come from and how are you going to fix it, okay.
And really, you’re up against those, you’re up against three other worldviews. I didn’t
mention the third one which is what?
I didn’t think about it, you know. I’m just trying to get by, you know. I’m just trying to
make it to tomorrow. I don’t think about where things came from or, you know, philosophy
and stuff like that. I’m not interested or I don’t care or I don’t think about it you see what I
mean. That’s the hardest one. It’s to even get people to thing about that they’re going to get
old and die, okay. And, that all their activities that they are doing in their lives are
meaningless, without understanding where things really came from because it’s all going to
be ripped away from you at some undetermined moment in the future; tonight or tomorrow
or a week from now or a year from now you’re going to lose everything that you think is
important now.
So, how do you get people to wake up and think why are things happening and can they
change them or not?
Do you have to die or not? Okay.
And some of the most frustrating opponents are the other Buddhist groups who say, meditate
on your breath or be nice or work for peace in [unclear], you know, or something. Those
are noble things. Those are good things but that’s not what Buddha came here to teach.
Buddha came here to teach people how to get out of death and suffering of all kinds through
a very radical transformation of your own behaviour, okay.
And that’s the main thing. That’s the worldview of Buddhism. You created your reality and
you have to live with it. And, there’s only one person responsible and there’s only one major
task that you have to do. It’s to change yourself. And keep your vows and change your
reality. Okay.
I’m not saying the other things aren’t important. They’re important but they pale next to can
you overcome death itself and suffering, all kinds of suffering mental and physical.
How do you get rid of that? How do you wake people up in a realm where they’re, like,
insane and they think you’re crazy when you tell them that? You know what I mean?
You’re crazy.
No, you’re crazy, you know. What are you working for?
I want a house. I want a family. I want a job. I’m not greedy. I just want a normal,
comfortable- I don’t need a mansion. I don’t need a Cadillac. I’m not even talking about a
Lexus. I can live with a Toyota or Honda, you know. [laughter] I just want a house in New
Jersey. I don’t need Donald Trump’s house, you know. I just want to be happy some of the
time, not get cancer too early. That’s just all I’m trying to do, you know.
How do you wake up people like that? You know, how do you get them to see that they’re
crazy to want that because they can’t keep it?
They can’t get it anyway. And, if by some miracle they do get it, it won’t make them happy.
Even if it does make them happy, which is impossible, they’ll lose it anyway so obviously.
You know, there’s not a debate. Nobody’s jumping and raising their hand at this very
moment in this class and saying, oh that’s wrong, you know.
It’s obvious but how do you get people to wake up?
The very most important questions on the final relate to where did this world come from and
can you do anything about it?
And wake up and do something about it, okay, and take responsibility for your world.
You created it. You fix it. Okay.
And I think it’s that old god thing in the, five hundred years ago. It’s sort of paralysing
people. Deep down inside western culture still has this tiny belief that some one else will
take care of it. Someone else made it. Someone else did it, you know, I don’t have to.
Really, you are the only person who can fix the world, okay.
And you have to try, okay.
Okay. I like question number ten. How does Master Shantideva address the objection that,
we could never learn to treat ourselves and others, exactly the same since their pain does not
hurt us and our pain does not hurt them?
You stick a needle in my finger, it’s not like Elizabeth Prather jumps up, you know.
It’s not like that she goes ‘ouch’ you know what I mean.
So, this whole thing about me becoming somebody else in the room and we becoming one
person is artificial, you know.
And then they’re saying, don’t forget Master Shantideva’s answer, defining your self as
ending at your own skin is artificial. Okay.
Whatever idea you have about who you are now it’s a creation. It’s a fiction.
You have written that book and you forgot you see what I mean.
You decide where you end, okay. There’s nothing automatic about it. You have a kid and
suddenly you decide that you’re twice as big as you were before, you know. You get
seriously ill and you have to take a piece of your body out. You’ve rejected it. That’s not
‘me’ any more you see what I mean. You decide how big you are.
