ACI 3 «Прикладная медитация», занятие 9

Class Nine: Object of meditation: Lesser Capacity
March 17, 1994

[cut] yeah what were the first two … of the lam rim?

[student: [unclear]]

After you’ve found the lama. First stet was to find a good teacher and … and
behave correctly towards the teacher. Yeah?

Student: Can I ask you a question, a little, slightly unrelated, Is it okay to mark
up Dharma texts?

Preferred not to, not supposed to. I always tell people, you can write on the
back of the next page, if you have this notebook open and you can write on the
back of the page before, actually. That's a good way to get around it. I write on
books that I know I am gonna reprint, shortly, or translate, cause I figure it's
just , you know, but Rinpoche doesn't like it and it's not good, so don't do it.
Also, these materials, you might also want to give to your students one day also,
so try to keep it clean, ..[unclear], with white out. Anybody not get a shamata
chart? Every body else got one? Maybe some day we'll go through that chart,
it's got all the five problems, the eight corrections sand the nine states of mind.
That's what the chart is all about, that's all that's on it actually. We'll do that later.
So it was what makes a good Lama and then how you should behave towards
them and, and, the main way to please any Lama is supposed to be that you
actually put into practice what he teaches you. So if he sees you doing what he
described, then that's supposed to be the highest offering that you can give him.
It's called, {drupe chupa}, "The offering of your practice. And, and I warn you,
you know, you are new, mostly new students, you are mostly fresh, you are
learning them for the first time, after you hear them the third time or the second
time they won't make much impression on you. You'll say, "I heard that before".
The normal reaction is that. And I have a few students who are like, they just
want to know the next ten vocabulary words, you know, and I feel kind of bad
sometimes and I think maybe it's not, I worry about teaching them too much,
cause I don't, cause they are not really, I don't feel that they have any great
intention to put it into practice. You know, it's more like collecting more
knowledge, you know, and that's a very great danger. So while you are fresh,
put it into some kind of lifetime practice, as far as you can, as much as you can
try to put it into some kind of practice imediately.              If you don't, that
phenomenon, psychologically is described in Buddhist literature, called {treptok},
{treptok}, means, it what the dog gets when you hit him all the time and after
awhile, he doesn't care whether he's beaten or not, "Ill go ahead and bark." It's
like inured or hardened or insensitive to Dharma anymore. There's a, there's a
step like that. So try to put it into practice, I would, I would hate to be a party, or
participate in making Dharma monsters, who know everything, and everybody
around them thinks they are the most, not bad person, but just pain in the butt
person. You know, " Okay, okay, I know, yeah." You know, they want to tell
you everything. They are not happy and they make you unhappy. You know, I
pray, we should be going the opposite way and the the best way to serve your
Lama. If the Lama hears that you had a fight with the people at work or you're
not getting along with people or ... I don't mean that everyone has to like you,
but just in general, I think a Dharma person, who is improving, is getting along
more with the people around him than he did before and he's happier. And
because he's happier, people around him feel it and they respond to that. And
normally that's what's happening when you meet those people who meet the
Dharma and start trying to change themselves immediately, they, people around
them notice, and not because they say, "Hey, I know about emptiness, listen to
this, you know." It's more like you know, they just start being more considerate
of other people and happy to help other people and that's, those are good signs.
You know, if that's going on because of these classes, then you're, then you're,
you're repaying the teacher what he wants. And it you are getting more
insensitive or more knowledgeable and more cold, then it's a failure. You know,
the teacher has failed and you have failed so, that's the sign. The main sign is
that you are getting happier. If your happiness level is increasing, then, then,
you are repaying the teacher proerly and that's a pleasant payment to have to
pay, right? [laughs]. okay. So we have, how to find a teacher and how to
behave around the teacher, and then we had how to practice one you have a
teacher, how to purity your mind. That second part has two parts. Gelugpas
love outlines, as you may have noticed. It, it organizes your thinking and you
can d o a {shargom} on it, right? If you don't have an outline, you can't do a
{shargom}, a review meditation. That's what outlines are for.

student: Random access review.

Yeah, yeah, [laughs]. That's what... So inside that second one, there's two parts
and the first one is this.
student: This is how to practice, right?

Yeah, and the word, how to practice in Tibetan, means, how to practice and
how to purify your mind, it's the same word. It's called {jang ba}. So {jang ba}
can mean to practice, but it can also mean, "How to purify your mind. It's the
same word, so I don't know, it's hard to translate it into English. {Len bar}
means, "give or take" and {kurwar} means "urge". And {ur}, means to, the {re},
go backwards, the Tibetan word order is reversed, it's like Japanese. Urge to
take the essence. This is the part in the text where the Lama Tsongkapa is urging
us to take the essence out of this life that we have found. And we'll talk more
about it, okay. [laughter] Take the essence. The first part is the Lama,
Tsongkapa is telling you in his text, "look you, you have to get some essential
meaning out of this life. You have to try to use this precious life to do something
important before you die. So the second one is, well, how do you do that? And
he is going to explain how to, how to take the essence out of this life, how to get
the essence out of this life.

student: So like meaning, make the best out of this life?

Yeah, the Dharmic best, [laugh], alright? And the, the root text at this point says,
{Lenchik nyepay dewey tensang di, shintu nye ka dun chen she gyur ne , nying
tsen kuntu nying po lenbe lo, dunchin nyebar kyewar jing gyi lob}, which
means, it's in your translation. But {dewey tensang}, {dewey tensang, dewey ten
du shintu nyi ka} means, {lenchik nyepey}, means, you can only find it one time.
{Dewey tensang}, means "this kind of life, this kind of body". {shintu nyekar},
means, " extremely difficult to find, this kind of life." {dun chen she gyur ne}
means, "you should realize that, that it's very precious." So it means like that.
{dewey ten du lenchik... lenchik nyepay dewey tensang di.} Is it true that you
can only find this kind of life once? You know, as a as a human being, you know
having a good brain, not being handicapped, meeting a teacher, having the
interest to learn, having enough motivation to get up in the morning an
meditate. Is it true that you only get this kind of life once?

student: We don't know.



[laughs] .Yeah.

student: We might get it and we might not.
Well let's put it this way, if it's true that you have one past life then, and if the
proof of that is that this that life caused this life, then how many past lives do we
have?

student: We don't know if we are gonna get another chance to be human again.

Well, infinite odds in the past and how many in the future if you don't get out in
this life, infinite. SO out of infinite, so you know, if you picked up the lottery
ticket every day for a trillion billion, million years, would you win? I mean,
probably. I mean the odds are in your favor if, if you pick infinate numbers of
lottery tickets that you'll win.

student: Eventually

You have to win eventually, actually. So is it true that you can only find this kind
of life once? It's not technically true.

student: But it's rare.

But, but Tsongkapa, in his commentary, Pabonka in his commentary, "Well, why
did Tsongkapa say, "You only find it once"?" I mean, the odds against it are so
vast, are so incredible that it might as well be once, I mean the odds against it are
vast.

student: So what are you saying Michael? [laughter]

I'm saying that the probability ...

student: We're not gonna come back to this life again at least?

