ACI 6 «Сутра Алмазного Огранщика», занятие 4

@Class

Okay. After all these heavy classes I thought you would like a little lighter class.
So [laughs] it gives you a chance to rest your brain. Me too. There's a point in
the sutra next where, you know, the Buddhas has gone through all this heavy
stuff and Subhuti looks at him and [laughs] says, "In the days of the last five
hundred", he says, "In the days of the last five hundred is there going to be
anyone around who still understands all this stuff." You know, "Will there be
anybody who who can still figure out all these things that you've been talking
about? Because it seems pretty ... very difficult, very over everyone's head and
you know, if people nowadays can just barely understand it , what about in the
future when the dharma is starting to decline in the world". Subhuti says, "I can't
imagine that there would be anyone around who could still understand what
you're talking about, you know." And we'll we'll talk about the answer later.
Okay. I'll put you in suspense. All right. And then Kamalashila in particular
begins to speculate about what does the last of the last five hundred mean. And
then they ... he's checked all these sutras and he's come up with what it means.
And it it relates to the decline of dharma in the world. You know, how is it ...
how will it happen that the dharma dies out in this world and then Choney
Drakpa Shedrup in his commentary to the [b: Abhidharmakosha] he also
discusses that. So I thought that you might be interested about the discussions
about the end of the dharma in the world. I mean the Buddha predicted that his
own teachings would die out in this planet and particularly Vasubandu at the end
of the [b: Abhidarmakosha] in the last chapter, he he talks about the end of the
dharma in the world. To understand how the dharma will end you need the two
the two kinds of dharma. So we'll start out with that.

[pause]

Say {lung gyi chu} [repeat] {tokpay chu} [repeat] {lung gyi chu} [repeat] {tokpay
chu} [repeat] Okay. {lung} means literally ... {lung} means .... it's related to the
word for wind and it means the spoken word ... the word, okay. The dharma in
the sense of the word, okay. Like like when someone gives a {lung}. A {lung}
means an oral transmission. We're going to have an oral transmission [laughs]
okay, next Sunday. My lama received the oral transmission for the [b: Diamond
Cutter] from one of his great lamas {Dunkumba} who is related to ... I believe he
also taught {Pabongka} Rinpoche and then we're going to get ... I'm going to
pass it on to you guys. That's where you get ... someone just get up and reads
out the whole sutra and you just get this oral blessing from the lineage of that.
Okay, and then you can pass it on to other Westerners, which is cool. {Tokpay
chu} {tokpay} means realizations, okay. {tokpay} means the dharma in the sense
of of realizations in people's minds, okay. So the first thing is the dharma in the
sense of the physical manifestations of dharma ... the book and the teachings ...
the verbal teachings. Then {tokpay chu} is the dharma in the sense of it being ...
existing in people's minds okay. I'll give you examples of each.

[pause]

First is what we call the three baskets of scripture, okay. All Buddhist scripture
can be divided into three baskets.            It's what you you hear ... it's called
{tripitaka} ... {trip} ... Americans say {tripitaka} [laughter] in Sanskrit. But these
are the three baskets. The first one is called {Abhidharma}. By the way the
basket of {Abhidharma} is not the same as the the topic called {Abhidharma},
okay. Like the {b: Abhidharmakosha} is teaching a whole system of philosophy
that was followed in India by a school named {Vaisbaishika} and that's not what
this means. This means a whole section of the Buddhist teachings called the
{Abhidharma}. Then there's the {Sutra pitaka}. Obviously all the teachings of the
Buddha are ... that are not secret are called sutras. But this refers to a specific
group of the teachings which are also called sutras. So get confused between
general sutra and sutra basket, okay. And then the third one is {Vinaya}. So
when you talk about the physical dharma in the world ... you know, does the
physical dharma still exists? ... do the teachings still exist in the world? You can
start by saying, "Does the words still exist in the world?" and then you would
say, "Do these ... do these three baskets still exist in the world?", okay. How do
you divide these three baskets? ... okay, what's the difference between the three
baskets? They're divided by their subject matter, okay. {Abhidharma} treats

[pause}

{Abhidharma} is books that primarily talk about the training of wisdom ... the
subject of wisdom. {Sutra} in this case means the books that treat the second
training which is what? ... meditation. And then {Vinaya} ethical life ... training
on an ethical life. These three trainings build on each other and we talked about it
Friday night if you were there. In order to see emptiness, for example, your
mind must ... if you ... in order to see it directly your mind must be at a certain
level of concentration. And we talked about that. It's actually corresponds to a
certain ... it's a certain cause for a birth in the form realm, actually. It's the it's a
cause for the first section of that and for the preliminary part of the first section
of that. In other words, to get ... to see emptiness directly your mind must be at
a certain meditational level. That level is not even in this realm. At that point
your mind is not in the desire realm. Your body is still in the desire realm but
you're totally out of the ... I mean you're not aware of your body at that time.
You're not aware of any of the objects of the senses and your mind is in is in a
totally different realm. It's in it's in a {samtem dambo} we call it the first
concentration level. And as you come out of that, you have a physical sensation
of descending from that. I mean, it's a it's a physical sensation you would have of
coming out of that ... afterwards. But in order to get to ... to see emptiness
directly you must reach that level of meditation. You have to reach that level of
meditation. It's only on that level that you can see emptiness. In order to reach
that level of meditation your heart has to be clean. Your life has to be clean. You
have to be following an ethical life. It's impossible to reach this kind of mental
quietude if you have anything major on your conscience. It's impossible. Can't
do it. So this is ... these build on each other. That's why the three trainings are
the three trainings. First you clean up your life ... and I don't mean be perfect
because we can't be until much later. But major major dirty things that you're
doing lying, stealing, hurting other people ... you have to ... those have to be
cleaned up before your your mind can reach a state of quietude. Based on that
you can reach reach that level of meditation. Based on that you can can see
emptiness directly. So these three baskets ... Abhidharma, Sutra and Vinaya ...
are the the word ... the dharma is the sense of the word. These three trainings
are the dharma in the sense ... of what? ...realizations. That is the {tokpay chu},
okay. The dharma has two parts. The books and then actual realizations inside
of people. The books divide into these three sections and the realizations
basically divide into three different types ... wisdom, meditation and and ethical
life, okay. Those are the {tokpay chu}. And at the very end of the [b:
Abhidarmakosha] Vasubandu ... I mean, it almost makes you cry ... I mean he
starts to ... he talks about these two divisions and then he says ... he starts to
describe how how they will die out in world, okay. Which one do you think dies
out first? Huh? It's actually the realizations, okay. People stop having
realizations. The books are still there in the library on a CD Rom somewhere,
okay [laughs] , you know. The books are still around. They're they're collecting
dust in some New York Public library warehouse out on 43rd Street. [laughter]
[laughs] That's the {lunga chu}. That's the death of the dharma ... of the physical
dharma. Buddhist books are being lost in the world ... being destroyed ... being
lost ... no one cares ... much you know. They're being every day being lost and
and nobody cares. They're just put away somewhere and and that's it. They die
out ... they die out second. This dies out first, you know. That people really
understand the dharma and are practicing it. That dies out first. What does it
mean to keep the dharma on ... what does it mean for it to die out? Vasubandu
descr ... he describes that also. The the {tonkpay chu}, the realizations in the
hearts of people obviously that dies out when people stop achieving these levels.
When people stop achieving renunciation or bodhichitta or wisdom, then the
{tonkpay chu}'s dying out. {lung gyi chu} he says is dying out when people can't
explain it correctly anymore, okay. To say that it's still being preserved in the
world means that at least someone's around that could explain it properly.
{tokpay chu} still exists in the world if there's anyone in the world around that
still understands it ... who's who's still reaching those levels through the practice
of dharma, okay.          Now what's this deal about five hundred or no five
hundreds ... when is it going to happen? Okay, when is the dharma going to die
out? Did it die out yet? [laughs] [laughter}. I'm going to give you ....Choney
Drakpa Shedrup ... he gives a whole list of scriptures, okay ... I'll give you a few
of them. He ... he checked a whole lot of sutras and in his day there was a lot
more information available and he goes through ... I'm going to give you a few
of them.

[pause]

Say {dode kelsang} [repeat] {dode kelsang} [repeat]. {dode kelsang} says ... by
the way most of these dates are dated from the passing of the Buddha, okay. It's
its dated from the day that he reached his {paranirvana}, okay. In this sutra the
Buddha says, "My teachings will stay in the world five hundred years in its pure
form and then fifteen hundred years in what we call a shadow form". It will still
be around. It won't be it won't be very serious ... it won't be very strong. Five
hundred years in its true form. Another fifteen hundred years in sorta as a ...
they call it {sug yin}{sug yin} means just an image of its former self ... a shadow
of its former self, okay. And then those two things are ... have disappeared in
the world. The teachings are no longer being explained properly and people are
no longer reaching the major spiritual levels, okay. That's one one presentation.

[pause]

Say {ninje}[repeat] {peka} [repeat] {ninje} [repeat] {peka} [repeat] {ninge} means
compassion. A {peka} means the white lotus sutra, okay. It's the white lotus
sutra of compassion, okay. In there it says fifteen hundred years.

[pause]

Say {dawa ningbo} [repeat] {dawa } means moon. {ningbo} means essence. The
essence of the moon. The sutra of the essence of the moon. That sutra says two
thousand years.
[pause]

[student: So far we've had no [unclear]]

[laughs] Let's do a little longer one.

[pause]

Sutra of the essence of the moon.

[pause]

Say {dorchay} [repeat] [delba} [repeat] {dorchay delba} [repeat] {dorchay}'s a
lazy way to write {dorchay chupa}, okay . Sometimes they call it {dorcher}.
Sometimes they just call it {chu}. The Mongolians call it {jurba}. {jurba} means
commentary. This refers to Kamalashila's commentary on this book, on the
Diamond Cutter Sutra, okay. Kamalashila's commentary on the Diamond
Cutter Sutra. He's a little more optimistic.

[pause]

I'll give you one more.

[pause]

You don't have to write the second part but I just want you to see the direct
quotation.