It’s not your skin. It’s a fiction. It’s a convention. It’s been that way all along. It’s not true
that you have to end at your fingers or at your community or at your country or at your race
or at your sex or anything else.
That’s all a fiction. Those are all creations. You decide whether people should be treated
equally. You decide whether you’re just limited to this skin or do you stretch a little further.
You decide that.
Mothers make that decision when the children are born. Almost automatically they decide
that the children deserve as much food as they deserve. Automatically.
That’s just a fiction. That’s just decision.
So, don’t say you can’t feel someone else’s pain as much as you feel your own. That’s a
decision. You just decided not to do that, okay.
Watch a mother. Go stick a pin in some, walk up to a mother in the street who has a baby in
a carriage. Take a big needle and say, can I stick this in your kid’s hand, you know? And
see what they say you know what I mean. And see if they thing that pain is their pain or not
you see what I mean. Because they’ve been able to achieve that.
And the resistance to doing that is why you’re in this realm.
You entered this realm. You’re suffering in this realm. And you will die in this realm as long
as you resist the idea that you can expand yourself to other people.
That’s the source of {gyurpa ..}, you know. All the troubles in the world come because you
decided to keep this artificial distinction between you and other people.
And take care of this bag of skin more than you take care of that bag of skin, okay.
That’s just a, it’s a decision and it’s dysfunctional. It causes all your problems.
And, every time you’re unhappy it’s because you’re concentrating on yourself at the expense
of other people.
I can say every case of unhappiness, every case of irritation, is based on selfishness. Okay. If
you’re really thinking about someone else, what they want, you can’t be unhappy, okay.
You can’t be, you can’t feel angry or upset or anything if you’re really thinking about other
people. Okay.
This question about the six-step process described by Maitreya for how all the trouble starts,
okay.
How does Buddhism say all the trouble started?
To me, it’s one of the most precious teachings. You have to know it. You have to
understand it, okay.
Six steps. First one, you have a tendency from your past life. In your past life you thought of
things as self-existent and therefore in this, you enter this life with this in-built problem.
It’s almost like original sin, okay. You enter this life with a wrong way of looking at things,
okay.
Put it in a nutshell. What’s that wrong way of looking at things?
Especially when you strongly dislike something or when you strongly like something, you
are forgetting that that’s a neutral object and the reason you see it as good or bad is your own
karma, okay. That’s all.
It’s this tendency to think that good things and bad things are that way from their own side
and not because you’re seeing them that way because of the seeds you put in your own
mind. Okay. That’s all.
And that tendency to believe that came form your past life. Okay. First one.
Second one. Those tendencies from your past life ripen and then you start misunderstanding
things in this life. Ignorance begins in this life. Okay.
Every time something good happens you think it’s coming from its own side. Every time
something bad happens you think it comes from its own side, okay.
Number three. This causes you to focus on good things and bad things and believe they
come from their own side.
So you have the, what are the first three?
You have the potential from your past life, the seed from your past life.
Then, you start to see things wrong.
And then, you start to focus on good things and bad things, and have these wrong ideas
about them, okay, particularly bad things. Okay.
I didn’t make that, somebody else’s fault or that person’s fault, okay. But, since somebody
else finds them to be attractive or nice, it must be you. It must be your problem, okay.
Number four. Then you get, having focussed on good things and bad things the wrong way,
number four comes which is to start liking and disliking, in an ignorant way please, okay.
Nobody should ever graduate from ACI, oh, I went through eighteen courses at ACI.
Oh, so you must know Buddhism?
Yeah.
So, is it bad to like things? Is it bad to dislike things?
You say, oh yes, the Buddha said, overcome all attraction and hatred you know.
And then you say, so Lord Buddha doesn’t like it if someone reaches nirvana, right? And
Lord Buddha doesn’t dislike it when people suffer in the hell realms, right? ‘Cos Lord
Buddha’s above liking and disliking, okay.
And then you have to say, come on, that’s stupid. We mean liking and disliking in an
ignorant way, in a wrong way. Okay.
What is it to like or dislike in a wrong way?
