ACI 3 «Прикладная медитация», занятие 8

Class Eight: Object of Meditation
March 12, 1994
Transcribed by: Brian Smith



[cut] , environment, moral environment, physical environment, mental
environment. Third one?

[students: unclear].

How to sit. You should reach that. Fourth one?

[students: Mental processes, mental problems, corrections].

Mental technique. What problems would come up, what corrections to take,
what the levels you went up to [unclear]. So we finished all that. Now,
interestingly enough, what to meditate about. Okay? [laughs]. So we’re gonna
cover today, we’re gonna start three weeks, three nights, of how to, what to
meditate about. To do that, you have to know that there’s three kinds of
meditation, okay? These are donated by Margie, if you guys know. She found
them and you debate it with yourself, and that’s called {chegom}. It means
analytical meditation.      You, you have a problem with a certain point of
Buddhism, or you’re not sure about a certain point, and you put it in front of
your mind, you put it in center stage, and you start to rip it apart, you start to
think of all the reasons of why or why not you can accept it or you can’t accept it.
And that’s called {chegom}. It’s supposed to be that as a result of a {chegom} you
can come to some conclusion. And then you do a {jor gom} on that conclusion.

[student: You do what?]

A {jor gom}. You fix on that conclusion. Like we have the five classical proofs
for emptiness in the last course. You know? So this might be your process: you
might do a {shargom} on those five. What’s the first one? Emptiness of one and
emptiness of many, right? And then you go through them like that. You go
through the five, and you keep going through the five. And you’re just
reviewing them. Then you do {chegom}. You say, “why is it true that if
something is empty it must be either one thing which is empty or many things
which is empty, which are empty.” And you, you debate that in your mind until
you come to some conclusion. Like maybe you see emptiness intellectually, and
then you fix your mind on that conclusion. So, that’s a process you can do. You
do {shargom} if you’re just going through the outline of the thing. You might
choose to stop on one of the parts of the outline and do {chegom}, okay, how do
you prove that? How do you prove that there’s a past life? And you stop and
you start to try to prove it to yourself. And when you get to some conclusion,
you fix your mind on that. That’s called {jokgom}. Alright? Yeah.

[student: Isn’t {jorgom} kind of dangerous then? What if you come to the wrong
conclusion?]

 [Laughs] There’s a very interesting thing, and I’ll tell you, it’s, ah, very, very
easy. You learn Buddhist logic. And that’s what the next course is about, partly.
You learn the rules for proving something. Then you, you pick an object to
prove, or disprove. And you go through all the reasons for it. If that thing is
true, and if your method is correct, you must come to the correct conclusion.
That’s what debating is all about. You cannot come to an incorrect conclusion if
you follow the rules of logic. And, and the end is a true thing. Which is not, by
the way, you don’t start with that assumption. You start with the assumption
that it could be true or false, and you, and you attack it with logic. It’s against the
rules of Buddhist logic to use a reason to prove something if the person doesn’t
already accept that that reason applies to, to the object under question. For
example, I can’t say to you, “The sky, take the sky, it’s not green because it’s
blue.” If you don’t accept the fact that the sky is blue, I’m not allowed to give
that proof to you. If you’re a non-Buddhist and I’m trying to convince you of
Buddhism, I’m not allowed to give you any proof, I’m not allowed to use any
idea, that you don’t already accept. So really, when you see a Buddhist trying to
convince somebody of something and he fails, it’s because he has not followed
the rules of logic. In fact, he’s broken the rules of logic. So, so when you’ve
learned logic better, you’ll be good at it. You can do a {chegom}. Yeah?

 [student: Well, do you mean to say, something that someone accepts which is
already true? I mean, how can you prove to somebody something which they
accepted, what they accept. . .]

You’re also not allowed in Buddhist logic, it’s a fallacy, it’s a mistake of logic, to
try to prove something to someone when he already accepts it. Like to prove
that your death is, is imminent. That your death is going to occur today. To
prove it logically, I’m not allowed to do, to Dharmakirti, because he already
knows that. That’s, that’s what you mean. I don’t mean he accepts the
conclusion. I mean he accepts all the facts I give which force him to draw that
conclusion. So I say in my case, I say, “Take the sky. It is not green, because it’s
blue.” And you don’t have to write this down. I’m just giving you an example.
He doesn’t believe that the sky is not green. That’s why I’m trying to convince
him. “The sky is not green because it’s blue.” But he must accept that the sky is
blue. And he must accept that if something is blue it can’t be green. And so he’s
forced to accept that the sky is not green. But he hasn’t seen it yet. In other
words, he has all the information in his own mind, he just didn’t draw the right
conclusion yet. He knows the sky is blue. He knows if something’s blue it can’t
be green. But he has this mistaken belief that the sky is not, is not not green.

[student: So if you’re, let’s just say you’re dealing with a Christian who believes
in God. Okay?]

Yeah, you cannot start by jumping all the way up there. You have to start with
some very low level things and work up to that. You have to work up to the
point where he has to go, “Oh yeah, you’re right,” ya know?

[student: So you couldn’t, you couldn’t have a debate with that person about this
subject in either, pro or con.]

No you can. You can absolutely. You can say, “Take the world. It was not
made by a compassionate living being because it has suffering.

[student: But he disagrees with that, so that’s it, you can’t. . .]

Which part? Does he disagree that the world was . .

[student: That it was not made by a compassionate being.]

Oh no, we’re trying to prove that to him. Take the world. . .

[student: No, you said you can’t prove something to someone unless they
already believe it.]

Well, I’ll say it again. Take the world. It was not made by a living being, because
if it were he’d have to be compassionate. Let’s say that. The maker of the world
should be compassionate. I’m sorry. Take the world, it was not made by a
compassionate being because there’s suffering.
[student: And I’ll play the devil’s advocate and say, “No, you’re crazy, everyone
knows God’s compassionate, what are you talking about?”]

Then I’ll say, no.    I repeat it.   Take the world, it was not made by a
compassionate being because it has suffering, it’s full of suffering. Now, now,
don’t say anything yet. Does he accept that the world is full of suffering?

[student: Yes.]

Does he accept that if the world is made of suffering the person who made it
could not have been compassionate?

[student: Not at all, no.]

That we have to debate. Then I can’t use that for that Christian. No I can’t. I
can’t use that. I have to go lower than that. I have to go lower than that.

[student: But why don’t you, when you say that it was made by suffering, I
mean. . . ]

By the way, this is a {jegom}, okay? [laughter] If you want to know the answer
come to the next course. We’re going to do it in the next course. So these are,
these are, automatically you understand then the different objects for
meditation.

[student: These are the three object for. . .]