[pause]

Say {farmo} [repeat] {chineyge} [repeat}      {do} [repeat] {farmo} [repeat]
{chineyge} [repeat] {do} [repeat] {farmo} means what? Goddess, okay. Lady
angel. She's a

SIDE B



I always heard about this quotation and I never found it and ... maybe six
months ago I found it. Choney Drakpa Shedrup quotes it. It says the {lone
kneetoe nagana} Say {lo} [repeat] [kneetoe} [repeat] {nagana} [repeat] {dolma
ken} [repeat] {kyi ur du} [repeat] {dambey cher} [repeat] {da} [repeat] {lo} means
years. {kneetoe nagana} means two thousand five hundred years. {na} here
means after, okay. {do} means faith. {ma ken} means ruddy complexion.
Tibetans call us {dolmas ken}. It means ... it means western people, okay. People
with a white complexion, with ruddy cheeks or something, okay. {Dolma kyi ur
du} {ur du} means to their land. {dambey cher} means the holy dharma. {da}
means it will spread. So I thinks that's really cool, okay. [laughs] That's a
prediction in the in the sutra. It's still in the [b: Kangur]. The sutra is there. I
always heard about this and I never really believe all these kind of thing, you
know, but it's there and it says that ... oh, that's the Buddha ... yeah, and and he's
saying after two thousand five hundred years the holy dharma will spread to the
land of the of the ruddy faced people. Which is what Tibetans call us. And then
Kamalshila goes into explaining why they the dharma will last for five thousand
years. And Choney Drakpa Shedrup he shows why he believes that's correct.
For many reasons, okay. But basically, I think the scenario we can count on is
twenty five hundred years for it to get to the west and twenty five hundred
years to be here. So I mean, from what I understand of these scriptures I I see
the dharma lasting in the west for twenty five hundred years. And starting now.
Starting right now, okay. Starting in this hundred year period here. So I think
it's pretty exciting. I'll show you why why the Buddha says in the last five
hundred, okay. He doesn't say anything else. He doesn't explain himself. But
there're other sutras which describe ten periods of five hundred years each
which makes five thousand, okay. And by the way there are there are other
scriptures ... I didn't go into all of them but there are other scriptures that say five
thousand as well. The ten periods go like this. In the first five hundred years lots
of people are achieving arhat. Lots of people are getting to arhat. What's arhat?
Reach nirvana, okay. Reach nirvana. Kill the enemy. Who's the enemy?
[laughs] Mental afflictions, all right. Getting mad back at the boss, okay. That's
the enemy. There will be in the first five hundred years following the passing of
the Buddha many people achieve that. So it's called the era of the arhats, okay.
Non-returners is a stage that you reach after you have wiped out a specific
number of mental afflictions. Not all of them but they are called ... there are six
mental afflictions ... six versions of mental afflictions that if you wipe them out
you become a non-returner. It means you don't come back to ... where? ... the
desire realm, okay. We are in the desire realm. What other realms are there? In
samsara there are two other realms, form realm formless realm. You can't see
them. You never will know if they exist really until you reach the path of seeing.
After the path of seeing. But we are in the desire realm and we are stuck here
and we were brought here by our mental afflictions. If if you're in this realm
you're here because you have some mental affliction, okay. If if you're sitting on
this platform and you are who you seem to be, which we never know, right? ...
you're here because you have some some kind of special mental affliction. You
know what your specialty is. I know what mine is. You know. It's usually on the
anger side or the desire side. You know. Normally you have one or the other. It
you're lucky you have both, I guess. Definitely a good dose of ignorance. But
but if you're here and if you're in this kind of body ... this dead end body ...
literally dead end ... then you got here by mental afflictions and that's why you're
here. And unless you've worked really hard in this life you still have them. You
still have the ones that got you here. By definition. Non-returner has been able
to overcome six versions of those mental afflictions ... specific intensities and
versions of those mental afflictions. They do not ... they will never come back to
this particular realm. They will never be born in this realm again. They will
never come back to the desire realm, okay. Excuse me? Yeah, volun ...
involuntarily, okay. There's a big debate whether anyone even comes back ...
Stream enterer is what? Equals arya. Anyone who has seen emptiness directly.
Whether or not you're a bodhisattva. It doesn't matter. Whether or not you
have true bodhichitta in your mind, okay. If you've seen emptiness directly you
are an arya and you are a stream enterer.

[student: I though an arhat had seen emptiness]

Arhats comes much later after arya, okay. Arhat means someone who has
reached nirvana based on seeing emptiness directly many many years before.
Typically seven lifetimes before, okay. Very typically.

[student: What's higher a non-returner or a stream enterer?]

Non-returner is higher.      You can't get rid of any {kleshas} until you see
emptiness directly, okay. And in between there's there's a once returner, but
they don't get to have a kalpa. [laughs] Okay. These three eras ... these three
groups of five hundred years ... five hundred years each, right? ... these three are
called the ... what would you call it? ... the era of of of achievement {duppay leo}
The era of achievement, okay. That fifteen hundred year period is set apart and
called the era of achievement.

[pause]

The next three eras, I'll make it short. They are based on the three trainings that
we've just had. Which are what? That's short short attention span. {laughs] No,
that's the book. How about the realizations? Yeah, wisdom, meditation and
ethical life. So during the next three divisions of five hundred years each, many
people are achieving the training of wisdom. Then after that people can't achieve
that anymore so all they can get to is the training of meditation. And for the
next five hundred years people can only get at far as ... many people are only
getting as far as the training of on ethics ...on the ethical way of life, okay.
Things are degenerating, okay.

[student: [unclear]]

You can master the three trainings before you even enter the first of the five
paths, okay. You can become very proficient in the three trainings before you
even reach the first of the five paths, okay. So this is referring to a very basic
intellectual understanding of emptiness and karma, for example. Basic beyond ...
I mean, way beyond us, okay. You know what I mean? [laughs] To get to the
first path is a great achievement. In this life if you could really get really get fed
up with this life you you you would be at a great level. That would be a big
achievement.

[student: Is the first path renunciation?]

Yes, true renunciation.

[student:  So the three trainings were only three trainings when they're
processed with renunciation?]

Maybe you could say with feelings of renunciation but not with the true total
renunciation. There's there's many kinds of renunciation prior to the first path.
For example, there's {bodi di shika ta bu ninje} which means sugar cane
renunciation. Which means it's feels like renunciation but it's not very strong.
Sugar cane bodhichitta, for example, is called that. There's another one called
{ninge pu su} which means goose bump renunciation and that's when you
mother dies or something in this life, seriously. And then for like six months you
you really understand renunciation. And then it wears off. And you go back to
living your old life running after your career, and houses , and money and girl
friends and stuff like that. Okay. Number seven eight

[student: Does that whole era have any name?]

I'm sorry. This is called the ... what is it called? I made a mistake, sorry. These
three are called the era of result okay, I'm sorry ... that's ... I made a mistake ...
these three are called the era of result, okay ...the first three ... one two and three.
Then the next three are called the era of achievement, okay. You can say era of
practice. Next are the are the ... these are ... the next three are eras when people
are keeping the physical dharma, okay. The {lung gyi chu}. So if you divide that
into three what would you get? Abhidharma. Sutra. Vinaya, okay. During
during these three periods of five hundred years people are still teaching it
correctly. It's still surviving in the world as far as the physical manifestations of
the dharma. It looks to me like {tokpay chu} was pretty much endangered after
this point. It looks like after three thousand years realizations are are sorta
rare ... more rare. And then it begins to be just the physical dharma being left in
the world. People can teach it but they don't .. they haven't really realized it,
okay.

[student: I'm sorry. What are the three?]

Abhidharma. It's the three baskets. Many people are able to learn and pass on
the information but not the realizations. And and that happens a lot even in
these days. Abhidharma ... Sutra ... and Vinaya, okay. And the last of the ten ...
the last of the five hundred ... it's called {tak tom}. Oh, by the way these three
together are called the era of {lung}... which is what? ... the word ... the physical
dharma ... the book, okay.

[pause]

Say {tak tom} [repeat] {tak tom} [repeat] {Tak tom} means just a trace left. Just
a trace left. Yeah?

[student: What does [unclear] through clairvoyance, I don't know. Whereby it
would degenerate. They're not going anywhere]

Ah, Subhuti asked a good question. Ah.

[student: What's the question?]

He said, "What makes it degenerate?" basically. Yeah. Why doesn't it get
better? Why does it get worse? ... okay. And I'll talk about a dharma teaching,
okay. What's the emptiness of this dharma teaching? What's the emptiness of
this week going on? What's the emptiness of these ten classes? Yeah, it's
anything but not your projection, okay [laughs] ... all right?      What's its
dependent origination? Let's start ... that's a little easier. It's your projection,
okay. These series of classes is your projection. There's this guy up there in a
red suit, you know, and he's talking these noises. And you hear these noises and
and different people sitting there have totally different reactions. Completely
different reactions. You know, some people hear the holy dharma that's going
to save their lives and make them reach nirvana.               Some people find it
intellectually interesting or not too much. And some people find it quite boring.
That's the emptiness of this of this teaching going on, okay. The data is the same.
It's the same red suit ... the same sounds coming out of the guy's mouth ... but
there're different people interpreting that data in different ways. Why? It's its
seeds in your own mind. Okay, your mind has certain karmic seeds and you
don't have a choice frankly. I mean if you're going to be bored, you gotta be
bored. Because your seeds are ripening in such a way that they are forcing you
to perceive this as boring. They're forcing you to perceive it that way. And and
if you're getting something out of it or if ... even something of ultimate benefit
you have different kinds of seeds. Now those seeds are very interesting. You
know, the seed that would ... this guy standing up there or somebody like the
Buddha gets up and says, "You're emptiness. You're you're nothing." And then
somebody perceives emptiness based on that, you know. The Buddha gets up
and says something crazy. You don't exist. Bodhisattvas don't exist. Nobody
reach nirvana and the Buddha doesn't have any signs when he has signs on his
body, you know. Somebody gets up and says something crazy like that and
suddenly five hundred people reach reach the perception of emptiness.. I mean
this is what was happening in the Buddha's time. It it was very common in the
Buddha's time. Even his students when they taught ... they have lists, you
know ... four hundred people reached the perception of emptiness ... three
hundred got to this ... two hundred got to that ... just when they opened their
mouths and said some simple thing like ... nobody reaches nirvana... and they
understood it comp ... immediately ... what he was talking about.                 He
understood the whole thing about projections and all that. So again this teaching
itself is a is a projection of of you. The energy of that projection has to wear out.
Okay, you have a certain karma in your in your mindstream that was planted
there by your past life guy who worked his ass off to get you here, you know.
[laughs] I mean, we can all appreciate our past lives, [laughter] especially me,
you know. I mean somebody was working really hard, you know. Somebody
was ... wasn't sleeping much, working hard, practicing like crazy, doing
everything ... guru yoga perfect, you know and that's how we got to Vajrapani
for this week, you know. That that somebody did that for you. You should
thank them, you know {laughs] because we're not collecting those kind of
causes. Somebody was extraordinary. Somebody was really extraordinary. Out
of out of a million people you're you're here. Each person represents one in a
million. And and you're sitting here listening to this thing. The ... the ... how
many karmas ripen in a in a split second?                 Sixty four, okay [laughter]
{kechey{ It's called {jagey kyi kechock} okay [laughter] {jago kyi kechock}. There
are sixty four karmas ripening in that moment. For you to maintain the this
picture of this guy standing up here for one instance, for one finger snap
requires sixty four discreet karmas going off, okay. Sixty four different karmic
events are ripening for your mind to maintain me talking about the [b: Diamond
Cutter Sutra] for the time it takes for me to snap my fingers. So for you to
maintain this image for a week, it's something extraordinary. I mean the ... I like
to ... {unclear} would appreciate the ... wake up ... [laughs] [laughter] would
appreciate the bytes involved, okay. I mean if you talk about it in terms of
computers ... the reason that computers can't show videos very well yet is
because ... I don't know, it take like sixteen gigabytes to get someone to move
for an hour and a half or something, you know. For some ... to have that flow of
the pictures [laughter] for an hour and a half requires the computing power of of
all Bell laboratories lab computers five years ago or something. I mean to keep it
going requires an extraordinary amount of data, you know. For you just to hear
me say one word requires a couple of hundred karmic events going off at the
same time. For you to maintain me up here as a projection for the space of a
week ... you're you're using up an extraordinary amount of karma. You know
like all the electricity that California is generating this week you know. I mean,
it's some kind of extraordinary amount of karma that you're using up to hear
something this holy. To hear the [b: Diamond Sutra] taught in these degenerate
days for one week ... to maintain that projection requires an intense amount of
karma ... an incredible amount of karma ... I mean it's just extraordinary. And it's
it's something like the computing power it would take to keep a whole city ... the
image of a city working for a whole week or something. And it would be ... you
can't even imagine what it would take. That how much karma you are you are
using up to come here for ten days. And at the end of the ten days that karma
will be finished. And it ... you don't know if it'll ...you have any more of it, okay.
You may or you may not have any more of it. Some people will quit in the
middle of the week {laughs] and that means they didn't have enough to maintain
the whole week, seriously.