Oh, I like this thing so I have to protect it.
How?
Hurt other people.
Why?
So I can keep the thing.
Then a Buddhist should start laughing at that point, hah, ha, ha, ha you know. Yeah, yeah,
you want to keep the things so you’re hurting other people? Hah, ha, ha, ha, ha, you know.
That’s exactly the wrong thing to do, you know.
You want to keep the thing, share it with other people you see what I mean. That’s how you
keep things.
No, no, I got to keep people away from the thing that I want.
No, no stupid, you have to share it okay. Then you get it.
It’s the opposite of the human reaction, okay. If you don’t like something, what?
Be patient, love it, stop being angry. Okay. That’s how you get rid of it.
You want to eliminate people?
Don’t use a gun. Don’t use hatred. Don’t use poison. Just love them and they have to
change. Okay. And they’ll leave your life. Like that. The disturbing, irritating people will
leave your life. Okay. That’s how to get rid of them, okay.
And it’s not some noble thing to sit there and put up with them for the rest of your life.
That’s not what Buddhism teaches.
Buddhism says, actively love them, help them, support them, as they’re screwing you okay.
And then, sit there and watch them flip over and start sending you cheques you know what I
mean. And that’s the approach you know.
They hit you on this side; give them this side. Hit me on this side you know. I want to get
rid of the karma, okay.
And you love them and you take care of them. Okay.
Does that mean you don’t stop a mugger on the street?
Of course you stop a mugger on the street but not with any kind of hatred. Okay. That’s a
different thing. You do the right deed because of love for them, okay. The right deed might
be punching them to stop them but you love them as you do it, okay. That’s the difference,
okay.
That’s the difference between ignorant liking and intelligent liking and ignorant disliking and
intelligent disliking.
Yeah. [student]
Not really. I mean [student] yeah, they might hurt themselves. When you’re at a higher
level. King Uddayana was an arhat. His son sent some assassins to kill him. He knew that
when that assassin killed him his own son would collect two of the five immediate bad deeds,
you know, killing an arhat and killing a parent.
And so, out of compassion for his son he tried to fly in the air and couldn’t. But yeah, that’s
possible. That’s possible.
But the normal reaction is to fight them back or something like that. Not like that. In hatred.
[student]
I don’t know. How do you stop them? Where did they come form?
Okay. Then, because you like something, because you want to protect something or because
you dislike something and you want to get rid of it, you do some kind of bad karma towards
[unclear]. That’s number five. That’s where bad karma comes from.
Because you don’t understand where they came from you do something violent back to them
and you thereby assure that they will come back to you again, okay.
Mostly I put Maitreya’s thing in here because I don’t want people saying I made this up, this
connection between emptiness and karma.
I didn’t hear that at any other Buddhist lecture. It’s that Geshe Michael who is always saying
that, you know.
It’s Maitreya. Okay.
Karma and emptiness got married a long time ago and they’re still having, they must be on
their ten billionth anniversary or something, okay.
Things are empty and that’s why you have to be good. Okay.
And you’ve got to bring those two great wings of the teaching have to come together okay
or you can’t fly says master Shantideva.
Okay, number six. Perpetual circle. Okay. Because you got angry and acted back again,
then you’re going to have to see this angry person again in the future, okay.
By the way, one strong thing is this. You are allowed and maybe required under the laws of
Buddhism, even from the lowest level of pratimoksha vow, to respond to violence perhaps
with using one of the first seven bad deeds if you have to, okay, but never the last three.
Okay.
You can never use the last three to help anybody. You can never dislike someone, what’s it
say, you can never be unhappy that someone got something. You can never be happy that
someone had a problem. And you can never entertain stupid ideas about where the world
came from. Those three things would never help another person.
So there’s a lot of latitude about the first seven, you know, depending on the power of your
motivation.
It’s the priest who smacks the guy on, what was that movie? ‘Point of No Return’, 1954 or
something, black and white. He’s freaking out on the plane and upsetting the other
passengers ‘cos the plane’s going to fall down. The priest, out of compassion, unloads him,
knocks him out very quietly in the back of the plane. And says, oh this guy must have had
too much to drink or something, [laughs] you know.