No, the probability of your going up to this human state, the probability of you
having enough good in you to be a human is, is infinitely small. Because in one
five minute period, don't forget how many thoughts you are thinking in a five
minute period. You are thinking, I don't know, a couple of hundred maybe,
your mind goes through a few hundred thoughts, probably in ten minutes and
the vast majority are some kind of nonvirtuous thoughts. You know it not that
you're a you're not a Hitler, you know, you're not a Saddam Hessein or
somebody, but the vast majority of your thoughts are motivated for your own
gain and they are not motivated at helping other people and you're not a bad
person, you know, you are a normal person and you're taking care of your
needs and most of those thoughts are non virtuous. And these small, these small
unpleasant thoughts that come up towards other people all through the day, out
number the virtuous, or the charitable thoughts by like thousands to one. And
your not a bad person and your not like you are going out and killing people.
Just all during the day, you are thinking, how am I going to get fed? How am I
gonna get to feel good this afternoon. I better get this presentation done better
than so and so and it's not evil, it's just the normal competition that human
beings go through and that's non-virtuous. So the odds of, of ..

student: Would it be taking things sideways to ask why that's true? You know
because I'm watching myself and I'm horribly shocked at myself.

[laughs] It's lack of knowledge and that's why wisdom is so important.

student: Lack of knowledge generates stupid thoughts about other people.

What I mean is that if you know better, you wouldn't do it and that's the whole
idea of Buddhist education, you know, that's the whole idea of learning
Buddhism.

student: Is it caused by past karma?

Yeah, partly, the habit of thinking that way is one of the four karmic results. So
that's why wisdom is so important. Knowledge has to overcome your instincts
and that's very difficult. It's very unlikely that you will be able to do that.

student: But is that what happens when you do, you know you do, you say
prayers, you do purification practices, you do some good deeds, I mean, you
sound like you know, that we only do bad things.

Well, very rare, but I ....



student: But it's not true...



But if you had told me, if you had not mentioned you practice, you had said,
"Look I want to work today, during the whole day, my only motivation was to
see that everyone else around me got ahead, you know, and the money, I
intended to take as little as I could to live and I was going to donate the rest to
poor people." And, you know that would be a virtuous way to live and we
don't, we can't right now, we don't have that ability.

student: Yeah, but you're talking like in totality, it like, "You're doing thins," you
know, " you, you're thinking of yourself, okay, you're doing some things for
other people, you admit that, but it's not going to be enough. You know, you
have to give yourself to everybody.

What I'm saying is that the ones that you do for others and the ones that you do
for yourself are just innumerable for yourself. Every moment of your waking
day, you are trying to take care of yourself first, and get ahead. It's not like
you're gonna hurt somebody at work or put poison in their tea or something or,
but you have this natural desire that you become the star of the office and that
you are happy all day. And if you see someone that's not happy, you are not as
worried about that as you are then that if you have a headache, it's just human
nature and that human nature will, will cause us, it makes it very unlikely that
we'll be born in this kind of birth again, but what it also means by implication is
that in your past life, was able to overcome those thoughts, so you have a nice
powerful seed. You're last life was able to, to be pretty damn good.

student: But I'm talking about, you know, we're talking about karma, how much
karma are you putting in these little things that are not so harmful to other
people and what about the good karmic actions, I mean, aren't they supposed to
be more powerful?

No, not necessarily.

student: You know than just being a little bit apathetic lets say.

Several things make karma more powerful. One is the object toward which you
do it. If you hurt the Dalai Lama or if you hurt Joe Shmoe, it's a much more
powerful deed to hurt the Dalai Lama. But, but if you repeat something
constantly, that's also a second way to build up the strength of that karma. You
do a small bad deed continually, is as strong as doing a single great bad deed
once. It's the same power. So, ..

student: Are we gonna learn how karma, how to measure karma?

It's, it's coming, [laughs]. Okay, so it is sort of like a one time thing that we're in
this opportunity. {Lenchik kyepay dewey tensang ni} What does it mean,
opportunity? You should write this down. We have what we call ten fortunes
and eight opportunities. Sometimes they call it leisure. I can say. I think this guy
translated it as, yeah, ten fortunes and eight leisures. I translated it differently.
Leisures sort of means what? Leisure time means what?

student: Time to relax.

Time to relax, time to be idle, yeah, I don't much like that. The Tibetan word
comes from the root "slow", but [laughter], but it's defined as a lack of
opportunity, so I'll say lack of opportunity. Lack. Let's call it the "eight ways,"

students: Eight freedoms?

You could say that. Let's list them and then you tell me a better translation.

student: impediments.

No, no, because there's other, you see when you try to translate Buddhism, you
have to know every other word. There's already a list of impediments and it's a
different one. [laughter]. You know, you just have to know everything before
you can translate one thing. You not only have to know what it is, you have to
know what it is not. And, and that's very difficult.

student: Isn't this a negative? Yeah, it is defined as, as {micomba ge}, {mi comba
ge}, {mi comba ge} means, what most people have in not having an opportunity.
And, and this is a double negative actually. I'm sorry I should have put it's not,
you're right.

students: Yeah, it's not.

So what they normally do is they list the eight ways of lacking opportunity and
then they say the leisures are the opposite. I'm sorry.

student: Why don't you just call it the eight opportunities?

They define it as a double negative. It's not having those eight problems, what
are those eight problems? wrong views, which of the non-virtues is that? Of the
ten. It's the last one, and by the way, they get worse as you go up. Why is it the
worst one? What's the biggest wrong view? What's the most terrible wrong
view, karmically?
students: You don't believe in karma.

You don't believe in karma. You don't believe that something will come back to
you, and then what will happen in reference to the other nine. You won't worry
about it, [laughs]. It's pretty amazing if you think about the inner morality of
mankind around the world. I mean, basically, it's recognized that around the
world that it's bad to kill or to steal or to lie.

student: To a certain political point.

Yeah, yeah, [laughs] But why not? If you can get away with it. If there is some
certainty that you could get away with it or if there is absolute certainty that you
could get away with it, why don't people do it more often, then why don't
people do it more often? It's a strange good thing. Logically speaking, I mean if
someone bothered you, you could just find a way to meet him in a dark alley
and kill him. And ..

student: There are certain societies in which that actually happens.

Yeah, I know, I'm sure there are , but the majority of mankind in our present
day, it's felt that's not correct and there's nothing to hold you back, I mean, you
would just be eliminated. I mean there is certain places in China where that just
used to be the case. If the minister is not following the policies, you just arrange
an airplane accident, an why not? It's logical. if you are not going to get caught,
why do people stop? Why don't people do it? It's just, it's a nice thing and it's a
good thing, they probably do it out of some habit or social habit.

student: Their mama told them to.

It's basically that , it's you didn't grow up that way, I mean there are countries
where you do, I mean Gengis khan was a product of that. In his, where he grew
up it was considered, his father was poisoned at a dinner that someone threw for
him and they tried to kill him and he and his mother hid out in the woods and he
became crazy. Crazy man, he became a warrior. So there are places like that, so
what we don't, we don't have those wrong views, is blissful ignorance a wrong
view? It's close, I would say, most people don't kill people who ignore them
slightly, just out of habit or social custom. I would say that's it' not out of
understand that if they killed the person, they would be killing many times. So
you are saying, that's a wrong view. It's a correct action...
student: In the West we've kind of assumed...

....with the wrong reason, [laughter].

We've tended to assume that it's an unnatural and psychologically unhealthy
attitude involved in wanting to harm others. Where in other cultures that's not
true at all.