[student: [unclear]]

I like to be depressing because then people get [laughs] [laughter]. No ... but if
you take joy in it you generate a lot of good karma but basically you're burning
up , I mean ... it would be much better if you were out watching a movie for ten
days ... or at the beach. I mean that's a tremendous amount of karma but it's
only like one per cent of the karma that it takes to maintain this this projection.
The karmic seeds in your mind that are required to maintain this dude up there
standing [laughter] for ten day is is extraordinary. It's incredible and it and it
burns off very easily, you know. That's why ... that's why you lose teachers.
That's why teachers don't stay. That's why teachers go away. That's why
teachers pass away, I mean. The karma of keeping them here is is infinite. It's
very very difficult to for any particular human being to to maintain that much
karma that long. Like the karma to have the Dalai Lama in the world is
extraordinary. And it's wearing out. You know, he's getting old in our
perceptions. Our projections are that he's getting old. So this is again another
projection. The opportunity to have dharma ... the opportunity to hear it
spoken ... and especially about emptiness ... that's what makes it impermanent.
So Subhuti asked a good question. I wanted to talk about that, you know. That's
why the dharma will die in this world. It must die. It doesn't die independently.
It doesn't die self existently. It dies the only way it could die which is what?
Your projections stop. Your own ... the power of your own karma to project
that thing called "dharma in the world" wears out. And if it wears out collectively
that called ... ? That's the end of the dharma in the world. And it will happen.

[student: [unclear]]

You can say that ... but where do they come from? It's the same thing ... it's all a
pro

[student: [unclear]]

But do you remember how the other Buddha appears? I mean she studied ... we
had a class on the [b: Abhidharma] presentation of the of the universal cycles ...
what galaxies go into existence and out of existence and things like that. And as
the world reaches its final days in the [b: Abhidharmkosha] ... third chapter, end
of the chapter ... they describe how this world will be destroyed. And to put it
simply, for example there would be a fire that covers the whole world.
Somebody has made some kind of weapon and according to the [b:
Abhidharma] that those weapons go off and a fire covers the world and almost
everyone in the world dies. This is at the peak of a very degenerate age. The
survivors ... they say that some people are out camping like at Boulder Creek
[laughs] or something [laughter] ... and it's in the [b: Abhidharma] [laughs]
[laughter] and they go back to the cities where they use to live and they are just
destroyed. Everything is gone. The people are all dead and they wander around
the cities all depressed and sometimes they bump into each other. And they're
just overjoyed to see another human being alive. And they they have these ...
they get into small communities of survivors. And they and they start to discuss
why do you think ... you know, what happened? ... what did we do wrong? We
were crazy. We made these weapons to kill each other. We hated each other.
We should stop all that kind of thing. So they start to practice the ten virtues
again. They start to respect life. They start to not steal things from each other.
They decide that living that kind of life is what caused the world to be destroyed.
Then they teach that to their children and slowly the whole thing builds up again.
At a certain point in their virtue, they have enough karma to see the coming of
another Buddha in their world and then that cycle is repeated eighty times. Long
story, very long story. [laughs] But that's basically the coming and going of a
Buddha in the world is created by one thing ... and that's the virtue of the beings
on the planet. Whether or not you meet him ... him or her is another ... it's
another thing. We'll take a break now. Come back at 4:30 okay and then we'll
finish.

Okay we'll start again. Now you get the punch line. How did we start out this
class. Buddha ... I'm sorry ... Subhuti asks the Buddha a question. He said "In the
days of the last five hundred..." [laughter] ... will anyone still understand all this
stuff. Will there be anyone who still understand everything you've been talking
about? And the answer of the Buddha is is very sweet. He says, "Subhuti, don't
ask stupid questions. [laughs] [laughter] You shouldn't be asking questions like
that. He says, there will come great bodhisattvas even in those degenerate times
who truly have realized these things and who understand them." He says,
"Don't worry" he says, "Even in the very degenerate times there will come great
bodhisattvas who who understand the wording of it and understand the
meaning of it ... who have realized the meaning of it. Don't don't ask that
question to me" he says. And then the Buddha starts to talk about those
bodhisattvas. And he said , "Those bodhisattvas won't see any self [writes on
blackboard] ... those bodhisattvas won't see any person [writes on blackboard] ...
those persons ... those bodhisattvas won't see any life" [writes on blackboard]
I'm going to change this person, sorry. We'll call it sentient beings. [writes on
blackboard] We'll call it living beings. [laughter] [sneezes] sorry. "Those
people ... those bodhisattvas won't see any person." So it's again, you know ...
we thought he was going to finally give a straight answer and [laughs] he gave
another one of those you know mythical answers. He said, "There will be
bodhisattvas, high bodhisattvas in those days but those bodhisattvas won't will
not see these four things. They will not see any "self", they will not see any
"sentient" beings", they will not see any "life", they will not see any "person".",
okay. These four are all synonyms and they have the same level of existence as
the {gak-ja} which is what ...? They don't exist, okay [laughs] ... don't exist. All
right these are synonyms in Mahyamika for {gak-ja}. These are the four
things ... these are four more things that we deny even exist. They are
synonyms for {gak-ja}. So is there a dude in a red suit up there talking or not?
Do I ... am I a self? Am I a person ... or not? Do I exist or not? [laughs] Here you
have to get into a concept called ... did everybody get that? Nope? Can I put it
down here? [writes on blackboard] I think here you get into a really important
question that you that you hear, you know. Does the self exist or not?, you
know. Buddhism is always talking about "no self". You hear the self doesn't
exist. And if you're a westerner who's seriously trying to be a good Buddhist it's
make you sorta of schizophrenic, you know. Like am I suppose to be myself or
not? You know, is it is it wrong to be myself?. Is there something I'm missing
here? You know, whose hair am I suppose to comb in the morning? ... you
know. [laughs] You know, you get a little you get confused. I mean, they say
Buddhism believes in "no self" and then and then you like ... well who am I then
and and is it somehow wrong to think of myself and what am I doing wrong?
Okay, you have to distinguish between say {yugey} [repeat] {dak} [repeat]
{yugey dak} [repeat] and {megey dak} [repeat} {megey dak} [repeat]. {yugey
dak} means the self which does exist. The self which does exist. And {megey
dak} means the self that don't exist. All right, the self that doesn't exist. There
are two kinds of {dak}. There are two kinds of stuff. What's that? The second
one is the "self" that doesn't exist. The first one is the "self" that does exist. Okay.
What's the "self" that doesn't exist? You tell me. A self existent "self", which
means a "self" which is not ... a projections onto parts. Okay. So., when you say
"no self" in Buddhism ... when you say the "self" doesn't exist ... it means a "self"
which is not a projection onto a collection of parts. Did I get that right? [laughs]
The self that doesn't exist is any Michael Roach that could exist without me
projecting myself onto these parts. That that kind of "self" doesn't exist. You'll
never find it. That kind of "self" could never change. That kind of "self" could
never reach Buddhahood. That kind of "self" could never get the four bodies of a
Buddha. Why? There wouldn't be any blank "me" to project a new kind of
projection onto and that's what Buddhahood is.                That's how you get to
Buddhahood. If I was an independently existing external, by myself, existing
that way inherently, independent of my projections, independent of my karmic
seeds , independent of any kind of emptiness, then I could never change. I
would always be stuck in this body. I'll would always be like that. The only way
to change is if my projections shift. That's the only way I'm ever going to get to
be a Buddha. It doesn't happen outside. It's a shift in projections, okay. Michael
Roach's "self", which is what it seems to be, you know. some kind of external
independent reality, inherent reality could never change ... could never reach
Buddhahood ... could never be enlightened. Michael Roach was just a projection
and if I could get those projections to shift a bit ... on that empty ... and if I could
play a different movie on the empty screen then I could reach Buddhahood. And
that's that's it. So the "self" that doesn't exist is the one that I look like to you
most of the time. In fact up to about twenty four hours ago. Okay, really.
That's the "self" that doesn't exist. The one that you thought. Where did you
think karma was supposed to stay? And how did you think karma was going to
come down on you? You know. Was it ... was there a UFO to deliver the results
of karma and come out and put a suit on you and suddenly you're a Buddha,
you know. It doesn't work like that. You become a Buddha because your
projections upon yourself shift and they're forced upon you by your past deeds.
You don't have a choice at that point, okay. Any other kind of Michael Roach is a
is a two headed elephant ... is a cucumber growing in mid air ... you know, it
doesn't it just doesn't exist ... there's no such thing. If if I were a self existent
Michael Roach then everybody in this audience would have exactly the same
reaction to me. You know if being boring, medium or interesting ... if any of
those three were my qualities ... if they belong to me, everybody would be
bored. Maybe they are. [laughs] [laughter] but doesn't ... [laughs] okay. If it was
a quality inherent in me everybody would be having the same reaction to me. It
ain't. It's not a quality of me. It's a quality of your own ... projection, obviously,
okay. So what's the "self" that doesn't exist ... it's one that's externally ... it exists
out there on its own and the qualities that you see are qualities of me and not
things that you are projecting on to me.             Are the projections voluntary?
Absolutely not! I mean when I say projection I don't want ... I never want you to
think ... oh hey let's just change the projection ... let's make it interesting for
like ... I've got twenty more minutes I'v got to stay here ... let's project them as
interesting, you know. You can't do it. It doesn't work that way. Projections are
forced on you, okay. Any other kind of "self" doesn't exist, okay. Any other
kind of Michael Roach doesn't exist. And Michael Roach who is self existently out
there as a quality of 'him" ... interesting or medium or not ... boring ... doesn't
exist. That doesn't exist. It never did exist. but our minds are always
interpreting it that way. We believe that all these things are external to us. We
believe that they have their own reality external to us. We believe all the
qualities we see in them are qualities that belong to them and not to our minds
and we act on that. And we that makes us act ignorantly. We try to manipulate
reality rather than changing your own goodness. You try you try to manipulate
the world around you with your arms and fingers rather than changing your
karma. Changing your karma is the only way to get what you want. The other
things don't work.. You've tried it. It just don't work. Sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn't. It's not a cause, okay. So that you have to distinguish the
two "selves". What is the "self" that does exist? I am ... there is a ... there are four
limbs and a round head up here connected to a torso and you are seeing
something going on and that's all sense data being glued together in your mind
and your mind imputing it ... nice thought ... bad thought ... not interesting ...
interesting ... but that's your mind. That "self" that you produced that way is
called {takpey chu} ... the production of that process ... the thing that you came
out with at the end is the existing "self". That exists. That's up there talking.
That's up there being boring, interesting or indifferent, okay. That that "self"
exists. I'll say it again. The "self" that is a result or a production of your
projections onto certain data and you're coming out with this guy standing up
there and teaching you something ... that "self" exists. I mean, obviously
because it's functioning. It's having an effect on you. If it didn't exists it couldn't
do that. So
there obviously is a "self" that exists and there obviously is a "self" that doesn't
exist. If Lord Buddha says to Subhuti, "Those great bodhisattvas in the future are
not so stupid to think a self exist", which one is he talking about? The non
existing "self", okay. The Buddha is trying to tell Subhuti "Okay, Subhuti, it's
okay. You asked a stupid question ... I cleared it up ... [laughter] don't ask it
again" he says. And then he says "But by the way". He's always using things as
an excuse to talk about emptiness, right? "By the way, those bodhisattvas that
do come in the future, they are not going to make the mistake that we are
making here ... that thinking that this "self" exists independent of my projections.
They will not see such a "self".       They will not see such a sentient ... sentient
means living being ... they will not see such a {sok} ... {sok} means life ... they will
not see such a {gotssa} ... {gotssa} means person ... okay. Taken independently
these four things are equivalent to the {got-ja}. If you if you take them as
existenting independently , inherently, self existent four things ... they don't exist.
But each one has a brother ... which is what? The one that does exist just because
it's a product of your projections, okay. So each one has two parts. There's two
versions of each. Why does the Buddha mention four different things ... why
doesn't he just say, "They won't believe in a self existent "self"." Why does he go
through mentioning four? Kamalashila give a really beautiful answer and I
thought ... we'll close it with that. That will be the last thing today. He says {dak}
refers to the "self" that you hold onto when you think you yourself are self
existent, okay. That's the object that you're holding onto when you think you
yourself exist outside of your projections. Does that exist? No, okay. It's it's you
thinking that you are self existent. It's the object of your of your thoughts when
you say, "Michael is self existent. Elly is self existent"okay. That's the object of
your of your idea right then. It's a non existent "me". And for each person it's
different. It's the "me" , it's your "me", okay. Can you have a sense of your own
"me"? Are you a "me"? Of course you are! You're a projected, artificial "me",
okay. Are you an independent "me" external of your own projections. Would
you be a "me" the way you are now without your own karmic seeds ripening
and forcing you to see certain kind of "me"? No, not at all. There's no such "me"
like that. So the first time when the Buddha said "They don't see any {dak} or
they don't see any "self" he's referring to "me", the false "me", the me that don''t
exist, okay. That has a special name in in Buddhist philosophy. It's called {jickto
la tawa} say {jickto} [repeat] {la} [repeat] {tawa} [repeat] {jickto la} [repeat] {tawa}
[repeat]. This is a particular kind of ignorance that makes you suffer. The first
link of the twelve links is {jickto la tawa}. It's not just a general thinking that this
tree is self existent or this stupa is self existent or this platform is self existent. It's
specifically the ignorance which holds you yourself to be self existent. Why is
that so deadly? Then you can have mental afflictions. When someone hurts the
self existent "me", I get mad. When someone helps the self existent "me" I'm
happy. And in one case I respond with anger and in the other case I respond
with attachment, okay. And it gets me into trouble. That that particular form of
ignorance ... grasping to the "self" of Mike and you grasping to the "self" of each
of you. That's the one that's giving you trouble. That's the one that's causing
you all your suffering. That specific one. It so specific that it has a separate name
called {jickto la tawa}. And that is the first link of dependent origination.
Holding on to that particular "self" is is the first link. Say {semchen} [repeat]
{semchen} [repeat] If you're trying to learn Tibetan I'll I'll explain this word a
little bit because Drakpa Shedrup gives a good explanation. Generally speaking
in Buddhist philosophy we distinguish between Buddhas and non Buddhas.
Buddhas and non Buddhas. Non Buddhas we call {semchen},okay. These are
living beings but if you're going to be more precise, living beings who are not
yet Buddhas. {Sem} means mind. {chen} means possesses. Does the Buddha
possess a mind? Of course, he has body number ... four
[laughs]      So technically speaking a Buddha is a sentient but in Buddhist
philosophy we don't use this word for Buddha, okay. It's used for all other ...
when you say I'm going to save all sentient beings you're referring to all other ...
this is the word that they're translating ... a living being. Is the Buddha alive? Of
course. Is the Buddha sentient? Of course. Is he a {semchen} a sentient being?
No. It's a huge debate in the monastery, okay. [laughs} This is the first time I've
ever seen in Buddhist scripture a good explanation of this word. Choney Drakpa
Shedrup says, "A mind haver is called a mind haver because they have a mind
which is tortured by samsara. That ... who does that leave out? I mean it leaves
out Buddhas automatically. So that's a beautiful explanation, you know. He ...
{sem} means mind and {chen} mean haver. So {semchen} or the word sentient
being is always referring in Buddhist philosophy to a being whose mind is still be
tormented by samsara.