That kind of thing is okay. You can’t hate though. You can’t hate for the Dharma or hate for
the sake of sentient beings or something like that.
You can’t break the mental ones. That’s the main thing, okay.
Alright. Those of you already got the answers [unclear] I think the class leaders. Answer
number fifteen is the wrong answer for that question. It was a test to see if you ever read
them. Okay. But you’ll figure it out.
I think question number twenty is really cool.
The holy Lama Drakpa Gyeltsen describes, quote, “attachment to this life” unquote as
attachment to one’s practice of the ethical life and to one’s learning and to one’s
contemplation and to one’s meditation. Explain the real meaning of attachment to one’s
ethical life.
Like, how could it ever be that it was wrong to be ethical or to love your ethics, you know?
What does Drakpa Gyeltsen mean, the holy Lama Drakpa Gyeltsen?
Who is, I think, the most important Lama in the Vajrayogini tradition, okay. Here’s Jetsun
Drakpa Gyeltsen and he says, it’s wrong to be attached to morality, to your ethical way of
life.
What could he possibly have in mind?
Well, here’s what he has in mind. Don’t let your ethics be run by anything else except
Buddhist logic, okay.
Which eliminates the following: instincts, okay. People are born with a lot of instincts like
you don’t enjoy hurting other people or you don’t enjoy lying or you have this thing where
you can’t stand to borrow money and not pay it back within a day you see what I mean.
And so you consider yourself a good person. This is just hard work that your former lives
did to get you up to this semi-human level, okay. And you can lose it in two weeks of true
need, you know.
I was so proud that Americans never did what those crazy Indians did when there was a
kerosene shortage in Dharamsala and fought each other around the last kerosene shipment
you know what I mean. I said, Americans would never do that. We’re too civilised, you
know.
Then I get back and there’s this gas shortage during the Middle East crisis and people are
shooting each other at the gas tanks, you know. And I’m, like, you know what, instinct, you
see.
Being good because you have an instinct for it is very fragile. You can lose it easily, okay. If
you don’t understand why, you know, you’re born into this life ‘cos your last life did a hell
of a lot of hard work. And you think you’re moral just because you’re moral you know
what I mean.
That’s not true. Whatever instinct you have to be a good person they’re fragile, they were
built carefully over lifetimes of work by that last guy, okay, and don’t think they’re not
changeable. You can lose the in a week if you really need, if you really have a bad friend or
you run into some bad people or bad influences or you need something really bad. All this
self-control will just melt away in about a week you know what I mean.
So don’t trust your, don’t lead yourself to your instincts, okay. They’re beautiful and try to
keep them, try to grow them like a flower, okay.
Second one: to what feels good, okay. What feels good and what’s right is often quite
different, okay. And that’s just the way things go, you know.
What feels physically good or mentally good is often not the right thing to do. You can’t be
attached to your morality in that sense.
You can’t be following certain kinds of ethics because they feel good.
And, once you get higher up in Buddhism you can’t be lazy and do lesser virtues when you
could have done bigger virtues. See, I’d say most of us have that problem you see what I
mean.
It’s not like we’re all tempted to go out and rob people or something like that. It’s like what
are you going to do with the income that you do have you know? Are you going to feed
monks at Sera, donate to Lama Zopa’s Maitreya statue or print books that describe correct
view? You see what I mean?
We’re faced with other moral dilemmas, you know. Like, you’ve got three beautiful things
to do now which one are you going to do you see what I mean?
And don’t be lazy you see what I mean. Move up to the, keep moving up. Don’t be attached
to the level that you’re at you know. Okay.
And don’t be attached to what feels good. Oftentimes, the right decision will be unpopular
with the people around you, it’ll be, it won’t feel good. It won’t feel as good as eating three
banana splits at once and stuff like that. [laughs] Okay.
Okay, number three: attachment to what your parents taught you. Okay.