No. These are the three kinds of meditation, and each have a different object.
Okay? The classical object to start {jokgom}, the classical object when you’re
trying to develop {shamata} is a picture of a holy being, like a Buddha, or your
root Lama, or the Dalai Lama, or whoever you want. Not looking at it with the
eyes, but focussing on it with the mind. It’s okay to go home and look at the
picture for a few minutes to make sure you know what he looks like and then
you go sit down, but {shamata} must be developed in the mental sense and not
in the physical senses.      It must be developed in conjunction with the
consciousness of your thoughts and your mind and not in conjunction with the
consciousness of your senses. It can’t be. So the object, the object is in this case
like a Buddha or something like that, or even a conclusion, if you understand
emptiness you can meditate fixedly on emptiness. {Jokgom}, I’m sorry,
{shargom} you should have an outline, you should have some kind of steps, like
the nine levels of the mind, the five problems, the eight corrections, the six
qualities, the six preliminary practices, the seven ingredients that those practices
should have, things like that. That’s a {shargom}.

[student: That’s the outline?]

Yeah, the outline itself is the object, and you’re going through one, two, three,
four, five. Let’s go back again, one, two, three, four, five. Let’s go backwards,
five, four, three, two, one. Let’s skip, five, three, one. And, and you get, you’re
just jumping. You’re like a person going through his musical scales, if you’ve
ever played. That’s what make you a good improviser in music, is to do your
scales for years and years. Then you’re ready to do, then you’re ready to do,
then your’re ready to improvise, okay? That’s {shargom}. {Chegom} you take a
problem, you take maybe past lives, or you take are things empty, or you take
was the world created. Is it true that there is not any pleasant object in this life?
Things like that. Is it true that my teacher is a Buddha? That my Lama is a
Buddha? Those are objects of {chegom}.

[student: unclear]

Long story [laughs]. We’ll talk about it. Okay. So, we’re going to do, I’m gonna
give you an object for your meditations. I suggest that you use it for about six
months. I personally find that if I, I get tired in about six months of an object,
and I like, a personal, personal taste, you know. I find that I’m not fresh on that
object any more after six months. The books say pick an object and stick with
one object until you acheive {shamata}. Okay? Like a picture of a Buddha or
something like that. I’m saying the object I’m gonna give you is a very good
object for a good {shargom} and the, and it’s an outline of all the steps to get to
Buddhahood, the basic, necessary components of any path which claims to end
your suffering. It must have certain components. If one of the components
missing, you cannot reach that goal.

[student, John Stillwell: And so are you saying that all three of these different
kind of meditations can be {shamata}, or single-pointed concentration
meditations?]

Yeah, oh yeah, you can get {shamata} on any of them. That’s the point. That’s
the idea. But choose the most virtuous one you can. And why not the steps to
Buddhahood. And it’s the engine theory, right? It’s possible, I say it’s possible,
that a spiritual path which doesn’t contain certain essential components will
never work for you, cannot work for you. Like an engine, if it’s missing one
necessary component just doesn’t work. It might sound great. It might look
great. It might move around all over the place, but it won’t move the car. It
won’t get you where you’re going. I just say this as a possibility, okay? You can
{chegom} on it. Okay? I contend that if you don’t have all of the elements that
are found in the basic structure of the {lam rim}, if you don’t have those in your
meditation, in your practice, you cannot attain the end of suffering. Impossible.
Just as much as if one important part of an engine were gone, even though that
spiritual path looks pretty nice, even though it seems to give some pleasant
feelings in this life, even though many people are following it, if it’s missing one
of those components forget it. I say it’s possible that you can’t reach anywhere
with it. Okay. Very possible. Yeah?

[student, John Stillwell: I thought you said the image of the Buddha was most
virtuous, and then you said the stages of the path were the most virtuous.]

The image of the Buddha is the classical one. In a sense, the teachings are the
Buddha. [laughter]

[student: So are they equal or what?]

But I’m giving you this also, the other selling point is, the lam rim outline I’m
going to give you is necessary preparation for you to take the tantric initiations.
You’re not allowed to take a tantric initiation without this instruction. In other
words, you have to perfectly understand the outline of the open teachings
before you’re allowed to take a secret initiation, okay? You’re trying to take one
in June, okay? You must have this background first, and then I can go to
Rinpoche and say, “Okay, they all heard it.” [Laughter] And then he can, they
say it’s best if you have some realization of each of these steps, you know
personal experience, that you developed all of these steps. And if not, well okay,
you grasped them all thoroughly. You know, if not, well okay, you have a
pretty good idea of the outline, that’s what they say. So I would like that for the
next six months when you do your meditations, you’re focussing on, you can do
the steps of the lam rim like “boomboomboomboomboom.” You can do a
hundred, two hundred, three or four hundred. I’m picking the shortest lam rim
in history, okay? [laughter] I’m picking a lam rim, okay, and I’ll write it for you.

[student, John Stillwell: So are you saying it’s equal then whether you pick an
object like the Buddha or a lam rim?]
Ah, yep. Talking practically, in case you die this week or something. . . [silence].
Two different items, okay. [silence]

[student: inaudible]

Excuse me? I will explain.

[student: [unclear]]

No. Okay, lam rim, say lam rim [students: repeat]. Tibetan r’s are rolled like
ruffles, and not with your teeth up here, like rim. I can’t do it very well, okay?
Lam means path, rim means steps, and you see lots of different translations:
graduated path, stages of the path, graduated stages of the path, graduated. . .
you know, there’s millions of translations. It just means the steps that you must
go through to reach Buddhahood and nirvana. These are absolutely necessary
steps. If one of them is left out you won’t make it. Okay. And that’s what
disqualifies most of the spiritual paths that are being sold today, I believe, I
would say that. But you can draw your own conclusions. You can do your
{chegom}. You know. What’s good is if you do it, if you try it, and you really do
it correctly, it should give you some results after a while, a month, two months,
three months. You should see some change in yourself, and in your happiness
level. And if you don’t, then it’s a stupid path, give it up, do something else.

[student: what about if your karma’s not. . . ]

Even if you’ve got lousy, lousy, lousy karma, I would say that if you sincerely
practice it correctly, and I emphasize correctly, I mean [inaudible], you don’t mix
it up with something else, if you’re not noticing some change in your basic level
of contentment or happiness, and happiness meaning knowledgeable happiness
satisfaction level, I’d say you’re either not practicing it right or that you should
just quit it and go and find something else before you die.

[student, John Stillwell: Would the same thing apply if you’re doing, say, a
meditation retreat and you get, like, stalled out, something going wrong?]

No, it’s very common in retreat to have a failed retreat. It’s very common if
you’re a very serious practitioner to have serious problems. That doesn’t mean,
it does mean that you did something wrong, that you should have slowed down
when you were speeding up, or that you shouldn’t have meditated upon
something too heavy, or, normally that’s what’s happening. You didn’t get the
instructions to know when you were supposed to. But sometimes a snake bites
you in the arm like, uh [inaudible] you know, there’s not much you can do.
Okay, she blew her meditation but she almost died.