[student: But what about the people [unclear]]

I was afraid you would ask me that. [laughs] It's a {pamchey}. {pamchey}
means , generally explanation and please don't ask for any detail [laughs]
[laughter] Technically speaking an arhat has overcome samsara, technically
speaking he still has suffering, okay. His body is still getting old and wrinkled
and bald and everything else, okay. We ... that's a very difficult point I won't get
into it. Kamalashila says the reason the Buddha mentioned number two here if
to refer to that specific kind of grasping to self existence which focusses on
something that is yours, "mine" as opposed to "me", okay. Number two the
reason why the Buddha said "Those big Bodhisattvas won't grasp to sentient
beings is that they will not grasp to "mine"," okay. {Tibetan ...} the full form of
the first link of dependent origination , the blind man, ignorance is actually
focussed at these two ... "me" and "mine", okay. When you perceive emptiness
directly for the first time the emptiness that you perceive is yours. It's the one
that belongs to you. In my case the emptiness of Mike and when you come out
one of the many realizations you have and we'll talk about those realizations, is
"when I get to be a Buddha, they won't call me Mike any more", okay. Seriously,
it's one of the realizations that you have. Meaning, I won't exist in the way that I
grasp myself in the past, you see. Self-existent "me". Self existent "mine". okay.
So that self means self existent "me" for each person. {semchen} or sentient being
in this scripture means self existent "mine". My leg, my arm, my head, my life,
my mind, okay. What does {sok} refer to? Why does the Buddha say. "Those
big bodhisattvas in the tenth of the five hundred year period won't grasp to a
life". Kamalashila says, this refers to grasping to yourself as self existent over the
course of a whole lifetime, okay. It's grasping to yourself as self existent

[tape ends]
960825-3.aaa
91a.txt
Diamond-Cutter Sutra, Vajrapani, tape 5
transcribed by: Winston McCullough
8/25/96

... you're focusing on is {sok}, is what the Buddha means when he says "life,"
okay. It's you over the period of your lifetime. That's what he means when he
says {sok}. You've never looked back on that being who lived that whole life
and said "oh, it's just my projection." It never happened. Up until this moment
you have always thought that if you wanted to help that being, you had to do,
manipulate some external object, you know. If you want to be happy, you gotta
go to the store and get some food. If you want to be relaxed you have to go out
to Santa Cruz and take a vacation. You know, if you want to look nice you have
to exercise that body. These are all ignorance. That's not the way you get those
things. It's not the way it happens. It's only by collecting good deeds. You don't
know if you go to the beach whether you're going to get sunburned or healthy,
or whether you're going to get skin cancer or a nice tan. You don't know. Going
to the beach is not a cause for being relaxed. Ask any parent, no [laughs]. You
don't know. Going to the beach is not a cause of happiness, period. It's not.
Often times when you go to the beach you get some relaxation, but not all the
time. Therefore, ergo, going to the beach is not a cause of happiness. If you
were happy at the beach, it wasn't going to the beach that made you happy,
because lots of people go to the beach and have a miserable time, okay. Going
to the beach is not the cause of enjoying yourself at the beach, period, but, but
your whole life has been acting on that premise. Your whole life has been acting
on the premise that if you manipulate these outside causes and change
something you can obtain what you're looking for. It's not that. You have to
work on what? Fix your projections. How do you do that? Plant new ones.
How do you do that? Help other people. Practice the Dharma. If you want to
have a good time at the beach, go to Vajrapani and cook a nice dinner for
everybody, right Jim? [laughter] I'm hoping you'll get more volunteers. I don't
think it will work. Say {gangsak} [repeat] {gangsak} [repeat] {Gangsak} means
"person," and Kamalashila says in this case it refers to the person out there trying
to manipulate things, coming and going, over and over. The person out there
trying to manipulate his or her world, trying to fix it by external means. They
don't work. If they, if it doesn't work once out of a hundred times it isn't a cause.
Causes have to work all the time. If you find a real cause for happiness it better
work every time. Would you, as you walk up to an airplane, this happened to
me in Russia, you know, and the stewardess is up there [unclear] and they say, if
they got up there and said "we're not sure if the plane's going to fly today," you
know [laughter]. "We haven't figured out the causes that make a plane fly," you
know. It's ninety percent sure, you know. Ninety percent sure it'll stay up in the
air. We've, we've got it almost down, you know. This makes sense. You know,
just get in, stuff yourself in, ninety percent chance you're going to make it to
Moscow, you know. We don't quite understand why airplanes fly. That's not
causation. That's not scientific. Science means replicating an experiment, you
know. If you do the same thing with the same conditions, the same thing should
happen again, but you can go to the beach and have a good time, or you can go
to the beach and have a lousy time, so going to the beach doesn't create
happiness. It's just not a cause, and, and it's crazy to get into a plane if they tell
you it's only going to work part of the time.

[student: unclear] [laughs] Yeah, I know, no, I know. What's keeping the plane
up is not the engines and the air, okay. It's, it's your projections [laughter], and,
and, no, and you're hoping it lasts until they touch down [laughter]. No, and for
some people it doesn't. Some people die before it touches down. [student:
unclear] Okay, that's all for that. I'll answer a few questions if you like. By the
way, Friday night from seven to nine we're just going to have a rap session, so if
anybody wants to come. Friday night from seven to nine in the gompa, and it's
not a formal teaching. We're just going to sit down, and we can talk, talk about
what we had in the class so far, you know, just, no, no structure, just whatever
you want to talk about [student: unclear] Yeah, Tuesday and Thursday, if you
want to have, you have to come to Tuesday and Thursday if you can, okay.
That's at seven to nine each night. I like to put in a plug for the dinner okay. If
twenty people go I get a free dinner, no [laughs]. I mean, I, I've worked and
lived in Dharma centers my whole life, you know my adult life, and you're
always broke, and you never make enough money, and everything's always
scratching along, and really theoretically this is the most precious thing in the
world, you know. I mean, the United Nations should be funding all these
Dharma centers, you know, out of a desire for public welfare, you know public
happiness, but people just don't recognize that, and I think almost every Dharma
center, unless you have some extraordinary sponsor, you're all trying to find
ways to stay afloat, and it's a very precious thing, you know. It's very easy to
come here. You focus on the person teaching or something like that, and all
your thoughts go towards that and you kind of miss the fact that you're sitting
on something that costs money to maintain, and you know you're gonna down
a road that costs something to maintain, and you're pooping in a place that costs
something to maintain, and you're eating off plates that cost something to
maintain, and it co, and it's expensive. It's as expensive as anything else in the
world. So I really encourage you to, not only to come, I mean I would really
encourage you to help Vajrapani. You know, make some kind of donation to
Vajrapani. Help them. It's, it's really bad and it feels really bad if you're trying to
run a Dharma center you can't even meet your expenses. It's, it's, you're not.
You know, I don't, I have a job [laughs] with my precious boss and I [laughs] so
I'm lucky. I don't need anything, and I'm not asking for that. This place is really
expensive to maintain, and it's a beautiful, beautiful place and it should be
treasured, and it should be cherished, and you should try to help to keep it
going. So don't be shy about that. Come to the dinner if you like, but either
way, try to, try to help out as much as you can. I don't think anyone here real
rich, but, you know, to the best of your ability. It's just important to keep this
thing. When's the dinner? I don't know. Sunday night at seven, at Santa Cruz.
Get your ticket from Amy Murr. Okay, we'll do a meditation [student: unclear].