Yeah, it's a very wonderful thing about our culture, I mean our culture has allot
of very good things that we don't notice because we're here.

student: Can I just interject one thing about doing negativities? I was recently at
a thing where someone said they had done these logical studies where they
study your bio chemistry. Like one big negative though, like watching someone
being killed in a movie now they can measure the bloodstream that the chemical
imbalance lasts for about thirty days.

Kids must get allot. Actually, I'm gonna change this, okay, this is the list an that's
how they present it. That's how we are supposed to present it. And then at the
end you say, you know, you don't have these things.

student: How could an animal incur allot of positive karma?

It's a great question, it's a very good question, and, and the perception of animals
by Westerners and the reality of the animal realm are two different thing. I
mean, we kind of see them as cute, you know, the mommy cows are liking their
baby cows and dolphins have been knows to help people come up to shore, and
you know it's a neat.... But the Buddhist description of how an animal lives, is in
total constant terror and looking over their shoulder, because any moment they
could be eaten be another animal. I mean, every moment of their life is spent in
concern about danger and they have, they have no intellectual equipment to do
much about it except react in an animal way. So they say, "The animal realm is
one long bad dream, that, that you, pet dogs, okay, but the vast majority of
animals, meaning insects also, creatures in the ocean. Their life revolve around
not getting eaten by another animal. Not getting killed by another animal, and
trying to kill the littler ones and it really is, it's a food chain. And, and that's the
Buddhist description of the animal realm. And how you get out of it, total sheer
accident, you know, maybe you get killed earlier on in your life span and you
wear off the karma that you had of having hurt someone. You see there are
stories of flies that land on cowpies and get washed down hillsides and circle
around a temple or something, laughter.

student: But why does that get them merit? Why is that a holy object, why is
circumambulating..

Because the place is holy, just to be around the place, just to be near the place. A
dog pleases a high Lama, the Dalai Lama has a lap dog. You know it's not any
intention by the person or by the animal, it's by the, the vast power of the
person that's he's pleasing. it's one way to create a powerful karma.

student: But what about karma?

And they say that you and I a re probably here by the same reason, you know.
Like for some reason we pleased a great Lama. Like it was not that in your past
life we were do smart as to do so many great things to get here. But it was like,
you know, we gas station attendant to a Dalai Lama car or something and we
thought boy he looks great. Yeah it's like something very powerful reached us
and we did something good by accident, towards them. But that's, the power of
the object creates the karma. The object creates the karma.

student: But that's about karma, what about the fact that you have to leave your
idle karma.

What do you mean, you have to leave your idle karma?

student: You know, you say by sheer accident, but what about the fact that you
know, because you're in the animal realm, you have eaten other animals and
you accumulate the karma. You know, it's like...

Yeah, So that's why Mark said, "Well, how the heck do you get out of the animal
realm?" It's very rare , extremely rare. They say, "If you threw an inner tube in
the ocean and there was a bind turtle living at the bottom and every five
hundred years he came up fro breath, and, he stuck his head up through the
inter, inner tube, it would be about that frequent. [laughter], Something like that,
that's the odds. That's why I believe that euthanasia is a stupid idea, the odds of
going down are infinite, the odds of suffering badly the second after you die are,
are extremely great.

students: So those are the odds of going down, what are the odds of going up
Michael, we're talking about infinity.'

But the ratio of good thought to bad thoughts in your present mind is, is...

student: But then you do exhaust bad karma.

If you didn't you wouldn't be here. Just by suffering, you exhaust it. You wear it
out.

student: But Michael, what's to say that the person, you're saying that that's an
argument about euthanasia, but what's to say that, what, how would their mind
necessarily improve over...]

My father was dying and we had a meeting, and he was terminal, we'd tell him
he was doing good and we'd go in a room and we'd say, "Well, should we kill
him or not? No, I don't mean should we kill him, but , "Should we turn off
everything and I said, but if you think about it, the odds are quite great that we
will go down into worse suffering then the worse suffering that you can imagine
here, that any given person would, i can't judge him, I mean I have no idea.

student: But the odds wouldn't change.

Yeah, but it would happen later instead of now, I mean if you had a choice
between throwing your father into a fire pit now, or waiting a couple of hours
to .....

student: There's carnage going on upstairs [banging]

You know what I mean, if you delay it for a month would you do that?

student: Not because it would change his odds.

No, we can't change his odds, but you have a choice between pushing him in
now or pushing him in later, if you had a choice between that, let him have some
time out of it.

student: But Michael what about the karma of...

It's a very, to me, and I don't expect you to except it, okay, but to me with my
knowledge of the scriptures, it's crazy to talk about euthanasia, because that
person will most likely go to hell.

student: That person who does it to the person?

No, anyone, anyone who dies, the odds are supposed to be very, very great
that we will go down to great suffering, so don't kill him, I mean, let him live a
few months of this life, it's better.

student: Is that really true, I mean I have a problem with that.

No, the do, is it my present project to convince you of it? No.

student: I'm not even talking about that, I mean, this is really blood shedding.

student: What should we do? [dogs barking]

Yeah, I'll take care of that. [cut]

student: Okay, it's like okay these people are gonna die, are gonna go to hell and
all of this...

Yeah, it's very depressing.

student:    And I mean, you're talking about by chance happening to do
something good for the Dalai Lama, Now, what about the people in the room
who are going to classes or try to do something, I mean, what kind of karma, it
seems like an imbalance, like what Nina was saying, like, you know, the smallest
bad thought that you have is terrible because it's going to accumulate over time
and well what about all the good thing that you're trying to do? Even though
you're not a perfect practitioner, but at what point do you start to climb the
ladder of getting out of hell in your next life, because it's always, you know,
you're gonna go to hell, you practice this you're gonna go, you're gonna do it
wrong, you're gonna go to hell, you know.

It's not like the Christian thing where "You gotta go to hell, you gotta go to
hell", ..

students: It's seems like it, it seems like it, [laughter].

It's not meant to scare you, it's true, it really is true.
students: [laughter] I want to see some points, what kind of karma do you get
out of sitting and listening.....

The Kadampa Geshes...

student: Listening and trying to absorb what you can? I mean what kind of
karma do you get out of that?

The Kadampa Geshes... Oh no, wonderful karma.

students: [laughter]

student: But it's not enough.

The Kadampas used to sit with a bag of black rocks and white rocks and the
Kadampas sat in caves and all they did was think about, then every time they
had a black rock they would take it out and put it on the left side and then every
time they'd take out a white rock and put it on the right side and they would
spend their meditations like that. You know every time they had a good
thought they would put it on the right side and they actually did that. And then
at the end of the day, they would look you know, the two piles, and if the black
pile is bigger you probably are gonna have a bad rebirth, you know.

student: You know, it's like the seeds, the [unclear] thing, the hand reaching
over the back to pick out the black seeds and the white seeds for your next life,
but is there anything that overcomes that? Is there any virtue that you get by
just hearing it that you . know what I mean?

Oh, what's the point at which you actually, knowledge.

student: I mean, is it only the result of these situations that you put yourself in is
only how much you have absorbed all of this or that you've tried, I mean is there
anything with the motivation that can be...

Oh, no, trying counts, but it's absolutely un, un godly in the sense that there is no
sense of pity or mercy...

student: Redemption.
It's, you, whatever you do , you will get the result. It's just the, it's just a like
gravity, it's a law..

student: It increases also.