[student, John Stillwell: So then what do you do in the case of your having
blown meditation, just start again . . ]

It’s very important to get up before you blow it out completely. They say you
should leave your meditation seat with a good heart, you know, kinda happy
with it. But if something goes wrong and the thing just degenerates, you know,
get up, sing {tupa}, uplift your mind, you know, how? [laughter] No, you know,
I mean, how many people in the world are even trying to do what you’re doing,
you know. I mean, how many? You know, it’s one in a million. The others are
what we called last time, sheep heading for the slaughter, you know, they’re just
heading for death. There’s no possible happy resolution to their life, period.
Impossible.      I met Mr. Shen yesterday. Mr. Shen, he’s a multi, multi,
multimillionaire. He’s eighty five years old. He’s blessed by incredibly good
health. He’s had all the money he ever wanted in his whole life, and he’s a good
Buddhist. And he spent his life practicing. And what’s his reward? His wife died
last year of a horrible bone disease, and, uh, he’s lonely, and he’s alone, and he’s
in this house, and, I mean, it’s the end of all, even if you have all these things
working for you, the end is suffering, you know, unless you change the nature
of your being, which is, you have to know how. So anyway. Lam rim. Steps to
the path. It’s roots are in the sutras of the Buddha, so if I ask you, “Who wrote
the first lam rim?” you better say, “the Buddha.” The Buddha wrote it in the [b:
Prajnaparamita Sutras], and there’s a quotation in the [b: Prajnaparamita Sutras]
which is where the word lam rim came from. It’s like {maga kama}, you know,
steps to the path.

[student: Its roots are in. . .?]

In the sutras, in the original teachings of the Buddha, five hundred B.C.

[student, John Stillwell: Written by the Buddha?]

The Buddha described lam rims, he said there are {rimbas} of the lam, and there’s
a quotation that’s always used to [inaudible]. The Buddha wrote all this.

[student: Did he write them down, or did someone else write them down?]
He spoke them and they were written down five hundred years later. In those
days, according to Buddhism, the students were so advanced they memorized it
while he spoke it. They say that we are in degenerate times. You know, we tend
to think we’re more advanced than people in India five hundred B.C. who didn’t
have cars. But according to Buddhism they were intellectually far ahead of us.
They knew that they should be learning dharma and they, spiritually they were
much more advanced than us, and intellectually they were much more
advanced.     They could follow what he said immediately and they could
memorize it as he spoke.

[student: But everybody in those days could, whether they were Buddhists or
not.]

No, obviously not. But we say that the majority of his students were. If things
are empty, then you have to have a certain karma to meet the Buddha. You
have to be some kind of incredible being just to meet him. Like, as if . . .

[student: It’s interesting, you know, that one of the bodhisattva, you know, one
of the downfalls of the bodhisattva vows is destroying towns, you know,
indicates that there’s a certain level of violence that individuals come in contact
with and prone to. . ..]

But the people who studied with the Buddha directly were blessed, and they had
incredible faculties. Anyone who in this life who could study with the Dalai
Lama directly, for example, for a long period of time, that’s, he has to be some
kind of incredible person himself. Okay. So that’s lam rim. After the Buddha
taught there were many great texts, there were many great commentaries, this
whole Indian period, and then later Atisha, who lived in one thousand A.D., he
wrote a lam rim called “The Light of the Path,” you don’t have to, I’m not gonna
ask you that, okay? And then people wrote lam rims, and the most famous one
is the lam rim of {Chendal}, {Chendal} means “big,” okay, and that was written
by Tsongkapa, Je Tsongkapa. It’s a thousand pages long. It’s probably the most
famous book in Tibet.

[student: [unclear]]

I’ll write it over here. What steps of the path means, I don’t know about stages,
stages would sorta mean to me like points that you reach, but that’s not what
lam rim means. Lam rim means the steps that you must take to get to that goal,
okay. So I prefer the word steps. Steps in a method, okay. And each one is an
attitude you have to develop. It’s a mental step. It’s an inner attitude that you
must develop. And that’s what lam rim means. You wanna turn on the water
for tea?

[student: I’m afraid to. No, I think there’s a little mouse running around in here.
I keep hearing him squeeking, and I don’t want to burn him up or anything.
He’s behind? It’s okay?]

I think it’s alright.

[student: He’s very close to all this food, and he can’t get through.]

So that’s, so we’ll go on for about five minutes while he’s heating up the tea. So
that’s what lam rim means. So there, so if I ask you a question, “How many lam
rims are there?” There’s many books called lam rims, but how many lam rims
are there?

[student: One.]

No, each one is a lam rim, and most people don’t understand that.

[student: Each step is a lam rim?]

Each step is a lam rim. {Lamka rimba} means any step of the path, so this is really
plural. They should have called it “steps of the path.” And each one is called a
{lamki rimba}, and most people don’t realize that.

[student, John Stillwell: Each step of the lam rim. . .]

Yeah, each step in the lam rim book is a {lamki rimba}, is a lam rim, {lamki
rimba}. So how [unclear] is a {lamki rimba}, death meditation is a {lamki rimba},
meditating on karma is a {lamki rimba}, meditating on emptiness is a {lamki
rimba}.

[student: Why are you saying it differently then. . . ]

It’s the full form. Steps of the path, {lam ki rimba}. Most people never catch that,
most people never figure that out.

[student, John Stillwell: Because it has sub-steps, is that the idea?]
This is just for them, you don’t have to know this, I’m just, some people ask for
this. That’s the full form. Most, uh. . . Tibetan loves to shorten things, Tibetan is
very economic language and likes to shorten {lamki rimba}, {lamki rimba}
becomes lam rim, steps of the path.

[student: Is ki the possessive?]

Yeah. So we’re gonna study, the lam rim we’re gonna study, is called. . . By the
way, not just study but what?

[student: Meditate on.]

Use as the object of our meditation for, say, the next six months, okay? Every
morning. Burn it into your head. If you see something that you can’t accept,
stop and do a {chegom} on it. It’s called {yendun neshe djorma}. {Yendun}
means “a good quality,” like compassion or understanding of emptiness or
disgust with this life --those are all {yenduns}, those are {yenduns}. If you could
have those three you’d be, you’d have a, you’d be what we would call a talented
person, or. . . You know.

[student: What are the three again?]

Let’s say understanding emptiness, compassion, and disgust with this life. And
we said it before, it’s not like you have to have this, suddenly you wanna go stay
in a cave, okay? It’s just the normal vissitudes of life, it’s just the crappiness of
this life, that just keeps coming up over and over and over again, that we try to
ignore or else we get depressed about it, you know [laughs]. It doesn’t have to
be, oh, I’m gonna die in seventy years or something like that. It’s this whole,
every day is crappy. And it doesn’t mean that you always fight with people at
work and stuff like that, but the work is crappy. Where can you get? You can
go up to the vice president and you die, or someone stabs you in the back and
you lose the position, or things change and the company’s out of business, or. . .
You know, there’s no, there’s no happy ending. There cannot be a happy
ending. That’s just crappy. And your body’s getting older and older, and you
feel your energy getting worse, and there’s no happy ending, there’s no other
conclusion, there’s no place else to go. And that’s the same with everything.