[break]

  Okay, tonight we're going to start with a little Buddhist geography lesson. If
you want to study Buddhist geography... yeah [student: Do you think that
maybe you could write larger?] Yeah I'll try. I'll try. If you ever study Buddhist
geography you've gotta go to the Abhidharmakosha, third chapter starts out
with presenting all the beings in the world and, including bardos. That's where
you get the good teachings on the bardo, the real ones. Then you go to the
description of space, time, things like that. It's very interesting. The last part of
the chapter describes how the world began and how it will end. The word for
world is this.

[break]

Say {jikten} [repeat] {jikten} [repeat]. Okay. {jik} means "to be detroyed, to be
destroyed," like {jikche}, well that's a different {jik}, anyway. Then {ten} means,
{ten} means "the basis, destructible basis," in sanskrit "loka," and it means "the
world." It means our world. Our world is called {jikten}, okay. Yeah [student:
unclear, light glare on the board.] I don't like to turn this one off [unclear - fixing
the lights]. In the middle of loka is mount meru which is the highest thing in the
world [laughter]. So {jikten}, and then the Abhidharma goes into the question
are there other {jikten's}? You know, are there other places where people are
living, you know, planets where people are living, and then they start to talk
about a thing called

[break]
If you're trying to be a translator and you run across {tong chipu} it's very
frustrating because it's not in any dictionary. Say {tong chipu} [repeat] {tong
chipu} [repeat]. {tong chipu} means not only are there other planets where
beings like us live, but you could define a certain system of planets called the
{tong chipu}.      That would be one thousand inhabited planets.                So the
Abdhidharma describes these galactic networks where our, our planet would be
one part of a {tong chipu}, and you could define an area of the universe where
there would be one thousand, and they describe them. They're much like our
planet. They're very similar. The basic characteristics are the same as our planet,
so that's a thousand inhabited {jikten's}, okay. [student: unclear] Connected in
the sense that, if you want to get into it [laughs], if this {jikten} is destroyed by a
supernova, which is one of the ways that worlds are destroyed, this particular
world will be destroyed by a supernova. Actually, the sun will become seven
times more powerful than it is now and the planet will eventually va, vaporize,
so where do all the sentient beings go? And, and there's a whole process by
which beings are reborn, enter a bardo body. Bardo bodies are not like us. They
can travel at tremendous rates of speed, and they, actually the function of a
bardo is to get to your next birth place. That's why you take a bardo body. So,
yeah, we're connected in the sense that in certain, under certain circumstances
beings can die in this planet, enter a bardo, and reach another planet, and then be
reborn there, so, okay.

[break]

Say {tong parma} [repeat] {tong parma} [repeat] {tong palay} is the same spelling
for "emptiness" and "a thousand," and in this case it means "a thousand," in both
of these cases it means "a thousand," okay. It does not mean "empty," okay,
same spelling, same sound, everything, different meaning. This {tong} means a
thousand. What does {par} mean, like in {bardo} [student: in between.] In
between, so {parma} means "an in between thousand," okay. That refers to a
system made up of a thousand {tong chipu's}, a thousand groups of a thousand
inhabited planets, and, and that's also exists in the universe. If you cut it up a
certain way you would have a thousand groups of a thousand inhabited planets,
one million inhabited planets, okay, and that would be like a second order world
system. This is like a first order world system, okay, a thousand planets. Second
order world system would be a million planets, inhabited planets like ours, not
just general rocks floating around in space, okay

[break]
You can guess what that is, right? Say {tong chenpo} [repeat] {chenpo} [repeat]
{chenpo} means "big," {tong} means "a thouand." This is a third order world
system, a thousand {tong parma's}, one billion inhabited planets, okay, and that's
the largest kind of world system they describe, I mean you can cut up the world
system into {tong chenpo's}. There are many {tong chenpo's}, groups of one
billion inhabited planets, if you're in the mood, okay. Why did we get into this?
At the next point in the Diamond Cutter Sutra, the Buddha asks Sabhuti a
question. He says "suppose you took the seven precious things," okay, there are
seven precious substances. They are like gold, silver. They're listed in your
reading for tonight, okay. Gold, silver, lapis is in there, pearl is in there, emerald
is in there, and other, other goods like that, precious, precious substances and
there are seven types, and so the Buddha poses a question to Sabhuti. He says
"suppose you take a, a billion planets, okay, a {tong chenpo}, and suppose you
arrange enough truck loads of diamonds and emeralds and stuff to fill the whole
planet, to cover the planet," you know. Somehow you've got these space ships
going and delivering precious gem stones, enough to cover the whole planet of
a, of a {tong chenpo}, okay, that much precious stones,okay. Even my boss
would like it I think [laughter]. He says, "and suppose that some man or
woman," He says, "was able to arrange that sort of a, a planetary, a universe of
precious things and offer it to someone else," like to offer it to a Buddha or to
offer it to someone else. Just try to imagine the good deed. Try to imagine the
good karma from doing that. First he puts Sabhuti's mind on that. He says try,
just try to picture it, try to picture this planet covered with diamonds and a, and a
thousand planets like that, and a thousand groups of planets like that, and a
thousand groups of planets like that covered with diamonds, and then you're
going to your teacher and, you know, offering them, you're going to someone
and offering them. Then He says, "consider the act of reading one verse from
the Diamond Cutter Sutra, or reciting it, or memorizing it, or teaching it to
someone else." He says "which would be more good karma," which would be
more important, which would be more good karma, and, and then He says to
Sabhuti "the second one would be much more good karma," much more
powerful to read one verse of this sutra than to make that offering, okay. That's,
the Buddha says that, and it's very important to think of why, and it's true. It's
not an exaggeration, okay. It's important to think why. If you do an act with the
knowledge expressed in this sutra, with the knowledge of emptiness, with an
understanding of emptiness. Let's say you do the first perfection, which is what,
perform the act, an act of giving, understanding emptiness. It acts as a direct jet,
you know, to get to enlightenment. It then acts as a direct means of getting to
enlightenment, okay. That's a, if you can do the smallest act of giving, like giving
a piece of bread to a bird, one of these Vajrapani blue jays with the funny hair,
[laughter], I like it 'cause it makes mine good, and or, or if you did that with an
understanding of emptiness, you know, that would as a direct cause for your
enlightenment. Whereas, giving all of those planets full of jewels without an
understanding of emptiness would not. It wouldn't act in the same way, won't
function in the same way, and here we get into the meaning of paramita, okay.

[break]

Say {parol tu} [repeat] {parol tu} [repeat] {parol} means "to the other side, to the
far side," okay, to the other side. {tu} means "to," "t," "o," to the other side, and
{chimpa} means "gone, gone to the other side."                 {para} means "other
side" {parum} means "to the other side," and {ita} means "gone," okay {parum-
ita}, "parimeeta" [laughs], that's a {parol tu chimpa}, and these are the perfections,
okay, we translate it as perfections, six perfections, and, and I wanted to talk a
little bit about the idea of perfection, a perfection. What does perfection mean,
okay? When you or I perform an act of giving is that the perfection of giving?
There's a huge debate about it, okay, I mean, we're gonna spend a little time on
it, okay. When you or I give something to somebody is that the perfection of
giving, and under what circumstances does it become the perfection of giving,
and what's the difference between plain old giving and the perfection of giving.
We'll start out like this. Let me ask you, even if a bodhisattva who has perceived
emptiness directly, who is not yet a Buddha, gives some kind of, performs some
kind of act of giving, is that perfect. No, okay, they ain't there yet. They aren't
{parol tu chimpa}, they haven't "gone to the other side" yet, okay. It's a
contradiction of terms to say that even that high bodhisattva arya is doing
anything called a perfection. Perfection means "perfect" and only one thing's
perfect, and what's that? [students: A Buddha.] A Buddha. {drip nyi pangpay
chir} "because they have abandoned the two obstacles," in their entirety. They
have eliminated all of the negativities that you can eliminate, and they know all
objects. They perceive all objects. They, from both points of view, they are
perfect. So really the only person who can do a {parol tu chimpa} is a Buddha,
okay. So when can you call something a paramita and when do you not call
something a paramita? This is the trick. You change this last part here.

[break]