You know, I suffer, I have a really bad times, I have chaotic times, and I feel like,
well, I've been trying so hard and I've been trying to do everything right, you
know, all these years and I feel like there's no justice or something, and then you
can't, if you understand emptiness, you cannot deny that this is how I perceive
things and when I commit a bad deed now, it's with the knowledge that I must
perceive some suffering in the future because of that deed. And it's just when
the knowledge gets heavier then the habit and that's, they say that, that comes
from learning in a class or through a book. In a qualified situation, thinking
about it, then trying to change, yeah. That is the process.

student: So it really is in the result then I mean it really depends on you in term
of how you think and how you act.

Yeah, there's no way out of it.

student: But that's contradictory, because if you can circumambulate around a
temple and get karma...

You can, you can.

student: No, that doesn't make sense, because that fly is not thinking at that
moment.

No, there's four elements to karma, intention is only one of them. And karma is
very similar to the laws of criminal court, you know, if you kill a man
accidentally, you still create bad karma, terrible bad karma.

student: What are the four elements of karma?

We had a long class on it once in Kay Merrick's house.

student: Are we going to be talking in depth about karma?

Yeah, not in this class, but in the next one. Basically, you have to have intention
to do it, then you have to prepare to do it, that means all the actions that you
take up to the point that you actually do it, which is number three. And then
you have to, after you do it you have to perceive and recognize and not feel
regret about doing it. So it's intention, preparation, commission and finalizing it.
And all four of those have to be there, to complete what's called is a complete,
{ley kyi lam], which is in the fourth chapter of the [b: Abbhidarmakosha}. You
can have a complete, you can have a {ngushi} if you kill someone by accident but
you don't have the other three, you don't want to, you didn't prepare to and you
weren't glad that you did it and other things can go on, like that. For example, if
you try to shot Reagan and you get Brady instead, part of the {ngushi} is not
there. You didn't actually kill Reagan. No {ngushi} complete, and afterward you
didn't, if you thought you killed him, you have finalization. So that's a long, we
can't do it or we won't get home.

student: Michael...

Is it meant to scare you? Yes. It can free you, the truth of it can free you, you
don't have to take it negatively, you can say, "The truth of it is, what ever I make
myself, I will have to experience that result." So you don't have to take it as a
negative thing, you can take it as, well that means, if I truly try to serve
humanity, I cannot experience a bad result, even though at times that will fail
because of my past karma. If I truly try to serve the people around me, if I truly
try to care and love the people around me, there's no way I can have a bad
result. Although I can have failures in the actual attempt to care for people,
because of your past karma.

student: And also because maybe you won't know necessarily what's caring for
them, because you might be thinking that you're doing something good for
them, but you might really be doing do something bad for them.

That's where, you wouldn't have a {ngushi}.

student: Michael, I have a question...

You, you, that's the old argument that maybe the kid you're helping will be the
Hitler twenty years from now, or whatever. You can't live like that, you' can't do
that, I mean you have to do what is best according to your present knowledge.

student: Yeah, so you might be doing something bad.

You might be, but, but that's not a reason not to do it. that's illogical. What
should you do kill the person in case he's the next Hitler? [laughter]

student: Well, no, but should you go around giving money to every person on
the street, because they need money.

What if the next beggar you met on the street was your mother and she had a
disguise on what would you do? What if you found your mother on the street?
What would you do?

student: Yeah, but that's what I mean, because sometimes I give money to
beggars on the street and they are just complete lazy bums and they want to go
buy alcohol and you are not helping them. Sometimes it might be your mother
and she's really in distressed, what would you do for her?

student: Yeah, but sometimes it's really helping someone to make them go
through a hard time, and sometimes it's helping them to get them over it to be...

Oh no, you've got to be common sense also, I mean if the guy looks like he's
alcoholic, and he's asking for money and you give him a roll and he throws it in
the garbage, which I've seen on this corner..

student: Yeah, but if you bought him a bottle of wine you would do him a favor.

[laughter] it's all four, it's all four. Okay we gotta go on or you'll be here all
night. Oh, craving spirit, craving spirits you can't see. Buddhism says they exist,
they are used as an example of something that you, that we can't prove.

student: Is that a hungry ghost.

Yeah, what you call a hungry ghost.

student: We can't prove, do you mean that through Buddhist logic we can't
prove them.

Probably ultimately, we could, but I don't ask you to believe that these things
exist because I can't show you one right now. They do, they are supposed to
exist, but how we prove them is another story, but, you haven't that hasn't
happened to you. There are supposed to be ghosts, ghost like spirit like beings,
that we can't se with our normal vision that exist around us and because of their
greed in their past life they are born in some kind of suffering state where even
if they see a nice cup of tea and they are dying of thirst, to them it looks like
blood, or it looks like pus or something. And we studied it in emptiness, we
studied it in Mahdyumika and, and it's a long story, why that's possible, I don't
ask you to accept it, but if you don't, don't worry about it.

student: So what was most likely our past life then? If we are here?

Very virtuous, very, very, very virtuous.

student: Like as perhaps a human?

Possibly, the human realm is the best realm in which to do something good. The
higher realms, if they exist and I can't show you them, they're, they're having
such a good time that they're just using up their past good deeds. Normally
when you're having too good of a time you're not worried about having too god
of a time to fix it.

student: Saying that you're using you're good karma and you're in one of those
godly realms and you go to the hells, is it possible to use part of it a and fall to
the human birth.

Yeah, it is, it is possible, the Buddha does teach in those realms. Supposed to be.
Born in hell, it's a very bad realm for teaching : Because every one is having such
a good time so why care. Born in hell, the Buddha describes in his teaching
describes a hot hell and a cold hell. Every single, there's no pain on earth which
is, which is as painful as the slightest pain in those places. There are other minor
hell around it where you are slashed or smashed or beaten. And time slows
down in hell, so one day in hell could be equal to hundreds of years, thousands
of years in the human realm, perceptually.

student: It's equivalent to a really long rebirth, is that what you are saying.
Yeah, time wise, it feels like a very long time and it is a long time and it feels like
a very long time. Okay, you perceive it as a very long time. Can't prove to you
that they exist. They are extremely similar to the descriptions given by Dante
and ... I mean almost the same. I can't prove to you that they exist, but if you
study emptiness for a long time and then you study karma for a long time, you
can't establish that they are actually there. Ninety percent of humans supposedly
go there, or more and You know, I don't ask you to believe it. Study, you'll
study, study for a long time And I'm not trying to say anything that's not a
description. Is it true? Should you accept it now? Just consider it. You know, it's
in the scripture. Consider it a point that you'd like to do {chegom} about.
{Chegom} means, "I'm going to analyze this and check out whether it's true or
not as I gain more data.

student: Preferably not the first time.

No teachings, you are born in a place where nobody ever heard of Buddhism
and no teachers, no books, no tradition, no nothing.

student: Detroit.

No, I would say, to be born in America is, I would say the teaching are here in a
sense. It's interesting, it's in the eighth chapter of the [b: Abbhisamayalankara],
for example, if someone is teaching that you shouldn't kill, that is the activity of
the Buddha. You know, if a Christian minister gets up on the pulpit and says,
"You shouldn't kill other people." That's the activity of the Buddha.

student: But it's not a Buddha though.

I'm not saying that.

student: It's Buddhas teaching.

That's Buddhist activity, that is the activity of the Buddha.

student: So it could be any teaching on morality.