[student: Are you happy that you got fired?]
[Laughs] No, and then there comes a day when you’re unemployed [unclear].
[Laughter] You try to turn bad situations into thinking nice about them, but
basically the whole scheme [unclear] [Laughter]. . . car accidents, or cancer, or
[unclear]. It’s, uh, life is crappy, every day is lousy. [Laughter]

[student, John Stillwell: There is one possible scenario which is that you go
through life and you do your dharma and it all works out well at the end.]

It will, it will. You can change it,

[Student: In eons, and eons, and eons. . . ]

No, no. You can change it in this life. That’s the whole point. You can cause the
reality to change, and you’d better, cause you don’t have any other choice.

[student: So what happens then, even though everything is still crappy it doesn’t
bother you any more?]

Not like that, not like that.

[student: No, remember, you’re not supposed to aspire to neutrality.]

No, not like that. Okay. So {yendun} means a good quality, and I’m saying that,
you know, a mild distaste for this life is intelligent and that’s a good quality. {Shir
djorma}, {shir}, {shir} is a difficult word to translate. {Shir} means “the basis”. I’ve
translated as “source,” which is one of its meanings. {Djorma}, {djor} means “he
who is,” “the one who is,” so that so far means “the one who is the source of all
my good qualities.” Where do I learn these good qualities, okay? {Ma} is a
feminine ending and is used for great books, maybe because of the connection
with wisdom. What’s the greatest lam rim ever written?

[students: [unclear]]

{Chenmo} and {mo} is feminine, okay? So {djorma} is a feminine ending. So the
lam rim we’re gonna study, the lam rim you’re gonna use for your meditation,
the lam rim which only takes three and a half pages on a piece of paper, and you
have it, that’s what I handed out, is {yendun shir djorma}, okay?

[student: [unclear]]
Yeah, there is a sutra called “om,” and the whole sutra is “om.” [Laughter] Okay.
I’ll do the first, I’ll tell you who the author is, and then we’ll have our break.

[student: How would you say that whole sentence again?]

This title of our lam rim? “The source of all my good qualities,” “the source of all
my good.” Okay? It refers to, we’ll talk about it. Where does all your good
qualities come from?

[student: The Lama.]

[student, John Stillwell: Your saying that the lam rim is the source of all of your
good qualities?]

The name of the lam rim that we’re gonna study, the name of the book on the
path to Buddhahood that we are gonna study, is called “He who is the source of
all my good qualities.”

[student: So the title is only [unclear], not lam rim [unclear]]

No. You could put a lam rim here and it would be perfectly acceptable. They
would say “The lam rim called. . . “ and it’s, you can call it that: you can say {lam
rim yendun shir [unclear], that’s fine.

[student: Is it “good qualities,” or just “good”?]

I translate as “good,” but it means, meaning “good qualities.” I’m not sure you
can have a good quality that’s not “goodness.” Here’s the author of the lam rim
we’re going to study. Tsongkapa. Je Tsongkapa. Tsongka means “Onion
County,” and it’s the place where he came from. And Tsongkapa means “the
person from Onion County,” and Je means “lord,” Lord Tsongkapa. You don’t
call a high lama, “hey Tsong,” you call him “Je,” Je Tsongkapa. “Je” means
“lord.” It’s kinda funny to see people split it into Tsong-kapa. It’s like, man-
[unclear]. [Laughter] It means “the one from Manhattan,” it’s like
“Manhattanite,” “New Yorker.” It’s like “New-York-er.” Okay, anyway, that’s
the person’s name. Where did he teach that?

[student: What’s the thing?]

This is an {asur}, which is rarely seen in Tibetan.      I’ll teach it to you in April
[unclear].

[student: [unclear]]

No we’re gonna. . . After these courses are finished this time, in April we’ll have
a, like, little alphabet class. If anyone’s interested they can come. Some of the
people who joined the Tibetan class didn’t have enough alphabet from their past,
whoever was their past teacher, so we’re gonna do it over again. So if you want
to start Tibetan, or if you just want to come and get abused for a while [laughs],
you’re welcome to come. I’m not sure what night yet, we’ll talk about it. Okay,
say {radeng}. [students: repeat] {Radeng} is a very holy monastery. It’s north of
Lhasa. It’s about a hundred kilometers. I believe it was founded, I’m pretty sure
it was founded by {Drongteje} who was the main disciple of Atisha, you don’t
have to know that, which means it was founded around one thousand A.D. He
was the great disciple of Atisha, and he never became a monk. He was a layman
with layman’s vows, and he’s very famous. He was one of the greatest lamas in
Tibetan history. And he helped found this monastery.

[student: Is it still there?]

As I understand it, it’s pretty badly damaged, but I don’t know. I believe you
can still visit it. Do you know?

[student: I don’t know.]

And he taught, Je Tsongkapa taught this lam rim there. Now he would have
taught it around fourteen hundred. I don’t know the exact date. If I asked you,
you could say fourteen hundred. Around fourteen hundred he taught it. We
could figure out the exact date. We’re working on his biography, but we’re not
finished yet. That’s where he taught it.

[student: Michael, he was the source of all my good qualities. . . ]

He or she. In case your root Lama’s a woman.

[student: [unclear]]

No, he wrote the {lam rim chinro}. He wrote a lot of other lam rims. And he
realized that the {lam rim chinro} was too long. The long lam rim was too long.
So he wrote a middle, middle lam rim. That’s about, I dunno, a hundred and
twenty pages. The he wrote a short lam rim, that’s about twenty pages. Then
he wrote {b: yeneshe gumpa}, which is three pages. Then he wrote {b: lamsa
namsa}, “Three Principal Paths,” which is twelve verses, fourteen verses. So this
is really the shortest real, shortest full-fledged lam rim.

[student: We don’t have to memorize this, do we?]

You should memorize it.

[student: You gotta meditate on it.]

Yeah. When you get your, if and when you get your tantric initiation you’re
gonna have to recite it quite frequently, so you might as well memorize. You’re
asked to memorize it in your assignment. The thing about being a Buddhist is:
have all this information in your brain, because if you die, you get into an
accident, you’re in the hospital, it’s all available in your mind.         It’s very
important. It’s not good to depend on a book. It’s better if it’s all in your mind.
It’s much better. We’re not used to it, but it’s much better in case you get into
some emergency, it’s all available to you. When you do a deep retreat, a month-
long retreat, you’ve got all that tool kit available in your own mind. You start to
get into a problem, you know exactly, you go, “problem number three,” you’ve
got everything in your mind. It’s much more efficient than paper and pencil.

[student: [unclear]].