I think ninety percent of the world is following what they follow spiritually only because it’s
what their parents did. No better cause than that.
And there’s this incredible belief, ignorant belief that because my parents did it it’s right, you
know.
Whatever my parents said. I remember this with Democrats and Republicans. My parents
supported Nixon and other kids’ parents supported Kennedy. And I would fight with kids in
eighth grade, you know. No, Nixon. They’d say, no, Kennedy.
I’d say, why? And they’d say, my mom said so. And I’d say, well my dad said Nixon was
better, you know.
And then I had this crisis of faith when I got to High School, when I finally figured out what
the Republicans were teaching you know what I mean. [laughs] And what the Democrats
were teaching. And then I’m like, gee, this is harder than I thought.
My father liked Chevrolets. He said, never buy a Ford, you know. In those days it was
Chevy of Ford and I would just go to school and say, Chevy, Chevy, you know. And they’d
say, no, my dad said, Ford you know.
And you would violently fight with other kids, you know, and no idea.
But we’re still doing that. You’re still doing that. You know, a large amount of what you
believe in you only believe because your parents said so.
You laugh about the Chevy and Ford thing. You have a thousand viewpoints that you’re still
holding that you’re not laughing about, okay, just because your parents said so.
Teachers, particularly elementary school teachers; go back, visit them. It is frightening, okay.
[laughs] Those who are still alive, you know. It’s frightening you know.
In those days they were god you know. Whatever they said, you know, the Russians are
bad.
And then you go to Russia at age forty-five and meet these beautiful, you know, sensual,
poetic, literal, freak-out, romantic, brilliant people you know. You’re like, where did you
come from you know? Did they just import you, you know? And they said, no we lived
here all along you know.
And you’re like, wow, they told me you were evil.
And they said, yeah, they told us you were evil too you know. Okay.
You have to give up those. Okay.
What your early religious instruction was, okay. Can’t be attached to it you know. You
have to examine it, okay.
I remember I went to my friend’s Baptist church. I was in the [unclear]. We were told the
Baptists were naïve. They were told that we were cynical and too something.
And then I went to this church and, you know, they just had the Lord’s Prayer with a
different sentence than we did so they were bad and we were right. And then you still carry
those things.
You still have those {bakchaks} are still in you. To believe it just because they taught it at
your church you know.
And it takes such a leap to grow out of that you know what I mean. Slowly you grow out of
it, okay.
Next one: what your culture has ingrained you to think, okay, this American culture.
Watch R rated movies but don’t watch X rated movies. Have romantic fantasies about
adultery but never do it you know what I mean.
Like, all these weird things that your culture is teaching you. Drink and be sophisticated but
don’t become an alcoholic you know what I mean. Drink a lot and be funny as you drink,
but don’t drink too much, you know what I mean. And, all those things, you know what I
mean.
It’s okay to have an abortion, you know, things like that. Your culture says it’s okay this
year. And it might change next year.
You have to make your own decision otherwise you’re attached to that, okay.
What your peers say, okay.
I mean, one of the most painful things about being a Buddhist, is that you slowly grow away
from your peers and the people you grew up with and the people you value and the people
you love, peers and family.
And they start viewing you as weirdo because you won’t do certain things and that you have
certain viewpoints. And that’s one of the most difficult things. To give up that attachment of
following certain ways of life just because the other people in your high school who are your
same age are now doing that. And you will look weird after awhile, okay.
By the way, that doesn’t mean you drop the lines of communication, okay. You can’t say,
I’m weird, so they’re wrong, so go f. them you know what I mean. You can’t do that.
I mean, as a Buddhist, be weird and keep the lines open, you know. Say I love you. Send
them Christmas presents. Go home for Thanksgiving. You know, do those things and then
say I’m going away for three years and I’m not going to talk to you, you know. [laughter]
[laughs] Okay.
But don’t reject them, you know, as people.
People mistake leading your own life, they mistake that with, you know, actively reject your
old friends and your family. No. Love them. As far as you can be warm and love them and
be with them as much as you can and things like that.