Say {parol tu chin} [repeat] {che} [repeat] {parol tu chin} [repeat] {che} [repeat]
{che} means "makes you." Makes you what? Get to the other side, makes you
perfect {parol tu chin che}, and now we can have a debate, okay. Let's pick on
this dude here, okay. {parol tu chin pay yinna, parol tu chin pay yinna, unclear}
That would be a typical debate. {unclear} Is every kind of perfection a {parol tu
chin che}, okay? Does every act which we call a perfection get you to perfection?
Because this is now we're proposing as a definition, a real definition of a
perfection. We're proposing this as the real meaning of a perfection and the
Buddha does so in a sutra. This is from a sutra. He says "when I say perfection
of giving, I'm talking about giving which gets you to perfection, okay. I'm not
talking about perfection. How could you be perfect before you're a Buddha." So
when I say "paramita," what I'm talking about is {parol tu chin che}, something
which gets you to perfection, okay, a getter to perfection, which applies to all
perfections or not? That was my question. {unclear} which means, you know, is
every perfection in the world a {parol tu chin che? Ma yinpa top} which means
"oh, are you saying that something could be a perfection, and not be getting you
to perfection?" {ma yinpa top}, and you say {du} [student: {du}] [laughter] He
said "right." {shok. Shok} means "show me," come on, show me, come on. Take
a drink first, stall [laughter]. In the mon, in the monastery they say "huh, didn't
hear you," while they're thinking of an answer, you know. {shok} Now, you've
got to show me something that's a perfection, but that's, but which is not getting
you to perfection. Is there any such thing? [student: unclear] Ah, nice. Did you
cheat, I don't know, maybe. Did we plant her? No. [student: unclear] "Para"
stands for {parol}. This is sanskrit, para is sanskrit, and it corresponds to {parol}
which means "the far side, the other side." The "m" represents the second
grammer case, locative, and it means {tu} which means "t," "o," "to," and then "ita"
is the past tense of the verb "to go," in sanskrit, and that's {chin} in Tibetan,
{chimpa} [student: unclear]. Yeah but Gary Larson, so it can wait. Is that
[laughter], and "sin, sin" means "finished" okay. So really you can divide all
perfections into two, okay {parol tu chin che} and {parol tu chin sin}, okay. So all
{parol tu chinpa's}, all perfections are either {parol tu chin che}, getting you to
perfection, which is most of them, or parol tu chin sin}, which is the six paramitas
in the mind stream of a [students: Buddha] Buddha 'cause he's already there,
okay. But, the Buddha said, I have to pull out this, you can't do this in the debate
ground but, I thought it'd be cool if you just repeat it, okay. It's very holy
scripture. {mulo mikpu mepa chewa traktriknam lam yang mishe trong gye
chupar kalang gyur chera mena mikme parol chiknang ni mikpu mepay
jangchub repar nyin ma yin kangdze sherab ki nyi raptu sin gyurpa detse
mikme kirchen de min popo} Okay, this is from the shorter perfection of
wisdom sutra. It's called {dupa}. This is a direct quotation from, by the Buddha
Himself, okay. You see the person who said there's two kinds of paramitas also
said the following, and I'll translate it for you {mulo mikpu mepa} means "blind
people who don't have eyeballs," okay, blind people without eyeballs {mulo
mikpu mepa. Chewa} means ten million. {traktrik}, where's Clinton, we figured
it out the other day [Bob Chilton: it's eleven zeros] Eleven zeros, whatever that
is, I don't know. {chewa traktrik} is something like a trillion trillion, okay, trillion
trillion people without eyeballs, who are blind {lam yang mishe, lam yang mishe}
means "they could never find the road." {trong gye chupar kalang gyur} "much
less the destination, the city of destination." So I mean you've got ten million
blind people, trillion trillion blind people wandering around. They couldn't really
locate the highway to San Francisco, much less, get there, okay. {sherab mena}
"If you don't have the perfection of wisdom," which is which number? Number
six. {mena parol chiknang ni} "If you don't have the sixth perfection, which is
wisdom, then the first five perfections" {mikpu mepay} "are eyeball-less," okay
[laughs]. They don't have any eyes. {jangchub repar nyurpa me} "They cannot
get you to the end," okay {jangchub repar nyurpa me}. They ain't {parol chin
che}. They're not {parol chin sin} obviously. They're not "got already to the
perfection," but what the Buddha's saying here is "you can't even call them
getting you to perfection," okay, and then he goes on {kangdze sherab ki nyi
raptu sin gyurpa} "If you were able to get wisdom," {detse} "well then" {mikme}
"you would have found your eyes" {kirchen de min popo} "and then you could
call them perfections," okay. So what he's saying is that unless you have the
perfection of wisdom, which means unless you are performing the act of giving,
for example, with a knowledge of emptiness, you can't call them perfections,
okay, you can't call them perfections. [student: How do you get to the perfection
of wisdom without the other five?] Ah, we'll talk about it. It's a good question.
He says, well how are you going to get to the perfection of wisdom if you can't
practice the other five? Don't the first five cause number six? [student: unclear]
{dupa shi} which is the {shi}, it's called {dupa} which is the briefer prajnaparamita
sutra. [student: unclear] Intellectual or direct perception of emptiness, but
mainly direct perception, which is mainly what the sixth perfection is, but we'll
talk about that in the sixth class, okay. [student: unclear] Right. No, he doesn't
say that. He says you can't call it {parol tu chin che}, but what he means is it's not
{parol tu chin che}, okay, it is not {parol tu chin che}, which means it's not getting
you to Buddha hood either. It's not only not gone to Buddhahood, but if you're
not performing the act of giving, with an understanding of emptiness, with
perfection number six, the Buddha says {ming ma topo} "you can't call them
getting you to Buddhahood. They are not getting you to Buddhahood. Does
that mean, I ask you, that anything we do, any act of giving that we do, we can't
call the perfection of giving? [student: unclear] Good, good answer, okay, but as
we know he's not always literal [laughs], and, and then the scriptures debate, this
is, this is the kind of thing we do in the monastery for four hours at night, five
hours. The point is this: if, if a perfection, especially one of the first five, is
performed without an understanding of emptiness, you can't call it a perfection
in the sense of being {parol tu chin che}, in the sense of getting you to perfection.
It's not a direct path to perfection. It's not working that way, okay. It obviously
can't be called a perfection in the sense of {parol tu chin sin} 'cause it's not already
got to perfection. Is there any other kind of perfections? They they say "there
are," okay [laughs], and they say "we can call the activities that you and I do,
hoping to reach Buddhahood, paramitas," we can, okay, even though they're not
{parol tu chin che} nor {parol tu chin sin}.            They're not getting you to
Buddhahood directly, and they're not gone to Buddhahood and being there
either. [student: unclear] Yeah, that's the point, okay. We can call them
perfections if you do them with the intention of reaching Buddhahood for other
people, you know, even a wimpy intention, okay. Even if you think, gee, okay,
I'm gonna give this bread to this bird, and I hope he becomes my disciple in the
future, and I pull him with me as I walk through the door of ultimate nirvana,
which is really the way we're supposed to give bread to a bird, okay. It takes a
little, takes a little longer, okay [laughter], but if you, if you're thinking that as
you give the bread to the bird it's paramita, it is the giving, the [unclear word]
perfection of giving. It doesn't deserve the name of {parol tu chin che}, okay, if
you're not doing it with wisdom, it doesn't deserve that name, says the Buddha
Himself, but on the basis of it being similar to the perfection of giving, to the real
perfection of giving, okay, you can call it a perfection, it is a perfection, it is the
perfection of giving, as long as in the back of your mind somewhere "I'm doing
this so that I can reach enlightenment for the sake of this bird." [student: The
other day you were talking about the one collection, it was the first four, the first
three perfections...] And I said "mainly," okay. In a debate ground, you'd get
slaughtered if you didn't say "mainly." Mainly gets you out of a lot of problems
[laughter], mostly [student: ...and some of the effort and wisdom one was
meditation and wisdom and some was the effort. Well how does that statement
go back with what you're saying now?] We'll talk about it, we'll get there, we'll
get there. So really now you have paramitas don't you? You have the one that
gets you there, you have the one of being there, and you have one that's kind of
like a paramita so let's call it a paramita, because at least you have the intention
to reach enlightenment for others, and on that
basis we can call what you and I do the paramita of giving, for example.
[student: When you're talking about doing this with emptiness in mind, I mean,
does this mean it doesn't work unless you have already seen the direct
perception of emptiness, or does it mean, what if you're just aware of emptiness
and you say I'm giving a bird food, although when I really look at this bird
there's no bird [unclear]] I like, that's an excellent question. Let's go straight
there. We'll go straight to the answer. It is a perfect question at this point.
There's always a couple of emanations in the audience who ask the right
questions.

[break]

Say {kor sum} [repeat] {mi mikpa} [repeat] {kor sum} [repeat] {mi mikpa]
[repeat] This is to answer the question of what does it mean to perform an act of
giving while understanding the emptiness of it, okay, and does it require that
you have understood emptiness, perceived emptiness directly, or, for example,
could you just have a intellectual understanding of emptiness, and how much
does it have to be in the forefront of your mind if it's just an intellectual
understanding for it to be {parol tu chin che}, getting you out, getting you to
perfection, okay. {kor} always means a circle of some kind. Like samsara is
what in Tibetan {korwa}, okay, to circle the Vajrapani {gompa} is to {korwa}. A,
a coin in Tibetan is called {kormo}, so {kor} has this meaning of circle. In this case
it means the three spheres or the three elements, and we'll talk about what it
means, and you maybe can give me a better word, okay. Maybe component is a
better word, okay. Let's say "component," okay. {kor} means component, all
right. {sum} you know {koyn chok sum}. Three, okay.                    {sum} means
"three." {mi mikpa} means "not to see them, not seeing the three components."
If you can perform an act of giving without seeing the three components then
you're doing it with an understanding of emptiness. Well what does that mean?
The first of the {kor sum}, by the way there's different ways of listing them. I'm
going to give you the way, I'll show you the two ways, okay. We can say that
the first one is the gift, okay, the gift that you give. In the case of the bird, a
piece of bread, okay. My Lama always insists that we break it up into small
pieces. He says "don't make them sick [laughter]. The second {kor}, the second
component in the act of giving is the recipient, the person who's receiving the
bread, okay, and then thirdly the act of giving itself. Some scriptures, I believe
the autocommentary to the madhyamikavatara that I looked up today in the
computer list it as, they leave out number three and they put what you, what
you think naturally, the giver, so you see lists, it listed both ways, okay. What
does it mean not to see them? Are you supposed to close your eyes [laughter]
when you give that bread to that bird. It's kind of dangerous up on that porch,
you know [laughter] [student: unclear] That would be one way of {mi mikpa}
but the, but the ultimate meaning of {mi mikpa} here is, by the way if you do the
Tsongkapa prayer how's it start out? {Mikme tsewe terchen chenresig} This is
the same idea, exactly the same idea. {mikme} and {mikpa} are the same thing.
It means you do not perceive those three components as being self-existent,
okay. As you perform the act of giving, do not imagine that those three things
are self-existent, okay. Let me ask you a question, and this answers your
question, which was a really good question. Do you have to be perceiving
directly emp, empti, the emptiness of these three things while you perform the
act of giving. You can't. Good answer, okay, imposs, you'd definitely fall off the
porch. [laughter] Just impossible, okay, you can't do it. You cannot perceive
emptiness directly unless your sense consciousness were shut down a long time
before. I mean you're, you're not only not focusing on sense consciousnesses,
you can't. You can't even think of a normal object. If you did you'd pop out of it
because your mind is on ultimate reality, and there's only one ultimate reality,
and that's emptiness. Every other kind of object that you've ever experienced
cannot present itself to your mind at that moment. Impossible. So it doesn't
refer to perceiving directly the emptiness of those three things all at once, and by
the way you've heard stories of people perceiving emptiness as they chopped
wood or things like that. It's not referring to that, okay. It's impossible. You
must be on the first {samten} level. You must be in the preparatory stage, and it
must be the one called {michokme}. You must be in deep, sitting, sense
consciousness shut down, mind consciousness shut down to normal objects,
meditation. You must be in that. It is possible and likely that at the final
moments of the path of preparation, which happens just before, maybe an hour
before, you, you do perceive the, the truth of dependent origination. You know,
you finally catch yourself mistaking that mental projection for a real object, but,
and that can happen chopping wood or something like that, but, but not the
perception of emptiness, not the direct perception of emptiness, must be done in
deep meditation, and I always say, and I'll repeat it. If you never learn to get into
that deep meditation, you're guaranteed what? You won't see emptiness
directly, so if you wanna make sure that you don't get out of samsara in this life,
and by the way that your tantric practice never works right... [end of first side of
tape.]