It’s half Tibetan, come on. And it’s long, it’s like three words per line. Not very
long. Okay, have some refreshments.

[cut] [student: There’s three different kinds of mediation? Where does [unclear]
fit in?]

[student: [unclear]]

Okay. Let me see what’s on your homework.

[cut] . . . great books of original Buddhism. These were the books that came out
of early India. These are the books that all Buddhism came out of. It didn’t reach
every country. Not every book reached every country. These last two books. . .
By the way, this is the order that we study them in the monastery, in eighteen
years, and, the first three, I’m sorry the first two, are Mahayana, as is the last
one, and these two are Hinayana. So Vinaya and Abhidhamma reached to
Thailand, for example, and they study, they have forty volumes in their canon,
and they have these two subjects. Did Tibetan Buddhism reject them? No. The
monks’ vows are straight Hinayana. And I spent ten years studying
Abhidharma, that was the first thing Rinpoche taught us, so I would say that we
study it very, very seriously. Then we go on to study the Mahayana schools.

[student, John Stillwell: How do those countries which have received all the
books feel about the books they didn’t received?]

Different opinions. I think mostly don’t know much about them. I mean,
basically. If you go to Thailand and ask them, “What do you think about
Madhyamika?” they [unclear] that they’re not really sure about it. I don’t think
that there’s a lot of knowledge in those places about the Madhyamika. Yeah?

[student: You mean only number three and number four is in Thailand?]

Yeah.

[student: And how about number one and number two?]

Uh, not, oh maybe it reached one Thai lady, I think. [Laughter.] I think she has to
take it back. [Laughs.]

[student: That’s only Mahayana?]

Yeah, yeah and this one is Mahayana also, but some Hinayana, this is a mixture,
the [unclear] is a mixture.

[student: [unclear] the same.]

I think the more you study, if you study for a long time, they are all beautiful,
they join together very, very nicely. In fact, Tsongkapa said if you understand
the scriptures well you don’t see any contradiction between them at all.

[student: That is how I feel.]

And he said if you do then you haven’t studied enough. Yeah?

[student: He just ask me, what’s the difference, because I’m from Thailand, and,
why I’m here, and I say that, it’s like, in my country some of the Buddhist,
whatever you teach us here, somehow it’s spread in the culture.]

Yeah, I met many taxi drivers in, remember meeting a taxi driver in Thailand,
and he’s telling me about the [unclear] [laughs]. Yeah, they all know a lot.

[student: It’s just something that you’re born, and you learn the way it is, but
they didn’t say “This is Buddhist,” it’s just a way of life.]

So anyway, these are the five great books. If you study these five books, you
have studied all the schools. And each school is divided up here. I’m not going
to go through the whole thing. There are four great schools of Indian Buddhism.
We study all of them. And if you finish these five books, you have studied all of
the great schools of Indian Buddhism, which is Buddhism. And they all relate to
the Buddhist Sutras. All of these came from the Sutras and you can find the
places in the Sutras. These are all open teachings, not secret. Then there are the
secret teachings.

[student: Michael, you said when you quoted Tsongkapa, Je Tsongkapa, that’s
talking about scripture.]

And the concepts as well.

[student: But that’s, did he read Pali scripture?]

No.

[student: Well, then how can you say that he would accept Hinayana?]

No. I would say that the Abhidharma teachings and the Vinaya teachings would
cover the subjects of the Pali Buddhism.

[student: Hinayana Buddhists reject. . .]

The Thai canon comes from the Pali canon.

[student: Right, I know that. No, I was just thinking, how could you say that
they . . .]

There not contradictory, once you’ve studied. . .
[student: You’ve said that they’re not contradictory, that one includes things that
the other doesn’t.]

Of course.

[student: So you can’t, I mean, a Hinayana Buddhist doesn’t accept what a
Mahayana Buddhist. . .]

Well I would say more that he hasn’t learned it, or he hasn’t been exposed to it,
see what I mean? I’m not, what I’m saying is, if you take a person [unclear], and
you say, “Come in a room and let’s talk about the concepts of Mahayana,” I
don’t think he’d have any problem with it. Abhidharmakosha, which is THE
ultimate Hinayana text, has roots of all the things we ever study, and I can show
them to you. I memorized most of it. And it’s fine. It’s a lack of study and a lack
of knowledge. And it’s some early people writing in English who, who had a
misconception. So once you’ve learned it, you know, five years from now let’s
talk about it. Okay. Secret teachings, okay. And we’re gonna go through these
five. You’ve already been through some of them. Secret teachings. What I’m
trying to say, why did I draw all this up here? Not anyone of these books gives
you the entire lam rim, none of them. And I can tell you because I’ve memorized
some of them and I’ve studied all of them.

[student: You mean all five together?]

No, any one individually.

[student: But all five together would?]

We’ll talk about it. What I’m saying is that, you could study any one of these five
books, you could study any one of these four schools, and you can study secret
Buddhism, but none of them contains all of the path. Not one of these books.
And they wouldn’t claim to. I mean, if you asked Chandrakirti, does it contain
all of the Buddhism, he’d say “no, it doesn’t contain secret Buddhism.” And then
these other authors also. They were writing one speciality of the five subjects
that you have to study. But not one of those books covers all the points of
Buddhism. The lam rim does. The lam rim covers the entire, all the way from
the beginning up to, including secret teachings. The lam rim covers all of it.

[student: What I know is that in Thailand the monk doesn’t debate, they don’t
debate, and I don’t know about secret at all]

Good! [laughs.] It works.

[student: [unclear]]

But what I’m saying is, you won’t find, you can study in the monastery for
eighteen years, and you can study, we spend twelve years on the first book, we
spend four years on the second book, we do this all during our study for a few
months a year, we do two years on this one and two years on this one. And
there is no one book that contains the lam rim. Lam rim contains all of this.

[student: Is there overlap between these books?]

Yeah. There is some overlap.

[student: The lam rim, meaning the {lam rim sharma}?]

Meaning the lam rim tradition. Any lam rim, from [unclear] up to the [unclear],
from three pages up to a thousand pages, contains the essence and all the subject
matter of these five books.

[student: Thank you.]

And that’s incredible. That’s, that’s, what I’m trying to say is if we were very
intelligent, we studied lam rim, we wouldn’t have to study [unclear].

[student, John Stillwell: Is that true of the approaches of the other traditions?]

I was gonna read you guys a quotation on the subject of, this is a quotation from
{karma mikay doje}, the greatest Karmapa who ever lived. {long quotation in
Tibetan}. It means, “I bow down and I praise the tip of the mountain of the
{gandhambas}, who is Tsongkapa, who cleaned up Buddhism and made it
faultless in this snowy land where the teaching had mostly become corrupted.”
That’s the greatest Kagyu in history. See, um, and there’s a generally a nice, I
think the greatest leaders of all these sects, I mean, the greatest Sakya maybe
was {Rendawa} and that was Tsongkapa’s, one of his main lamas. So I think
once you get up to a certain level of understanding they’re all appreciating each
other quite deeply. You know, I haven’t studied the {lam [unclear] of [unclear]},
and I haven’t studied the {[unclear]} of [unclear], I can’t say, I don’t know. I can
tell you what the lam rim says. [Laughs.] Okay. Yeah?