It doesn’t mean you reject them or that you ignore them or that you selfishly don’t write to
them ‘cos you’re a Buddhist now and you’re too busy you know or something like that.
Okay.
To what’s legal or not, okay.
That changes every few years, you know, like abortion.
There was a constitutional amendment that alcohol was evil and now everyone drinks, you
know. So, don’t let what’s legal run your life. Sometimes what’s legal is correct and
sometimes it’s wrong. Sometimes what’s illegal is right and sometimes what is illegal is
wrong. You cannot be attached to what’s right and wrong by the definition of the law only,
okay, in where you live.
By the way, although a lot of Buddhist morality is attached to local laws you see what I
mean. One of the kinds of sexual misconduct, for example, is to, like, have sex with someone
who’s too young in your country you see what I mean. It’s tied to the customs of your
country. So I’m not saying that. Like, you have to respect that kind of law. But, if the law is
clearly immoral, you have to not follow it. And if there’s clearly something that’s immoral
that’s not against the law you can’t do it, okay. That’s all.
And then, the last thing, do things because it makes sense, karmicly, okay.
Study karma, study scripture, understand emptiness and let that inform your decision about
what you do and don’t do.
And let that be why you practice your version of morality, okay.
And, as you get further up, it gets harder. Okay. The decisions become harder, you know.
And you become, you know, you’ll have one big test that you have to get over, you know.
Like, you’ll have to stand there and let your society or your culture or your family truly think
you’re crazy and you have to hold the line, you know.
There will come a test or a few tests of why do you hold that moral position and then you
have to hold it. It’s called {sin-tsam}. Say {sin-tsam}[repeat], hold your ground, you know.
There’ll be a test. There’ll come a time. Something will come and then you have to stand
your ground and say that I cannot do. That I will not do.
And they’re not, it would be almost easier if they said they were going to burn you at the
stake, you know. That’s almost, like, a recognition, you see what I mean - Joan of Arc thing.
But what’s worse is if you get ostracised or people think you’re a bad person, you know,
that’s much harder. Social rejection is much harder than being burned I think or some kind
of moral rejection of you because you hold a certain viewpoint. And that people don’t like
you anymore but you have to hold that {sin-tsam}, you have to because it’s correct.
Because you’ve figured it out. Not because of all those other things but because you, based
on your understanding of scripture and logic, have figured out that this is the right thing to
do. Okay.
I think I had one more here. Yeah. My favourite question. Last question and then I’ll stop
and then we’ll break out, okay.
I heard that you were told that you’re not breaking out but you are breaking out, okay.
Okay. Number twenty-five.
The Heart Sutra says, that the real goal of Buddhism is to, quote, “stop the process of aging
and death” through, quote, “stopping our ignorance”. {ma rikpa me, ma rikpa}
Say {ma rikpa me}[repeat] {ma rikpa sepa}[repeat] {mepa me}[repeat] {ga shi me}[repeat].
Direct quotation, okay. Direct quotation. I didn’t make it up.
You can stop the process of aging and death if you figure out this ignorance thing, okay.
Is this a literal or a figurative statement? Okay.
It’s literal. Okay. And it is the goal of Buddhism, okay. And you have to try, okay. You
really have to try to do it.
The second part of that question says, well, if it’s literal, how come we didn’t see anybody
reported in the New York Times that this person has suddenly become a sixteen-year old girl,
okay. Little bit rosy complexion, [laughter] okay. Okay. Why?
Why didn’t anyone report that?
They can’t see it, okay. You just can’t see it. Why?
It’s empty. Okay.
What’s that got to do with it?
You can see it if you have the virtue. You can’t see it if you don’t have the virtue. That’s all.
In fact, it’s created by that virtue, okay.
To them, the person looks like a sixty year old balding man with a big smile and a silly
laugh. Okay. Called the Dalai Lama, okay. But to himself what does he look like you see
what I mean? When He looks in the mirror what does he see?
So, don’t say it’s impossible ‘cos you didn’t see it.