Is it complete, No. Will it work by itself? No.

student: But Michael here you are referring to a..

I mean, non Buddhist teachings.

student: Like I mean, not, I mean we do have Christianity and Judaism, you're
not referring to that though?

I'd say they are very, very close, technically speaking, they are not the teaching
of the Buddha, technically speaking they are the activity of the Buddha, okay.
They are virtuous, they are good. Is it Buddhism? Technically, if it doesn't have
{Lam tso nam sum}, if it doesn't have those three ideas in it, disgust with this life,
bodhichitta or some kind of compassion and then lack of a self. But it's, I'd say
that if you are born in a country where they are teaching the ten
commandments, it's a it's a very good situation, it's a nice situation, very nice.
Okay.

student: [unclear]

We say that, yeah.

student: [unclear]

[laughter] No, he's collecting bad karma from that, you are constantly collecting
good karma and bad karma together, you see, you are never really clearly one
or the other in your state of mind, everything we do is mixed. And there is that
principle. Uncivilized, that's what they call it, [lalo], and it means, "nobody is
keeping the eight types of vowed morality" That custom has not reached that
country and it's not considered, it's not considered civilization. That's when,
when the monks are holding their, confession ceremony every two weeks, when
there is enough monks to hold that ceremony which can be four or five, then
they say that Buddhism has reached that country. So it's very nice, We have the,
I think it's the only, I'm not sure, but I think it's the only Sojong going on in this
country is down in New Jersey every two weeks, So they say that's if it's, and
Nyamgyal two, so two now. So if, if those vowed moralities, if those two types
of vows are being kept by anyone in that area then they say Buddhism has
reached that area.

student: What about the nuns Michael?

There are four of the eight.

student: What about the nuns

Same thing, Gelongma, Getstulma.

student: there's more than [unclear]

No they have to be doing g this special ceremony together. They can do it, a
certain number of nuns can do it.

student: What are the eight moralities?
{Tibetan...] which means, one day vow, layman's vow, lifetime layman's vow for
a woman, lifetime layman's vow for a man, novice man, novice woman,
intermediate nun, full nun and full monk, is that it? You don't need to know that,
later, that's one of the five books. Seven is, it means that you're born as a human,
but you can't receive the teachings, you can't practice them. Something wrong
with you physically or something wrong with you mentally. You don't have the,
and you don't have to be a genius, but this is just referring to people who are too
stupid that some one could explain to them why they shouldn't kill and why they
shouldn't steal. [cut]

It's a sensual paradise, mostly, except if you were born in a formless realm.

student: Why if you karma was good and you were born as a pleasure being,
you are born in a place where it's a dead end for moving into [unclear]. It seems
like you would be able to be reborn in a situation where you could complete the
path.

Yeah, they say that bodhisattvas, they say that, "To be born in that place, they
might as well be born in hell." They say, they treat is as a very disastrous birth, if
you are too happy.

student: So then once you exhaust your positive karma you go way down don't
you?
It's the, the, the flow chart from those realms is to hell and there's a tiny little side
port to the human realm, they, the vast, almost all people in the pleasure realms
go to the hells because they totally use up all their good karma just by being
there.

student: So it's not good just to have some good karma, you need to sort of go
past the other.

If you do dedication, if you do dedication your karma doesn't get blown out on,
you don't waste your poker chips on something useless. Okay, that's what
dedication is for.

student: So you should be, it should be pleasure beings.

student: Yeah, why does it say, "not. "
I'm sorry, you're right, I've been messing you up, I had a hard day. [laughter]

student: [unclear]

Yeah, would you like to turn on that thing and, oh, there's soup in               the
refrigerator, can you put it on.

student: Sure.

student: Excuse me, Michael.

Yes.

student: [unclear]

I'm listening.

student: the one thing about karma, the one sort of objection that I can come up
with is where does purification fit in? I mean we hear a great deal about
purification or with purification practices you are supposed to be able to purify
your negative karma. If that's the case and if you are doing purification practices
on a regular basis, how are you accumulating so much bad karma that you're
gonna end up in hell?

No, if you are doing purification properly, you won't.

student: That's an important qualification, especially in answer to Faiths', you
know.

No, it is. But what does it mean to be doing purification properly, what is the
result of that purification?

student: Theoretically the result is developing an entirely, , let's put it this way,
taking another step at, [unclear], in terms of spiritual progress.

Yeah, like pretty much avoiding doing that thing again.

student: Well, it's a process.

Yeah, I mean in stages, but taking a big leap towards not doing that sort of
activity again. As a result of a single days purification ceremony or over a few
months say, that you start to eradicate that behavior within yourself. And what
I'm saying is that in the majority of people who do purification practices, do
them without much fervor and without much result and they just cruise on and
in that case you haven't completed the purification practice.

student: So what is the proper way to do purification?

I mean, we went through the four powers, right. That's a long story, that would
be a whole class in itself, but basically, to understand why it's wrong and to clean
it out, to make some, take some, make some battle plans, in business they have
some nice..

student: Contingency.

Action plan., action plan not to do it again or at least to cut it down. So okay, it's
four days until you do it again and not three days. And if you keep doing that,
purification takes hold because that's, you're not doing it anymore tomorrow.
After awhile, I don't say after the first purification. If you're doing a wimpy
purification ceremony, the results will be wimpy and the purification will be
wimpy, it's not just enough to sit down and recite Vajrasattva or something, it's
not, that's not purification. It doesn't work.

student: The purification is a confession.

Four powers, yeah, I, my Lama prefers the word purification to confession,
although if you understand what confession means in Buddhism, that, you
know, you can use any word you want.

student: Could you explain what the eight ways of lacking opportunity, what
does that mean?

Those are , those are eight, those are eight lousy situation that you could be in
where you don't have any opportunity to practice Dharma. And you don't have
those eight, you got out of those eight and that's the definition of what most
people translate as leisure or opportunity.

student: So this doesn't go back to "Take the essence" or anything like that?

Yeah, where are we? What section are we in?
student: How to practice.

How to practice and inside of how to practice what section are we in?

student: Learning how to take the essence.

That's number, that's the second part, but we didn't get to the first part, what was
the first part?

start: [unclear]

He's urging you, he says, "Do something."

student: This is part of the first part?

Yeah, yeah, that verse is part of the first part where he says, "Look, look, where
you are, look at the rare window of opportunity that you have, do
something." [laughs] Do something with it. Okay.

students: [unclear]

It's supposed to be very good to be born as a human because you've got just the
right spice of suffering and type. Okay, just the right mix of suffering and times
where you are not suffering. Excuse me? It means that enough screwy things
happen during the day and you try to, you try to reach some spiritual state
beyond this. But not so much pain as in the hell that you are incapable of
framing a thought, a straight thought. People in hell can't practice Dharma
because they can never frame a thought beyond the emotion of suffering and
pain. They can't think a straight thought, they are incapable of framing a straight
thought. So we have a we have a nice dose of suffering but we also have
moments of lucidity to do something about it.

student: Is, "born as a human" part of "urge to take the essence"?

Yeah, we are still talking about that. We're explaining why, why it's such a
precious opportunity. These are gonna be positive. This is the same as what we
talked about before, the opposite of what we talked about before, you could say
civilized land. What's that mean? What's that ?
student: [unclear]

No, most people, most books, I don't think they, I don't think there is a scripture
that says it. It doesn't mean where teaching are, it means, where someone is
keeping one of the eight kinds of vowed morality. Okay, it's a difference
between not killing because you don't feel like it, and not killing because you
took a lifetime vow not to do it.

student: You just need one person?