...thinking about your job, what you're going to have for breakfast, and sleep a
little longer, squeeze in that, squeeze that forty-five minutes down to fifteen, and
you'll never see emptiness directly and your tantric practice never [unclear].
Yeah, somebody had a question? No, okay. That's {kor sum mi mikpa}. Now
what does that mean? You know, as I give the bread what am I supposed to
think? What am I supposed to be thinking? What does it mean not to see the
bread as self-existent? You know, does it help to think "this bread was made by
Jim this morning, you know. It has causes and conditions." [laughter] You
know, would that, do you guess that that would help a lot? Or, this bread is
made up of calcium atoms, iron atoms, it's got a little bit of carbon in it, it's the
sum of its parts, you know. It's the sum of its parts, you know [laughter]. I
mean, you'd never get to work, and by the way, those are the two lower
interpretations of dependent origination, okay. Those are the two lower. By the
way, if you wanna check that out, that was taught very succinctly by Pabongka
Rinpoche, okay. It's in the book on the principle teachings of Buddhism, okay.
I'll try to get the page number for you, and I could show you the Tibetan if you
want to see the Tibetan, but he divides the four classic schools of India into those
who thought that dependent origination meant this piece of bread came from
Jim this morning, from its causes, or those who thought dependent origination
meant this bread depends on its calcium atoms, iron atoms, etc. and the higher
school, which says what?         This bread depends on my perceiving certain
indications of bread: square, brown, tasty, synthesizing them in my mind into a
mental image, and calling that bread, and there's no bread out there, okay, there
is no bread out there. The bread cannot exist out there on its own, impossible.
That's its dependent origination, okay. It is the synthesis of, if my mind has a
tendency to synthesize it, is that you can't see a piece of bread. What are you,
kidding me? How can you see a piece of bread without looking at the corner
and the middle, and when you're looking at the corner and the middle, how can
you be seeing a piece of bread? It's impossible what you do. You cannot be
seeing a piece of bread. It's impossible what you do. You cannot be seeing a
piece of bread out there. It's impossible. What you're seeing is indications. You
have like four or five clues because your eye went ding ding ding ding. Your
eyes are always going ding ding ding ding. It's picking out like four clues of
bread and it says "bread." You never see the back of the bread, right, but you're
always imagining that it's there. I mean, that's, that's significant. You never see
the back of anybody unless they turn around, you know, but you've seen, you
know, your mind is filling it in. You, you imagine this body. All you see is a
couple of flat surfaces you see, you know. So you're, you're picking up some
clues, your mind is synthesizing it into a mental image, and then the mind is
saying "bread," and then you're mistaking that for an external object. What's the
point? So big deal. Who cares if it's a mental image with a name on it, or if it's a
piece of bread that the bird is going to eat, out there, the way I always thought it
was? What's the difference? Who cares? They work the same. They do work
the same by the way. I mean, if the first existed it would work that way. What's
the point? What, what's the point of thinking of the bread as, who cares if the
bread's in your mind or the bread's out there on, on the deck [laughter]. He
might pick your brains. Anyway. The point is this. If the bread is pleasant to
you, it's the result of a good, what is, why are you synthesizing it that way? You
know, what is it in your mind that makes it a piece of bread that in the mind of
some other being might not see it, by the way, according to madhyamika, if a
{yidak} is in the area, preata, hungry ghost, they see a stone, or if they see a piece
of bread, the minute they touch it, it burns their hands. So why do you see it as
bread and why does the preata see it as something? [students: unclear] Yeah it's
some kind of a, that's the whole point. I mean if the bread is something good,
and you're giving a good thing to a bird, you must see it as a result of your good
karma. Then what will it make you do if you reflect on the causes of it that way?
You'll definitely collect more merit, okay, with knowledge, with wisdom. What's
the ultimate result of acting that way? Buddhahood. Is that {parol tu chin che}?
Ah, now you've got a perfection. Now the Buddha can say "oh, now you can call
it a perfection, cause that's acting directly to get you to enlightenment. Now,
now you're dealing with wisdom. Now it's {parol tu chin che}. Now it's pushing
you to enlightenment. If you give the piece of bread without thinking that way,
what happens? [students: unclear] You will get a pleasant result from it in the
future. Somebody will give you several loaves of bread, you know. That's
about it. While you eat them you'll be getting older, your body will be wrinkling
a little more. I mean, it's not real, it, it is {gyurway dukngel}. It's suffering
number two in the disguise of something nice. It, it's just eating bread as you get
old and suffer more. It tastes good. [student: Is there much of a difference then
between doing an act of giving with an understanding of karma?] Good. It's an
excellent question. It's excellent question She said how about, and I always tell
people it's like this, you know, like if you, if you grew, had grown up a Buddhist,
thank god we didn't, you know, cause we'd probably be doing something else,
out of resis, anyway. What's the difference between that and doing the act of
giving, keeping the laws of karma in mind, okay, cause it seems to be not so
much different, okay, and, and this is the point. There's a whole bunch of
Sabhuti's in this audience, I don't know.

[break]

Say {jiktenpay} [repeat] {lam} [repeat] {jiktenpay} [repeat] {lam} {jikten} means
what? [students: world] World. {jikten-pa} makes it an adjective. Worldly path,
okay, the path of the world, the worldly path. Path, yeah, p-a-t-h. If you
perform an act of giving, let's say you grow up in Sri Lanka, and your parents
say "you are going to have a future life," from the time you're a little kid, so you
believe it. As Kyedrup Je says about most people in Tibet "but they don't have
the slightest clue why they believe it." I mean, even if you grow up in Tibet, and
you, and you believe in future lives from your childhood, you have, you have no
idea why there should be future lives anyway. I mean, most Tibetans, even in
Kyedrup Je's time, disciple of Tsongkapa, he said "most Tibetans these days, they
can't, they can't give you the slightest shred of evidence why there should be a
future life. They just believe in it," okay, and if you believe in the, in the laws of
karma for the same reason, you know, your parents, since the time you were a
little kid said "give food to the birds, you'll always have enough to eat," you
know, people in India are starving [laughter], I'm talking Sri Lanka, okay, then
you will believe in the laws of karma, and you will perform acts of giving out of
a, it's really out of dumb faith, blind faith. Your parents said it so it's okay. You
give food to this bird, you're gonna get food in the future. That's called in the
abhidharma system {jikten-pay lam}, the path of the world. It's doing good
deeds and not really understanding why, and they are not strong, I, and they're
not a {parol tu chin che}, I can say they're not a {parol tu chin che}, okay. I'll
write one more word and then we'll take a break, okay.

[break]

Say {jikten lay} [repeat] {depay lam} [repeat] {jikten lay} [repeat] {depay lam}
[repeat] [unclear] {lam depa} means "transcended," transcended, gone beyond.
{lam} means "path the path of transcending the world," the path which takes you
out of the world. By the way, {jikten} always refers to the samsaric world, the
suffering world. This is to perform an act of giving with an understanding of
emptiness, as opposed to performing an act of giving with a simple belief in
karma, okay. The second one does not get you out of the world, in the sense of
getting you out of samsara. The first one does, okay. If you perform an act of
giving, understanding emptiness, rather with some vague belief in the laws of
karma, that will, that's {parol tu chin che}. That takes you out. That gets you to
the other shore. So you have to draw a distinction between when you're
standing there and you're giving the food to the bird and you're thinking "I hope
this has, I, I'm doing this because I'll get lots of bread back in the future." This is
the law of karma, or, or even, no, I won't get that, or even thinking "I hope this
gets me to enlightenment." The second one, by the way, would be a paramita,
right, a plain old paramita. Not a {parol tu chin che}, okay. You could call it a
paramita, says the Buddha, okay. He says {po-bo}. You can call it a paramita. If
you gave the food to the bird thinking I hope we get to enlightenment this way,
but ultimately, for it to be getting you to perfection, {parol tu chin che}, you have
to be thinking this, this bread is empty, and then your mind says, and I can tell
you from experience, "so what?" [laughter] You know, my boss is screaming in
my face. Michael Roach says empty, think empty, empty, you know, and he's
still screaming in my face, you know, and I'm like, so what am I supposed to
remember next, you know, and what will that, what will the next part be, you
know, empty of what? Empty of anything independent of my projections. Well
where are the projections coming from? I yelled at some guy in the past.
Whoops. That will immediately shut down your reactions. Immediately, I mean,
there's a very interesting thing called {nyenpo}. Say {nyenpo} [repeat] {nyenpo}
[repeat] {nyenpo} means "antidote." Keeping your mind on the thought that he's
empty and this is my projection and I'm having it because I yelled at something,
and a {nyomo}, a kesha, a mental affliction, cannot coexist in the same skull at the
same moment, totally impossible. [student: unclear] Well, we'll talk about it,
but, but catch that, catch that. [student: unclear]. But if you, by the way the
definition of [student: unclear] Okay, I'll answer that. Yeah, we'll talk about it.
So I'll repeat and then I'll clarify according to that question. It's impossible in one
moment, that's the trick, okay. It's impossible in one moment to be focusing on
his emptiness, and reflecting on the fact that he's a projection and he came from
yelling at someone in the past, and at the same moment to feel the desire to yell
back. That's why you reach nirvana by meditating on emptiness. That's exactly
why. You know, the longer you can stretch out that, and it says {lekpar selwa},
in the definition of a, of a antidote, of a {nyenpo, lekpar selwar, [unclear]},
"clearly." If the definition has that little word in there, "clearly," meaning your,
your awareness of his emptiness has to be {selwar. Selwar} means "appearing in
your mind with intensity," okay, and then it acts as an antidote, okay. Just a, just
a dim thought, or a slight reflection, "oh he's empty, goddamn him," [laughs]
doesn't work. It won't work. {lekpar selwar, lekpar selwar} means "an intense
understanding of his emptiness." Strong, clear, you know, he's empty, I got here
because I yelled at someone in the past. That thought cannot stay in the same
town as, as the desire to yell back at him, and that's the only way you can
remove mental afflictions.          That is the only ultimate antidote for mental
afflictions. It's the only way to get to nirvana. That is the only kind of thought,
that, if you hold it in your mind strongly at that moment, will destroy your
mental afflictions, and now we talk about, one second, now we talk about
reaction time, and we talked about it the other day. It will take you, I promise,
three minutes to do this the first time you try. Three minutes after you've
already yelled back, you will remember this talk, you know. You'll probably
already be in the bathroom or something, you know, you know, like I mean a
few minutes later. It might even be the next night. You say, I wasn't, I was
supposed to get that antidote in my mind, you know, and then you'll, you'll
write it down in your confession book, right, and the next day he'll come in again
and open his mouth, and, and this time you'll be more ready but you'll still yell
back, but it'll take about ten minutes to remember, oh two minutes, but what I
mean is if you practice, and that's all up to you, the reaction time shortens,
shortens, shortens, shortens, shortens until it becomes second nature and you
don't do it anymore, and the last day that you do it, the last time you don't do it,
anyway, you reach nirvana. That's nirvana. Yeah, you had a question. [student:
unclear] Bread, which is a projection. By the way, recognizing it as a projection
is recognizing its... ? [students: emptiness]. Nah, it's dependent origination, that's
recognizing its dependent origination. It's dependent origination, its relative
truth, its relative reality. To recognize its emptiness means to think "this is not
anything but my projection." Big difference, but anyway, let's start with thinking
of it as a projection. [student: unclear] No, it's a good question. It's a, it's a real
question, and that refers, that goes back to the three scopes in the lam rim
teachings. You've heard of the three scopes or the three different capacities, or
the three different persons in the lam rim teachings. In other words, there's
three different motivations possible in the practice of Buddhism. In the first one,
you're just trying to get your rear end out of the three lower realms, okay. All
you're trying to do is stay out of the three lower realms for yourself, okay. In
the second level of motivation, you're trying to keep out of all kinds of suffering
which would include this room and all of us. You're just trying to get out of that.
That's called nirvana. You're just trying to reach nirvana. In the third level of
motivation, which is bodhisattva motivation, you're thinking I want to get there
so I can take everybody else with me. Those are the three levels of motivation in
the lam rim. Now I debate with you, okay. {unclear} When you reach
motivation number three, do you reject the first two motivations, and that's the
answer to your question. You know, if you have a motivation of wanting to
achieve enlightenment for the sake of all other people, does that mean you are
supposed to abandon the desire to keep your rear end, your own rear end out of
the three lower realms, and does it mean you're supposed to abandon the wish
to reach nirvana, the permanent happiness in your own mind itself? No, they're
not at all contradictory. They are actually built on each other. You can't get to
number three without number two and you can't get number two without
number one [student: unclear] No, that's a, really, really that makes it a
perfection. That makes it a perfection, to say we're all going there. Just get used
to it. The scriptures all say look, we've got to get to that point anyway. You
might as well do it now, you know. You might as well have that motivation
from now, because just thinking you'd like to feed the bird, you're just giving
him {gyurway dukngel}. What's that? You're giving him the [unclear] of
{gyurway dukngel}. You're giving him the ultimate scriptural example of the
suffering of change. You're feeding him a nice meal, you know. That, that's the
scriptural, ultimate scriptural example of the suffering of change. You are
feeding him the suffering of change. He'll get hungry again. So, so really the,
the scriptures say look, from the beginning you might as well go on the
bodhisattva track, not waste time, you know. From the beginning as you give
the bird the food think, hey buddy, you and me, we're going there together, you
know, and I understand how: because you're empty, I'm empty, the bread is
empty, and the whole, this whole [unclear] is empty, and keeping my mind on
that acts as a {parol tu chin che}. Okay, one more question and we'll take a
break. [student: unclear] It's a difficult question. First of all, as we said the other
day, a Buddha could emanate as a piece of bread, okay. Secondly, there's a thing
called Buddha nature which is a whole class in itself, but basically there's nothing
Buddha-ish about you or me except the emptiness of our mind. Long story,
okay. When you become a Buddha, that same emptiness will become the
Dharmakaya, and specifically the Swabogakaya, the essence body, the emptiness
of the other three bodies. So that's the only part of you right now which has any
Buddha nature in it at all. It's not like, oh, let's clean off your chest and you'll be a
Buddha, you know. That's a wrong idea.
That is the, the [unclear] is, is the emptiness of your mind. So in that sense no,
the bread is not any manifestation of the Buddha, but, but it's interesting to say
that any good deed done in the world at any time by anyone of any religious
persuasion is the {tinlay} of the Buddha, and defined as such, you know. They
are performing the deeds of a Buddha. That is the activity of Budd, of a Buddha
in the world. You know, when a Muslim helps somebody or, or keeps morality,
which they do a lot, they have a lot of good moral codes, that is the activity of
the Buddha in the world, according to all the scriptures. It's very cool, Okay,
we'll take a break and come back, how bout eight forty, something like that,
okay.