{..mayin}, in the logic scriptures, you know. It’s not true that something doesn’t exist ‘cos you
didn’t see it, okay. Forget it.
If the pen thing is true, okay, what did Geshe Michael teach for seven years? This thing
about the pen, you know. Okay. Don’t forget the pen thing; the most important thing, okay.
The pen thing proves that you can become a tantric deity in your lifetime. You have to try.
You really have to try.
If you keep the book you’ll start getting there, okay.
Will other people see it?
No. They might even think you’re a bad or a crazy person, okay. But do it. You have to
try, okay.
What’s the process?
Your inner winds and your thoughts are intimately connected. Every time you have a bad
thought they choke a little bit, okay. That causes the process of aging and death. Okay. So
what, I suddenly got older today?
No, you had small, irritated thoughts for twenty years and that’s why you’re aging, okay.
Just the small irritations at the people around you, the small misunderstandings of your
world.
Every time you have a little bit of insight into emptiness the channels cracked open. When
you have a direct perception of emptiness they’re wide open, throttle is wide open, okay.
Then, when you go back to normal perceptions they’re choked again or they’re choked
because you went back to normal perceptions you see what I mean.
The goal is to open them wide open and then that causes a radical transformation of your
physical body, okay, and you start getting younger and happier and incredible.
Things you couldn’t do twenty years ago you can do now, okay. And it just gets better
every day. And then, finally, the process is finished. You’re in this internally different body.
You have total compassion for other people. It’s keeping your channels wide, channels
change at that point. You don’t have channels any more, okay. And you’re just enlightened.
Okay.
That’s all I have to say. Alright. [laughs]
See you. Take a break and then I’ll come back for a short talk at the end. Okay.
[cut]
Okay, we’ll start. I’m not going to keep you long ‘cos I know it’s late.
I just wanted to go through, you know, it’s been seven years. We finished the last reading
yesterday, okay.
So, all the translations have been finished. That was like the last eighty pages or something
from the logic course which kind of nobody wanted to do. But we did it.
So, eighteen courses are finished and all the readings and everything else totally finished
yesterday. [applause]
And that’s like four thousand pages of translations and the whole Geshe course is there and
all the important parts of Buddhism.
So I think it’s like an important transmission event, okay. It’s there.
Now, whether it gets passed onto other people, your problem, okay. [laughs]
And a lot of people here are going to be teaching in different places. You’ll get an
announcement in January, February, but it’s really amazing. I think there will be about forty
courses going on throughout the world at any given time, ACI courses [unclear].
I wanted to, you know, that’s all I have to say. You guys have to pass it on, okay. And you
have no excuse. You have a package for you. Remember you always have a place in
Arizona to come. This thing will continue here. Godstow will be there. You don’t have any
excuse not to practice. You have no excuse not to study. You have no excuse not to do long
term retreats. You have no excuse [unclear]. Everything is there.
People have worked very, very hard to make sure there’s a place here, to make sure there’s a
place in Conneticut, to make sure there’s a place in Arizona. So you have everything you
need. And you have Khen Rinpoche in Howell.
And unlike the first generation you can’t blame it on the outside circumstances. You have
everything you need so it’s really just up to you.
I’m into this thing where one of my teachers called me recently, when you wake up, I said
I’m getting grumpy you know. I think I’m getting older or something. I get more and more
grumpy.
And they said, well when you wake up in the morning, think of five things that you’re
thankful for you know what I mean. And it’s been like, and then I just told somebody that
and they told me, oh that’s what Oprah Winfrey said last week, [laughter] you know. [laughs]
And she said it changed her life. [laughter]
I still think it’s a good idea. [laughter] Okay. [laughs]
You know, you get five one day and then they said, you get ten the next day. Ten come to
you. So try it, you know, in the morning, think of five things you’re thankful for in the
morning. And instead of being grumpy or instead of thinking about all the things that went
wrong suddenly everything looks unbelievable.
I want to tell you some things to be thankful for about what’s going on here.