Technically, good question. According to tradition, you need enough monks or
nuns to do a confession ceremony, in that country. Faculties intact means you
can hear, you can see you can think. You know, you meet, I remember my
younger brother, he was a very bad student for many years, in school, and then
they figured out that he couldn't see the black board and then they gave him eye
glasses and then he was okay. So it's like that, if you have on of those severe
difficulties that prevents you from learning Buddhism, then it's okay. That's
faculties not intact. We have out faculties intact, we will loose them, everyone
does. [laughter] I mean, that's the window of opportunity, it opens and it shuts,
you will loose your hearing and you will loose your sight, you won't be able to
see straight you won't be able to think straight, so you have to do it now. You
have to do something now. The big five are; killing your father, killing your
mother, trying to hurt the Buddha, because you can't, killing an Arhat

student: And a bodhisattva.

I don't think so, killing an Arhat, {drachom sepa}, kill someone who has reached
nirvana and try to split up the monks, actually split up the monks, succeed in
splitting up the minks during the Buddhas time. While the Buddha is present on
the earth.

student: What does that mean?

It means we can't do a full fledged number five of the big five, no, good luck,
[laughter]. Okay, it's impossible for any of us to commit number five in nineteen
ninety four.

student: How do you know?

No, I mean the traditional occurrence of the Buddha in His traditional form, who
collects together a bunch of monks and then someone comes in while the
Buddha is away and manages to break them into two groups that don't get
along anymore.

student: So this isn't the same.

That's number five, and you can't do it, in the present, you can only do four of
these, in fact you can ....

student: You can't hurt the Buddha?

You can't hurt the Buddha either.

student: What is the formal name of these five? What is the title of these five.

{Tibetan}, which means, uninterrupted five. Uninterrupted? That's why I didn't
write that. Uninterrupted means that there will be no, you won't take any other
kind of birth between this life and a life in the lowest hell. Okay in other words,
you could call it immediate bad deeds, immediate sin. I usually translate it as
immediate. Immediate, meaning "no medium". Nothing in between, the
moment you die you go to the lowest hell. And that's from killing your father,
killing your mother or, or one of those other deeds. And then there's ...

student: What was the number five?

Trying to hurt a Buddha. And we can't commit two of them, right now, in
nineteen ninety four.

student: Why?

The traditional Buddha in his normal {chokyi trulku} form. You know, in
ancient, India, in five hundred BC . He's not here so we can't hurt him and we
can't cause a division of his direct followers, during his lifetime. Only one person
has ever done it and he collected that bad deed.

student: Who?

What's his name? Devadatta? Yeah I think so, {hle jin}, yeah. Didn't do the big
five, and the last one is... Those are the five that relate to you and now there's
the five that relate to the outside and you'll see why. Okay, got it?
student: Are these to be numbered five and five or five and then six to ten?

You should really treat then, you're right it should be the five and then six to ten.

student: And is that born in a world, or what?

Yeah, yeah, you see, the first five are kind of what you did right, and the second
five are conditions of the world that you are in a sense. They kind of relate to
the environment or the outside of you. So in general this world is a place where
a Buddha has come.

student: So born into a world.

student: So, is there definitely no Buddha here now?

You could all be Buddhas, I know I'm not a Buddha, but as far as I know, you
could all be Buddhas.

student: But you just said that we can't try to hurt the Buddha.

That's the traditional way of explaining it. And that's why I kept saying in His
traditional form, five hundred BC. I mean, in , in logically speaking, anyone here
could be a Buddha or you could all be Buddhas, I have no idea, I really have no
idea, I'm not.

student: You could be just saying that.

I could be just saying that, but I'm really not. [laughter], and I wouldn't lie about
it. [laughter] I think so.

student: unclear

student: Well I was told otherwise.

student: What would be the point of him coming to the world and not teaching?

Yeah , that's true, but remember the first few weeks of his career as a Buddha, he
felt, traditionally, he felt that no one could understand what he had understood
and he did not teach, for the first seven or so weeks of his career.
student But I thought it had something to do with actually, the, people having
to experience the desire, to recognize his help...

Well that's also why it's explained that he pretended to die, according to
Mahayana. N one asked him to stay. In fact that was one of the great sins of
one of his disciples is that he neglected to ask him to stay and so he passed. But
that's a long story and it would take me a long time to explain it. I'm really
trying to be good about not keeping to the... Where what he has taught is
practiced, okay, so they kind of flow from each other. Where people actually try
to do it. As I meantioned in the last page of the [b: Abbhidharmakosha], and it's
fun, cause you've been studying for ten years and it's kind of neat. He says, "The
sun of Buddhism is setting in this planet and the first thing to go is the
understanding in people's hearts and then later the books themselves will
disappear." So Buddhism within peoples hearts will die first and then later
Buddhism, the outer book end that, the temples will disappear and he gives a,
you know, he says, it must happen it will happen, it will die in this world and it's
just a matter of so many years.

student: And when it dies will something better be in it's place?

No, no. there will just be a period of blackness.

student: And then?

{laughs] That's third chapter [b: Abbhidharmakosha] year number five.

student: But there's gonna be a thousand Buddhas? No?

Month number six.

student: What does "this world" mean though? The earth or our solar system or
what?

The earth, no the earth, this earth or this planet. The other planets are working
on their own schedule and that's in the Abbhidharma too.

student: So where will people who have good karma go to study?

Born on another planet, according to the Abbhidharma which is correct, is
supposed to be correct.

student: Is Shambala mentioned in the Abbhidharma?

No. I, I made a mistake here, scratch that.

student: Oh boy.

student: What's the difference between the too?

That would be I guess {lung dang topay chu mi lawa}, means Buddhism as it
exists in peoples minds and as it exists in the books has not been lost. So he
spoke and what he spoke hasn't been lost yet. We've lost about ninety nine
percent of what this current Buddha taught and we know it, we know it from,
you can actually ask a computer and figure it out, it's very interesting. Surf
around the computer and figure it out.

student: Yeah, but if you know it, then don't what the truth was.

Excuse me?

student: If you know what you lost then don't you know actually what you are
supposed to use?

Like we actually know the names of the books that have been lost, like in the [b:
Abbhidharmakosha]] there's I think seven great books. I think most of them
were lost. Where what was taught is being practiced I should say.

student: [unclear]

Yeah that's true, or so much that you can't practice, where you don't have all of
the Lam Rim s. As long as you've got all the Lam Rims things are okay, you've
got all the steps. And where people who want to practice are in a condition to
practice, that's not, that's pretty shaky right now, but I would say, I always say,
"If you are in America and you can't make a living and if you can't do something
to feed yourself on a minimal level, it's, mostly you can do it. It's not sure, if
your karma is not that, you will have trouble. But Buddha said, "If a person who
is truly practicing and he can't find anything to eat then I, I ", what did he say? "I
reject the state of Buddhism, then Buddhism is not, then I reject my own reality."
student: Yeah, he also said that anybody wearing monks robes, they'd never, as
long as there is anybody wearing robes, monks robes, he said, "They....

Yeah he said, this is about....

students: He said that they would never be with out food, he said that they
would just simply never, ever be without food.