[student: What does, when you the word “secret,” that’s secret from whom,
from non-Buddhists, non-monks, is it secret to the individual?]

Secret to anyone who hasn’t received permission to study them, and hasn’t
received an initiation that allows him to study them.

[student: That’s what tantra means?]

[student: [unclear] and you haven’t got the information?]

They say your head cracks open. [Laughs.] No, I’ll tell you what happens. At
the worst, it’s boring and you don’t read it very long. At the medium, you try
something inside it, not knowing what you’re doing, and you go to hell. And
then the very worst, I would say, you read it, you try it, and nothing happens,
because you don’t really know what you’re doing. And then you just think it’s,
you know, you take ten initiations and you fool around, you don’t do your
[unclear] every day, slowly you stop doing it, and no one ever teaches you what
you committed yourself to, you can’t tell me three of the vows of the twenty
vows you took, or thirty vows you took, and it becomes a disaster. And then
the worst thing, I think the most horrible thing that can happen, is that nothing
happens, and you just lose your faith in those teachings, and you say, “oh, Joe
Schmo’s giving another tantric initiation this weekend. Let’s fly over there and
take another one,” you know, and nothing happens in your life. You don’t get
any tantric results, and I think that would biggest karma of all, that would be the
worst possible scenario, is that you fool around with it for a while, you don’t
know what you’re doing, you never received any good teachings about it, you
take an initiation, you don’t keep the commitments well, you get bored after a
while and you stop doing it, and then in the back of your mind you’re thinking
this doesn’t really do anything.

[student: What impact does the secret, like, can you become an accomplished
Buddhist with no tantric . . . ]

You can’t achieve Buddhahood in one lifetime without secret teachings. With
tantra you can. That’s the idea of tantra, very powerful, very dangerous.

[student, John Stillwell: I thought you said you can’t attain Buddhahood without
tantra.]
You can’t attain, no, you can, you know, seventy six. . . seven hundred and sixty
thousand great eons, something like that. [Laughs.] Okay, well anyway, what
I’m trying to say is that having been through the whole great course, knowing
the whole course, I believe what they say in the lam rim, which is that it contains
all of them, and no one book contains them. What I’m saying is {yundrem
samgyuma}, if you could understand these three pages, you don’t have to go
through that course. It’s worth it to meditate on it. You still should go through
the other books, but, what I’m saying is that it is that powerful. Okay.

[student: Michael, for instance, in Tibet would the lam rim be generally or
universally used or recognized by all the different. . . ]

[cut]. . . of history [unclear], they have spread it and praised it and, but each
tradition has it’s own, uh . . .

[student: So in other words, you’d be able to sort of recognize a Gelupa lam rim
as opposed to a Kagyu lam rim if you were so skilled about it. It’s a different
flavor to it.]

It would be a lam rim if it had, if a {lam de}, for example, of the Sakyas, if it
contains all the necessary parts, then it’s a lam rim.

[student: I understand that, but I’m saying, would they be, then, take different
angles of approach for the different points, for instance.]

Ah, the main elements would be the same. There might be a different order or a
different [unclear].

[student: When you go to like say a, say, sort of, I don’t know what you call it,
lectures and initiations, usually what happens is that you get to know, especially
as Westerners we don’t know a lot of this stuff, they give you an introduction,
what it is about, then everybody takes initiation. It’s like, you feel like if you
don’t take it it’s an insult to the Lama.]

I know. You’re put in a bad, tough spot. No, it’s true.

[student: I never seen anybody not sitting down and not taking an initiation.]

No, that’s why you’re going, usually. [Laughs]
[student: But what you’re implying here is that you’re supposed to know what
you’re doing first before you take the initiation, and how can you make a
decision before you know it?]

You’re supposed to get a lot of training, and then you get some description,
rough descriptions of it. They’re not allowed to describe it to you in detail before
you take initiation. That’s true. But they give you good training in the {tumole
la}, what’s that? No, it’s the “in common,” the path which is shared by tantric
teachings. We’ll talk about it, we’ll talk about it. We have to, in fact. Okay. I’m
going to switch to English. [silence]

[cut] These are the four parts to this lam rim. These are the four great divisions
of this lam rim, of this three and a half page lam rim. You got eight pages
because I put English after them, okay.

[student, John Stillwell: Only this lam rim, or all lam rims?]

This particular lam rim is divided into the, actually all of them are, basically, the
first two are the normal great division of any lam rim.

[student: What are they again? The four great. . .]

The four big chapters. The four big parts that we’re gonna study. All lam rims
are divided into the first two. They give equal weight to two things. What are
they? First two? Finding a teacher, a right teacher, and how to behave with him.
And then all your other practice. Those are the two, two great divisions of any
lam rim. [silence]

[student: [unclear]]

Finding a teacher and how to behave towards him. How to live with him. And
then secondly, and this verb is very difficult, the word I call “taking Lama.” You
can call “relying on a Lama,” you can call “[unclear] with a Lama,” there’s many
ways to translate. It’s very difficult. It’s the verb for what you do with a
medicine when you get sick. It’s the verb for what you do with a shovel when
you’re digging. You use it, or you take yourself to that instrument to accomplish
the goal you want to reach. It’s a very difficult word to translate.

[student, John Stillwell: So the first one is taking, being with a Lama?]
It’s your lifetime relationship with this Lama, really. How do you find him, what
should he be like, how should you behave after you’ve decided, all those things.
Who is he? Once you’ve found him, now how to practice? What to do. Okay.
This one has, you alright? I’m sorry it’s late and it’s hot and you went to work
today and so did I, but we’ll try and finish this. Okay. We’ll finish in four
minutes. [Laughter]. No, we’re almost there, we’re almost, pretty close. This is
going to have, let’s say it will have “a” and “b.”

[student: [unclear] part one? Division one?]

Yeah. Division one is gonna have two parts. [silence]

[cut]. . . Yeah. It says, what are the four steps to the, to taking your Lama, taking
a Lama, finding your Lama, serving the Lama. And there are these four: one,
two, three, four.

[student, John Stillwell: So how do you develop faith? What is it like?]

We’ll talk about it. First I’m gonna give you a list of what makes a teacher
qualified. We went through this. . .Yeah?

[student: The ten qualities?]

We went through ten before. I’m going to give you a different list, just for
variety. I’ll read the ten to you. You don’t have to write them, okay. We had
this in the first course. These are from the {tenyir}, these are the classical qualities
that a good Lama should have, a person that you trust to fool around with your
spirit and mind, okay? That’s a grave responsibility, right? You’re relying on
that person to, your exposing your mind to this influence, and your mind is not a
solid thing, your mind is a plastic thing. Whatever he says or does can affect
your mind. So you have to be careful who you expose it to. He should have the
following qualities which are written by Maitreya, okay? Pretty decent source.