I think, firstly, it’s Khen Rinpoche. Okay, imagine that in1954 out of ten thousand monks in
Lhasa he graduated first among the Geshes as a Hlarumpa. First among the {..} and then first
among all the {…} which means he’s the number one Geshe in the whole of Tibet for that
year. Goes to the Potala Palace. You know what you get in Tibet? You get a block of tea
from China, but it’s okay. [laughs] But the Dalai Lama gives it to you, you know.
So, you have access to the greatest master alive I think, you know, in my opinion, humble
opinion, okay. You have direct access to this being. Graduated from Tantric College as the
assistant Abbott when I was three years old, okay. I think there’s only two people I know of
who graduated from the Tantric College who are still alive, okay, in Lhasa. And would have
been the Ganden Tripa, the Holder of Throne of Je Tsongkapa. Would have been the next
teacher of the Dalai Lama, okay, on that track.
You have this person sitting there in Howell, New Jersey just waiting to give you classes you
know what I mean. Begging you to come to classes you know what I mean. So you got
that to be thankful about.
You have a whole lineage of Sera Mey monastery, okay. You have five hundred and eighty
years of pure Dharma passes on from ancient India in totally pure, I once checked the
Sanskrit against the Tibetan version of the Abhidharmakosha. There is one syllable difference
in the whole thing. And that’s ‘cos they couldn’t get it into the Tibetan so they added a
syllable you know what I mean.
And you have this pure, pure Dharma. And you have access to that. You can’t complain
about it. You have the original texts have been, you know, put on a platter and served to
you, you know what I mean.
And all those great minds you see what I mean. It’s not just the living Lamas. You have all
these Lamas who are no longer here, no longer visible, you know.
You have hundreds of Lamas that you don’t even know about because you went through
these courses. And you have direct access to those beings, you know. They have taught
you. They are with you. And they are around you now, okay. Those beings didn’t die.
They’re around you. You have access to them and you just have to be aware of that. You
have to connect into that.
You’ve had accurate teachings on the direct perception of emptiness and bodhichitta, direct
experience of bodhichitta. You’ve had an accurate presentation of that in this package, things
to be thankful for.
People to be thankful for, okay. I think Pelma to start with. When we started this first course
we went in a Honda to Ikea. We put all the furniture for the Dharma centre and the classes
and Pelma and me in a Honda Accord in one trip, okay. [laughs] And she’s on the floor
curled up in a foetal position under all this stuff. And has given her time and her life for the
last seven years, okay. Free. Paid for a lot of things. Worked for the last years at Three
Jewels free, okay.
We tried to find someone crazy enough to do it. We can’t find them right now, okay.
Started the whole thing.
People say, oh it’s a great idea that you did the course. It was actually her idea, okay, but I
don’t like to admit it. [laughs]
There’s Ora and Christie who assist me. People think they’re having a good tome all the
time. People get jealous of them; oh you get to talk to Geshe la all the time. People think bad
things about them sometimes. These people work seven days a week. No pay. They don’t
get any rest. We don’t even get to eat sometimes, twenty-four hours a day. They don’t get to
talk to me. Ora made an appointment three months ago and just got half an hour you know
what I mean and something like that. And they selflessly, without pay, all the courses, all the
material, all the arrangements, everything for free.         And they don’t get, you know,
everybody’s jealous of nothing ‘cos they don’t get sleep; they don’t get anything. They don’t
get to talk to me either and working, really working hard. And they break down and cry
like every other day you don’t know that, right.
I’ll just go around the room [acknowledgements]
[end side A]
[side B]
[acknowledgements continued]
[announcements of upcoming events]
Okay, we’ll do a short mandala.
No prostration tonight, okay. That means we have unfinished business later. You also have
to finish the eighteen courses and get the tantric teachings, okay.
We’ll do three short mandalas so it means you have to really think about it. A perfect world
created by everyone doing their book, okay.
[3 short mandalas]
[cut]
[dedication]
Course 18: Great Ideas of Buddhism #3
RAW TRANSCRIPT

PAGE 141