Yeah, who ever is trying to practice.

student: Michael, if we've said that we've lost nine, ninety nine percent of the
Buddhist teachings, how do we know that enough remains to work?

Nagarjuna said so, Chandrakirti said so.

student: Yeah, but we've lost allot since then.

Guna Prabha said so and Je Tsongkapa said so.

student: Yeah, but that's five hundred years ago.

Yeah, but not so much that we can practice, not for the Lam rims. As long as the
Lam rim is complete, then we have enough.

student: Yeah, but how do we know that it's complete?

Je Tsongkapa said so and...

student: Yeah, but my point is that that was five hundred years ago and it's five
hundred years later.

Yeah, but he is writing based on Nagarjuna and that was two hundred AD.
Nagarjuna said everything was okay. Between Nagarjuna and Je Tsongkapa,
something lost, not enough.

student: No, I'm talking about between Je Tsongkapa and now.

No, I can, just physically they haven't been lost, pretty good. I can tell you
what's been lost, We have a meeting with Dr. Shen tomorrow to give him a list.
[laugh] Okay, have some...
[cut]

To the next division which is? What's the next one?

students: Practice? Asking for help? How to take the essence?

Yeah, how to get the most, how to make your life meaningful. How to get
something, how to make use of the precious life that you've finally arranged. So
but that first part he saying, "Look, get your act together, this is precious, make
some use of it."

student: Could you repeat that? It was pretty noisy. [laughter]

It's before in the last verse, I should really tell you which verse, I don't know the
English. {Lenchik kyepay dewey tensang di}, this life...

student: Bless me first to realize...

Yeah, "Bless me first to realize" great. That was the verse where he was urging
you to, to do something with you life, to get the most out of this life. And then
the next two verses, which are actually one verse, they are eight lines but one
thought. They begin "How to get the essence out of this life, how to take the
most out of this life. And getting, the actual learning how to take the essence out
of this human life is these three steps. It goes in these three step, So when you're
doing your {shargom}, you'll be going through these. Who's is that? Is that
yours?

student: Thank you.

student: Is there a short word here that these are the subdivision of?

Yeah, how to, how take the essence. These are the divisions of how to take the
essence.

student: This is not a division for request to help in practice?

That comes much, much later.

student: But we're still in how to practice and purify the mind.
Good question. If you didn't catch her question, you're lost. She said, "Are we in
requesting how to get to do something?" No, we are still in how, how to
practice, how to purify yourself, and those are the three divisions and we'll talk
about, we're gonna cover the first one, because we don't have much time and
we're gonna cover the first one in the next five minutes.

student: I'm still lost, I'm sorry.

Okay, like this. The whole Lam Rim divides into finding a teacher and then how
to purify yourself after you've found your teacher. How to purity yourself after
you find your teacher is divided into him urging you to get the most out life and
how to get the most of life.

student: [unclear]

Yeah, these are the divisions about how to get the most out of your life.

student: Okay, that clarifies it.

And there will be three sets of instructions, the first set is what we call for small
capacity people and then medium capacity people and then great capacity
people. Tonight all we're gonna cover is the first. It's very easy and there's only
two parts.

student: Are we one the right side, wait, [laughter]

And what the text at this point says, is {Lu sok yowa chu yi chu bur shin, nyur du
jikpey chi wa drenpa dang, shiwey jesu ludand dripma shin, karnak lendre ji shin
drangwa la, nye pey tenpo nge nye nye pey tsok trashing trawa nyamkang
pongwa dang. getstok tak tu bak dang denpar dang, dak tu bak dang denpar
jing gyi lob} Which means, {Lu sok yowa chu yi chu bur shin}, "life is like a
bubble in the ocean", it's in your text, you can read it. {Nyur du jikpay chi wa
drenpa dang}, "Bless me to remember how quickly I'm going to die." {Shiwey
jesu lu dang dripma shin} "And then after I die, like my shadow". {Karnak lendre
jishin drangwa la}, "Good and bad karma will follow me." {Nye pey tenpo nge
nye ne pey tsok}, "Let me really believe it, let me perceive that it's true".
{Trashing trawa nyamkang pongwa dang} "Let me give up therefore any even
minor bad deeds." Even minor thoughts of not liking someone else and let me
try to collect even those minor good deeds, like being happy that someone at
work had a good day, and bless me to get those feelings. {Dak tu bak dang
denpar jingyi lob}, "Let me be mindful of these things, Bless me to keep mindful
of these things. That's the whole, small capacity persons meditation. And it's
very good if you can memorize the text. This is the shortest Lam Rim in
existence and it's not much to memorize it. Memorize it if you would like to do a
good meditation for the next six months, take the time.

student: Can you also bring in the theory of rebirth in the lower realms?

It's coming. So we'll talk about two of his concepts tonight. One of them is
death, death meditation. And we're doing it Friday night I'll just tell you briefly
two things.

student: Not tomorrow?

Not tomorrow night, next week. I'll go over the schedule again after class.
Death meditation, means I am going to die today. You get up in the morning
and you say, "I am going to die today.

student: This is number one.

These are now I am not doing a formal outline anymore, just giving you some of
the concepts that a small capacity person has to meditate on. And death
meditation has four parts, which you should know, I'm sorry three parts, only
three. Very simply the first one is, "I must die".

student: I thought you said it was we get up and we say we are going to die
today?

That's actually how you do the death meditation but there is three parts to it.
The first is that, "I must die". You must meditate on that, "I must die". No one
has ever survived life, okay, you must die. Number two is, "I have no idea
when."

student: When.

When, "I have no idea when." And third is when I die the only thing that can
possibly help me is my practice. She's going to die after class, it's definite.
[laughter]
student: Do a confession. [laughter]

No, I'm just kidding

student: By practice, you mean the good things you do every day?

Oh yeah, any good you do will help you when you die. And there's this thing in
the Lam rim there's a beautiful meditation, you're relatives start lying to you,
"Oh, you're gonna be alright, you know. And the doctors are saying to the
relatives that you are going to die within the next few days and the Doctor is
telling you, " Well, people have survived lung cancer, you know, it's not out of
the question." And then the whole process when as you die, the, I, I think in the
west you would call it the electricity in your mind but here we call it the four
elements. And elements, they don't think that there is some chemical that no
one has ever found with a microscope called, "earth."                    In the [b:
Abbhidharmakosha] when you get to study the four elements, they are quite
scientifically correct. They are kinds of energy. Motility, the fact that things
move is air. The fast that things have solidity, the energy which makes a body
solid is earth. And they are not. They are defined by their functions and not by,
"There's more dirt in this than water, it's not like that. They are no so stupid,
they are actually quite sophisticated and then what happens as you die is that
those four energies start to go wild and they start to collapse like dominoes and
one triggers the dissolution of the next and then your mind goes through these
hallucinations. They cause, the, the connection between the physical nerves and
your mind, as the physical part starts to break down, your mind starts to have
hallucinations, terror hallucinations, so at that point there is nothing else that can
help you than ingrained attitudes, deeply ingrained practices that you've done
through your life. The rest, anything that's on the surface, shallow....     Only the
deeply ingrained parts of your practice can help you.

student: Well, what's the quality associated with fire and water?