[student: These are the ten we don’t have to write down?]

You don’t have to write these down, if you don’t want to know what he should
have. [Laughter] We’ve had these ten before. People who were in the mass
course had these ten. He should be {dulwar}, {dulwar} means he should be
practicing his morality, ten moralities: no killing, stealing, sexual misconduct,
lying, slander, harsh words, idle gossip, no craving, ill will, or wrong views. He
shouldn’t have those, okay? He should be {shiwa}, {shiwa} means he should
have mastered concentration, meditation. {Nyershiwa}, he should have mastered
wisdom, he should understand emptiness well, or perceived it directly.

[student: Still number two?]

We’re on four now. Those are the first three, basically the first three trainings,
three trainings: morality, concentration, and wisdom. {loma le yunten hlakpa}.
He should, he should be, he should have qualities that are, he should be further
along than the students he’s trying to teach. {tsun che dong temba}. He should
be willing to make great efforts on behalf of his students, okay? He should be
willing to work hard for his students. {lung gi yen den kundan sampangawa}.
He should understand the scriptures perfectly. {de nyi towkopa}. He should
have perceived emptiness.

[student: You said that already. The first one was intellectual emptiness?]

Yeah, remember that?

[student: Perceived emptiness, or understand. . . ]

Yeah, we talked about that.

[students: [unclear]]

No, it was the third, you’re talking about the third training, which is wisdom.
Wisdom can be also towards other subjects. You can have wisdom towards
dependent origination and things like that.

[student: He should know the scriptures completely?]

It says {timpa sopa}, you know {timpa}, its that [unclear], it means, you know,
total.

[student: [unclear] qualification, or at least, that he doesn’t have to have
perceived emptiness directly.]

This book says “perceived emptiness,” now “directly” it doesn’t say.
[student: You can’t question somebody about that so you have to go on faith?]

I would say listen to his descriptions of emptiness and if they’re totally internally
consistent, a, b is they are consistent with what you’ve understood or heard
about it, you know, b, c, if it leads you to some perception of emptiness, that’s
pretty good. You know, then you can say he probably understands emptiness,
he probably has seen emptiness. Okay. {chimal ma kepal}, he should be a skillful
teacher, good teacher. {loma la tsewa chimwa}, he should love his students, he
should have some concern for his students. {chu jetsam cheka lungyam}, he
shouldn’t get tired no matter how many times he has to teach something.
[Laughs] No, inexhaustible; doesn’t get tired of teaching. {long Tibetan
quotation}, “and because now, in the age of degeneration, it’s extremely difficult
to find anyone who has all these qualities, {je lame},” Tsongkapa said, “I’ll give
you five qualities.” [Laughs] These could be on your homework.

[student: Five qualities they must have.]

[student: This is still under a, right Michael?]

[student: [unclear] he must have [unclear]]

Yeah, if he doesn’t have all ten, Tsongkapa says, you know, who can you find in
these days who has these ten qualities. This was in fourteen hundred, in Tibet.
He says, at least it should be a person who is controlling himself with the three
trainings, meaning morality, concentration, and wisdom. Morality, meditative
concentration, and wisdom. It should be a person who has become, I dunno,
kinder and gentler through his practice of [unclear]. He’s somehow got control
over his being with those three trainings.

[student: [unclear]].

Morality, meditation or concentration, and wisdom. So how many we got? We
got three, okay. Those are the first three. The first three are the same, right?
The first three are the same. Then, number four, he says {denye topa}, he’s
perceived emptiness. Remember it does not have to be directly. It could be
intellectually. He doesn’t say the word “directly.”

[student: [unclear]].

When you say he’s perceived emptiness, it could have been, it’s best, I mean,
there’s no substitute for a teacher who has perceived emptiness directly. He has
seen truths that no one else can see. But if you can’t find one, it’s okay if he’s just
understands intellectually all the books about emptiness.

[student: So, excuse me, what is number three?]

The training of wisdom.

[student: And so isn’t that intellectually understanding emptiness?]

We just answered that. We said, it doesn’t have to be, wisdom can be focussed
towards karma, you can have, you can be wise about how karma works, you
can be wise about how dependent origination works.

[student: That’s not how we defined the [unclear]]

Wisdom can be directed towards many other things.

[student: And so then the next one [unclear] is emptiness. . . ]

It’s specifically emptiness, yeah. And the fifth one, he says {tse won de dema}, he
loves, he loves the students, he has concern for the students, love for the
students. That’s the five. {Matam matayam, matam matayam}: minimum,
minimum. [Laughs.] He’s gonna give another five. Okay?

[student: [unclear]]

No, I gave you so far I gave you ten qualities of a good teacher, and I said you
don’t have to know them. Then I gave you five qualities, which you do have to
know. Now I’m gonna give you another five, because it’s hard to find anyone
who has the first five.

[student: So this is [unclear] bare. . . ]

Bare, bare minimum. {Matayam matayam}. I would say. . .

[student: Five and five equals ten, and then you’re back to where . . . ]

[Laughs.] As far as memorizing for your quiz, right.
[student: [unclear]]

He doesn’t say that.

[student: Who doesn’t say that?]

It doesn’t say, it doesn’t, uh. . .

[student: This is all from {Prabaka’s} commentary, so it could be {Prabaka}. . .]

Yeah. With Tibetan, you don’t have quotation marks, and you’re never quite
sure where it’s ending. It looks, feels to me, like {Prabaka’s} talking again, but
I’m not quite sure. It could be Tsongkapa. We could look it up on the computer.
{Matayam matayam}: At the very, very, very least, okay? And I like this, I like
the one that he says next. {Shodang che ten niye shootsol chepa}: “In the great
division between worldly activities and dharma activities, he is mainly working
with dharma.” Remember {jeeta}, “worldly” in Buddhism is a tricky word. It
doesn’t refer to what you do for a living.         We just had an example of
{Gamdooje}, who never became a monk, okay? Worldly is an attitude.

[student, John Stillwell: Can you say that again, please?]

Worldliness is an attitude. I mean, you never know who’s worldly and who’s
not, from what they’re doing.

[student, John Stillwell: So the division between worldly attitude and dharma
attitude. . ]

Is inner.

[student, John Stillwell: And it doesn’t matter what they’re doing [unclear]]

Absolutely doesn’t matter what you’re doing outside. Activity too. Being kind
at work is a dharma activity.

[student: Right, but was the word that was used “activity” or “attitude”?]

He just says, “the world or the dharma.”

[student: [unclear]]
Is he devoted to the world or is he devoted to the Dharma, how’s that?        Should
be a person who is devoted, mainly, to the Dharma.

[student: Fifty one percent of his?]

Yeah, of his life. Of his mental life.

[student: [unclear] of his mind.]

Between this life and the future life, he’s working mainly for the future life.

[student: Is this number two, or . . .]

Number two, this is number two. In the division between this life and the future
life, he’s devoted himself to the future life. He’s working mainly for his future
life. He’s worried more about his death and his future life than about this life.
By the way, that doesn’t mean that you just ignore this life. It doesn’t mean that.
“This life” in Tibetan has a connotation of “worldly life.” Okay? You should
know that. Between watching out for himself and watching out for others, he
mainly watches out for others. Mainly worried about taking care of others
rather than himself. Or herself.

[student, John Stillwell: I don’t quite follow the second point. Are you saying
that, so you’re saying it doesn’t refer to the external in terms of him working
towards future life versus this life. You’re saying he is working towards this . . . ]

What I’m saying is, his mind is focussed on his future life. It doesn’t mean he
goes up to see some suffering in this life and, for instance, “I don’t need to help
you, I’m focussing on my future life.” It’s not like that. Or he just gives up
everything and goes to sit in a cave and try to collect some good for his future
life. It’s sentient beings, it’s the beings around you that you need to make any
progress. Without people around you, you can’t make much progress.

[student: Could you repeat the last one?]

The last one was: if he has a choice between taking care of himself or taking care
of others, he mainly takes care of others. He takes care of others first. {Gosung
dagme mikor}: he’s not careless in his physical, verbal, or mental actions.
[student: [unclear]]

Maybe they’re more difficult than the ones [unclear] [laughs].

[student: What was that again?]

He’s not careless in his physical, verbal, or mental, what did I say?, actions. He
thinks before he talks, he thinks before he thinks, he thinks before he does
anything. He’s very careful about not to do anything wrong.

[student: What are the three things? Physical, mental. . .]

Physical, verbal, and mental. Body, speech, and mind.

[student: Actions.]

Actions. He doesn’t teach his students a wrong path. Number five.

[student: [unclear] questions?]

Could be. Last thing I’ll say, and then we’ll quit. And we’ll have to talk a little bit
more about this next week, next class, but the main thing is, all throughout this
text, if you read the English, it’s saying “Bless me, bless me, bless me, bless me.”
What does it mean in Tibetan? {Chinlam} What does it mean? If someone asks
you on the homework. Now you’re supposed to sit there and go, “Bless me,
bless me, bless me, please bless me.” What does it mean, “bless you”?

[student: So you can develop that aptitude [unclear]?]

Change your dharma aptitude. Change my ability to practice dharma. Please
change my ability to practice dharma. That’s what blessing means.

[student: Michael, is that through providing the conditions for learning by being
there to teach somebody?]

Partly. But what it’s saying is, you know, you go into a dharma teaching and
half the people are falling asleep and half the people are kinda interested, and
maybe two or three people. . . In the Madhyamika it says that you get
goosebumps when you hear somebody say. . . There’s a beautiful quote in this
one today, he says, what does it say? It says, “The sun doesn’t feel like it’s his
painful obligation to shine on the world, and the earth doesn’t feel like it’s his
painful obligation to hold up everybody, and bodhisattva doesn’t feel like it’s his
pain. . . “ No, it’s a different one, I’m sorry. “A hungry cow, when he runs into a
big patch of grass. . . “ [Laughter] No, there are two, two good ones. “Hungry
cow when he. . “ Oh, the first one, if you want to know the ending, it was “a
bodhisattva doesn’t”, no it was the other one. Anyway. “When a cow runs into
a big clump of grass and he’s really hungry, he goes for it. And when a thirsty
person gets a big glass of ice water, he drinks it down. And when a bodhisattva
gets a chance to do something for somebody else, even at his own expense, he
goes for it. He’s thrilled by it.” So I think, uh, that’s the last person in the
dharma class. He thinks that it’s the most amazing thing he ever heard and he
just, immediately, he takes it home and he starts doing something about it. And
immediately it makes its way into his heart and he changes. That very night, he
goes home and starts doing something differently the next day. That’s a {jinma}.
And that’s a difference in your sensitivity to dharma, to having someone say
something and then you go home immediately and you start, you start to
change, you start to actually change. And you start to actually do all those
resolutions that you made, but have a . . . You know, what’s the opposite? We
know that state very well. It’s to continue to have the same problems that you
had last year. And continue to get as irritated as you did last year, and continue
to be as jealous of people as you were last year, and, I have that. I watch, I read
my confessions from five years ago. I found a letter to my mother before she
died. I never mailed it because she died. It was unopened. I opened it up. It
was from Dharamsala. And I had the same problems then as twenty years ago.
You know, so, {chinlam} means don’t make me like that, you know, let me at
least find some ability to change.

[student: Michael, what’s the difference between that and receiving inspiration?
Or please inspire me. . .]

I guess those are the same translation. And I’m just saying, know what it really
means.

[student: Well, I mean, are you saying . . . ]

No, it means to inspire, to change your spirit.

[student: Hey, what is this?] [Laughter]

This chart explains all the five problems, it explains all the eight antidotes, and it
explains the nine levels in a picture. And we can over it sometime. We can make
a night if you want to come and we’ll sit around and have tea on the floor and do
it, but basically here it says, the elephant is your mind. The fact that he’s colored
black is to represent dullness, {chiwan}. The monkey is that {chowa}, it’s any
distraction of the mind. Remember there were three, virtuous objects, pleasant
objects, no, no. Did I give you the right thing? Yeah, okay. And the fact that
he’s black represents what? The monkey.

[student: Agitation.]

This is mental state number two, he’s reached. Each curve represents a different
one of the nine. The monk here has reached {ginya jopa}, the ability to put his
mind on the object for a [unclear], okay? And here the elephant, his head is
started to change white. That means the increasing of his {soja} and {neja}, of his
fixation and his clarity, getting, starting to get clear. These five symbols, the
mirror represents form, beautiful shapes and colors, the symbols represent
music, this cloth represents silk, and these are the objects of the senses which are
enemies to meditation. So they’re hanging around the path. And like that. Up
here is bodily agility. It’s flying. [Laughs] This is mental agility. He’s deep in
meditation. This is the accomplishment of shamata, right there. Everything’s
white. And like that.

[student: You say each curve is a state, but there’s [unclear] curve.]

You’re right. There’s a state between each curve. Here’s seven, eight, nine, six,
five, four, three, two, one. And I like, this is, you know, a lot of times I see
materials that I don’t like when they’re not accurate, or they’re not quite. . . This
one is good. This one was well done. I don’t know. This was done, this was an
old, old system. I don’t know who invented it. I think it’s a very old custom.

[student: Do you have to buy an elephant or can you rent one?] [Laughter]

Yeah. We all have {chiwan}.
940317-1.aaa
Geshe Michael Roach
Course III: Applied Meditation