Fire is the quality of heat and it functions to, [unclear], and water is wetness.
[laughs]. Wetness and fluidity is water and fire is heat and the quality of burning,
long story. So look what is the natural conclusion if I tell you look, you've got to
die, secondly, it could be tonight, we didn't know. Thirdly, the only thing that
can possibly help you is some Buddhist learning that you've had and practice.
What would be the natural thing to conclude from that?

student: Practice, [laughter]
And that's exactly what death meditation is about, practice, if you do, it should
be. If you do it, you should just naturally think, well, I better get off my ass and
do something.
student: SO you get up and you say, "Well I'm gonna die today." And then
what?

That's it, I don't know when and, and the only thing that can help me is my
practice. They are within the three sections, three meditations, they are in the
little yellow book if you want. I'm not gonna go through them. Okay, one more
thing and then I'll stop. What happens after you die? Now you have to know
the four principals of karma. The people from the first course already had them,
they probably forgot them, as did I.

student: The four principals of karma?

How karma works. If you basically understand that and you understand how
karma works you pretty much got the meditation of the small capacity person.

student: Is this the things that you mentioned before?

No, that's how to commit a full karma. Now we are gonna talk about the four
principals of karma. What is it? Karma, [Ley pelchewa}. I'm sorry, {Ley ngepa}.

student: Is that , inevitable?

Yeah, and I don't like that translation. And I'll tell you why.

student: Immutable?

You can say anything you want, but what it means is this, what does it mean
really?

student: That it's a law, it, it works invariably.

It doesn't mean that. Explain further and I'll accept.

student: It's invariable in the sense that, it's, it's a good action is bound always to
produce good results and bad actions are always bound to produce bad results.
That's precisely the meaning of this first one, it is the only meaning of the first
one. It's fixed in the sense that. In fact we have been debating down in New
Jersey, the concept of unreality and reality. And this is actually one of the
examples, the classic example of reality is that if you do something harmful you
will have pain and I can explain it to you perfectly when we study emptiness a
little bit. I don't know if I told you this story. I had a Baptist and a Catholic in a
cabin with me for one whole day. And at the end of the, two days, and at the
end of the two days, with out mentioning the word Buddhism and without
mentioning the word karma, they accepted these four and they started doing
Sojaong, purification. So karma is fixed, in the sense that if you d o something
good you must get a good result and if you do something bad you must suffer,
period. What' the second one?

students: The result grows, it gets bigger.

Okay, {ley pelchewa}.

student: Is that both for bad and good?

student: Karma gets bigger? Why?

What does it mean.

students: You do something... The result increases.

The meaning of a karma is a mental seed and all physical seeds have the quality
of expanding exponentially. It's from one walnut that an oak tree grew,
[laughter]. And I told this story, people know this story when I thought about it.
The huge oak trees where I live, they fell down on the temple one. They sent me
up on the roof in a storm with a chainsaw to cut off the top so it wouldn't smash
into the temple and I was so scared that my legs were shaking and I was
thinking, you know, when this was an acorn, I should have thrown it into the
street. You know, when this tree was an acorn, if I had picked it up and thrown
it into the street, I wouldn't be up here now and I had that real thought, you
know, it's true. There's no reason to think that, that karmic seeds act any
differently than karmic seeds. It's from one concept, I remember my boss, you
know, we used to sit around and saw, you know, "What if we sold five pieces of
jewelry to JC Penneys?" We were on this level, that was a cause. Now we're on,
I don't know, thirty thousand pieces a week. And, but the cause comes from the
first discussion that we ever had. That was a cause. The result is infinitely larger.
You know, New York City came from, you know, well, maybe this place would
be a good place to dig. There's no reason to believe that spiritual things are any
different. They are not. One small virtue has incredible results. The results come
back. They build on each other and they come back strong.

student: So this is true for bad and good?

Yep, yep.

student; Related or unrelated, I've never heard this before, but do plants have
any, life consequence in Buddhism.?

According to Classical Buddhism and not maybe to the ones that have reached
Japan and stuff like that. According to Orthodox, Indian Buddhism, no they are
not alive.     They are building like a crystal builds and they don't have
consciousness according to, they don't have a mind according to. And there
were Hindu schools that believed they did and, and you can find the texts where
they fight it out.

student: But animals do?

Yeah.

student: But plants don't.

No. So we don't have the idea that life is divided into plant and animal. Life is
animals. Okay, what's the next one?

student: If you haven't done it you won't get the consequences.

Was that it?

student: I don't know.

student: ....Be defined, how do you start from a seed and then eliminate all the
bad ones?

The root of it is not knowing these things, and that's why ignorance is the first
link of the twelve links of the Wheel of Life.
student: [unclear]

You told me to teach you so, if you don't get any explanation then you just don't
do anything.

student; Planting a seed.

student: Why do the Tibetans say, do things in the reverse, not, if you do it, you
get it, instead of if you don't do it, you don't get it?

Now, you don't understand number one, what did we say about number one?

student: That good causes follow, good results follow....

Yeah, this is in terms of content. Let's say this is in terms of content, form. This
just means good or bad, if you react you must get a reaction. If you don't act
you can't get a reaction.

student: You're saying it's never lost.

Yeah, that's a better way to put it actually.

student: Yeah, it's consequences are never lost unless you do purification. An
effective purification. It is, it is possible to purify it, no it is possible to purify it.
And I repeat that the main purification involves not doing it much, anymore, I
mean, getting better is the main purification, logically, of course.

student: Resolving not to do it again. So the main part of purification is the
resolution.

It's not only the resolution, but it's carrying out that resolution.

student: So why do you call it purification? Why don't you say, I'm never gonna
do this anymore and you just don't do it.

That is purification.

student: Why do you say the prayers and you do the rituals and you do the
prostrations?
The purpose of the rituals is to formalize your pledge. Yeah, those are the two
main? What's the implication of this? I mean you better clean up your karma.
It's related to death. If you are thinking about death properly what's your next
thought. If you believe you are gonna die tonight what's your next thought?

student: I better do lots of purification and virtue.

Well, not even that. I mean if I, if you're a normal person and you say, "Look,
you're gonna die tonight."

student: You're going to hell.

Well, not even like that, I mean, what's gonna happen to me afterwards. I
mean, "To be or not to be that is the question." That's Hamlet. "Whether it
nobler in the mind to endure the throws of...[laughs]" You know, "Is it better to
stick around or should I just put an end to it?" And what does he decide? He
decides not to commit suicide, you know, "To be or not to be" He decides to be
because he doesn't know what comes next. That's the argument. That's what he
decides. He says, "I'd rather live this quiet life of [unclear], than to get thrown to
somewhere where I don't know how bad it is."

student: So the point is that those are the two main thought of the small scope
person and how they take the essence out of this life.

As expressed in this Lam Rim. She's pretty good, I think we should alternate.
[cut]

We should not accept all these ideas on their face without proof and you don't
have all the proof yet and that's why the course is gonna take awhile. And, and
it's not bad and you shouldn't feel bad if you cannot accept allot of the things that
we said tonight, just take it and consider it and then its up to Buddhism to prove
it and you should demand that. And that's fine. Don't feel like, "Oh, I'm, ..." Don't
feel like lost or something, it will become proven, it just takes time and we don't
have all night.

student: Well, don't die Michael.

There's also some kind of a kind of maturing process that your mind goes
through. there's a mellowing process that can only take some time.
What about the Kalachakra Initiation? Don't you...[cut]
940321-1.aaa
Course III: Applied Meditation