[break]

Question. Is there a, let's say you give the bread to the bird and it causes your
enlightenment, all right, eventually, is there a connection between the two?
[students: unclear]      There, there is a connection.       It's a cause and effect
relationship, according to Buddhist philosophy, and I'm not going to get deeply
into it, but there's two kinds of relationships possible in the, in the universe. One
is cause and effect, and one is a relationship of identity, meaning, and I'm not
gonna, it's not the purpose tonight to get into the second one. If you want to
know what it is, it's the relationship between cars and chevrolet, okay. Once
you're chevrolet you're automatically a [students: car] car. So cars and chevrolets
are, are related by identity. Specifically, chevrolets are related to cars by a, by a
relationship called identity. Are red things and crimson things related? It's the
same thing, so they're related by identity, okay. [student: unclear] Well,
generally speaking, okay, generally speaking. Red and crimson or red and
[unclear] or whatever you want to call it, they, they're related. [student: Is that
true only in the deceptive sense though?] That's a long story. Yeah, that's true
deceptively. You can say that, but for a relationship to occur two things have to
be going on. The two objects have to be separate from each other, okay.
Michael can't have relationship with Michael, okay. I mean, obviously the two
things have to be separate, and obviously they have to exist, okay. You can't
have a relationship with a rabbit with horns. You can't be loving your pet rabbit
with horns cause they don't exist. So one of the, there has to be separateness and
there has to be separateness on both sides. They both have to be existing.
There's another Buddhist principle that says by the time the result comes out, the
cause is destroyed, by definition. By the time one of these oak trees around here
grows up to be a oak tree, the, what do you call oak tree, an acorn, the acorn is,
by definition, vanished. So I debate you, Tessie. So causes and, so karmas and
their consequences can't be related. So what you do and the consequences you
get from it karmically cannot have any relation at all. [students: unclear] You're
supposed to say {chi chu}, why do you say that? Because one of them doesn't
exist at any given time. [students: unclear] The karmic actions you do, like
giving bread to a bird, and the karmic results you get, like Buddhahood, cannot
be related to each other, because for a relationship to occur, there are two
requirements. The two objects must be separate, and they are. Buddhahood
and giving bread to a bird are separate, but they must also both exist [student:
unclear] Of course at the same time. [students: unclear] Oh yeah, oh yeah.
How could you say that something's connected to something which doesn't exist,
well then you could say anything. You could say Vajrapani gompa is, is related
to, you know, the fact that that Lincoln lived for a hundred years. [student:
unclear] I mean, you either exist or you don't exist, right? [student: unclear] I'll
give you the definition of a relationship. If you, if you remove one, the other
one is automatically removed. If you throw the acorn out and smash it, what
happens to oak tree? It can't grow. If you take all cars off planet earth, what
happens to chevrolet? No, that is the definition of relationship, and there's only
two possible, and I'm talking about karma and its consequences, okay. Giving
the food to the bird, which we don't technically karma, okay. We call it the
collection of merit in this, but I'm not going to get into that. By the time you
reach enlightenment, which is the consequence of that, of that deed, the deed is
gone. How can there be a relationship between one thing that exists and
another thing that doesn't exist? By the time the enlightenment comes, the
giving the food to the bird is always gone. If the giving the food to the bird is
around still, it means you are not yet enlightened. So how can there be a
relationship? [student: unclear] So could you have an effect, could you have an
effect whose cause didn't exist? [student: Yeah, you could have an effect whose
cause didn't exist because the cause is gone and now the effect is there.] Good,
and it's true that all effects, the causes of all effects are always gone by the time
the effect comes out. There's no such thing as a cause and effect relationship.
[laughter] [student: Yeah, that's true, if you define it like that.] [students:
unclear] Yeah, that's true. Anyway, I'll give you the punch line. Usually my
Lama makes you wait. Choney Drakpa Shedrup says in a technical sense, by the
time enlightenment has occurred, the cause is non-existent. It is past. If the,
giving the food to the bird is still around, then the consequence of that karma
has yet to come, and therefore doesn't exist either, but in a more general sense
there is cause and effect, and then he points to the example of time itself, okay,
which we'll get into a little later. Generally, if all this stuff, I'm just giving you a, a
little taste of, of a couple classes down the road, okay. Is time itself a projection?
What are the parts of time. Yeah, you could say me of five minutes ago, me of
now, and me of five minutes from now, okay. Two of those things don't exist.
One doesn't exist any more, one doesn't exist yet, and the third one is existing or
did a minute ago. [laughs] So what about the experience of time, what about
what we call time? Is it a projection also? Yes it is, in a general sense, okay. You
can have a thing called Petra, and, and it is a projection onto those instance of
Petra which occurred from the time of her conception up to the time that she
died in this life, and we call that Petra. We, we label that Petra. The parts are the
Petra of each microsecond. We perceive some of them, because I haven't known
her that long, and I conceptualize them all together. I synthesize them, and then
we call it Petra over the pe, over the length of her life, okay, and that, and then
we come up with another product of a, of a projective process, okay. The same
old three steps. What? I perceive some data. Petra of last year, Petra of this
year, Petra of next year. My mind glues them together into a nice solid Petra's
life, and I call it Petra over the course of time, okay, and that's how time itself is a
projection. The, the perception of things changing is itself a projection, okay,
and, and I'll say one more thing and then let's leave it, okay, and that's the only
way time could have occurred anyway. Time could never have been outside of
those, that process. It doesn't make any sense. It could never have changed.
Nothing could have changed if it existed from its own side. It's my percep, my
projections shifting. It's nothing changing outside. If it were changing outside, if
it existed outside, it would have some nature of its own and that nature could
never be gone. It would always be the same. Things can't change independent
of your projection, and I'll leave it there. It's to set you up for a couple of classes
from now. Okay, last thing today. [student: unclear] Does karma and its
consequences exist, okay, and his, what he says is, when the action exists, then
the consequence is yet to come and in that sense doesn't exist yet. When the
consequence has arrived, the karma that caused it, feeding the bird, is past and
therefore non-existent, but in a general sense, as we conceptualize it, the cause,
the karma and its consequence do exist and they have a relationship. [student:
unclear] Oh man, I can't do this three times [laughter], but in a general sense, as
you conceptualize it, as you conceptualize it as karma and its consequences, they
exist. They both exist in a general sense now, okay. Does Lincoln's assassination
exist? [students: unclear] does Lincoln's assassination function at the present
time? [students: yes, no, yes, no] Does Lincoln's assassination affect us now?
[students: yes] So it exists. Is Lincoln assassinated today. There's your answer,
and you gotta, as my Lama would say, cook it [laughs]. Last thing tonight.
There's a question about the order of the six perfections, and somebody asked it.
I forget who it was, but they said, how can you get to number six if you don't
through the first five, and how can the first five be perfections if you ain't got
number six? So it seems to be a catch twenty-two. I mean it looks like you could
never have a perfection unless you borrowed it from somebody or something
[laughs], okay. It seems to take the first five perfections to get enough goodness
to get to perfection number six. It seems to take perfection number six to qualify
the first five as perfections, okay, and then Choney Drakpa Shedrup, and, and
throughout history this question has been asked, throughout the history of
Buddhood. So the answer's like this. I mean let's start with. It is true that you
have to. Well, you tell me. Do you have to not see the three components of the
act of giving in order for it to be a perfection? [students: unclear] The Buddha
says it doesn't qualify as a, as a real, real making you perfect, but you can call it a
perfection
if generally you're dedicating it to enlightenment, and, and the next line of the
scripture says because it has some sort of similarity to a real perfection, so let's
call it perfection because at least you've dedicated it to becoming enlightened. So
it is a perfection. So you, so the first five, you could go through the six
perfections in order, and, and technically you could not have number six until
you get to number six, okay. That's one thing to say, technically. The other fact
is that as the perfections relate to the bodhisattva bhumis, okay, the bodhisattva
levels, when do you reach, we've talked about the five paths and we've gone
over them a couple of times, but there's these other ten things called the ten
bodhisattva levels, okay, bodhisattva bhumis. When do you hit the first
bodhisattva bhumi? [students: unclear]. Half, half an answer there. [students:
unclear] Who? No, it has to be a bodhisattva, okay. If, with bodhichitta in your
heart, you see emptiness directly, you have reached the first bodhisattva bhumi,
okay, like it's an impossibly hard level to get to is the beginning of the
bodhisattva bhumis, okay, and you go through those in order, okay, and they
are marked by the extraordinary ability to perform those perfections. So what
happens, what do you perfect during the first bodhisattva bhumi? It's the
extraordinary practice of, of the perfection of giving, meaning, you know, like
super perfection of giving. So in that sense they go in order. When you're going
through the bodhisattva bhumis, you're going through the six in order, but the
Buddha said also what? You can't call the first five, you can't, they don't deserve,
he said, he didn't said you can't call, sorry, I retract that. He said they don't
deserve the name of perfection unless, the first five don't deserve the name of
perfection unless, unless you do them with the understanding of emptiness,
which is number six, okay. So that's the relationship. I, I'll sort of state it more
succinctly, okay. You need, you need the merit, you need the good karmic
energy of the first of five perfections to get to number six, okay. You need the
good karmic energy of performing the first five perfections to get to number six.
You need number six for the first five perfections to be {parol tu chin che}, okay,
to be really acting to get you to perfection, they have to be accompanied by the
perfection of wisdom, perfection number six. I'll repeat it, okay. You can't get to
perfection number six, you cannot have for example the direct perception of
emptiness unless you've got heavy duty good karma from the first five
perfections, okay, and you can't, and the first five perfections don't deserve the
name perfection of perfections, although they can be called perfections, until
they're done with the perfection of wisdom. It's the understanding of emptiness.
The, the last, yeah, and then, and then as a sideline, when you go through the ten
bodhisattva bhumis, which is another story, you go through them in order,
okay, yeah. [student: unclear] Because it's {parol tu chin che} and only because
of that. It is learning the perfection of wisdom. That's really cool. That's exactly
why it's more virtue, and I'm glad you wrapped up class so nicely, you know,
that's exactly why it's more virtue to hold in your hand the Diamond Cutter
Sutra that to, that to cover those planets with jewels and offer them to
somebody because you're holding in your hand {parol tu chin che}, something
that can make you into perfection, and all those other things, in and of
themselves, don't. [student: unclear] There's a sideline in Choney Drakpa
Shedrup's commentary where he says you know, it's not such a big deal to hold
this thing in your hand, I think it must mean that you start to grasp its meaning,
[laughter], but that's not what the scripture says, but you can see obviously that,
you know, you can put that scripture on a bird's head and it's not gonna, it's not
gonna be a big effect at that moment, okay. Okay, anyway, that, you're, you're
right in that sense and he does acknowledge that at some point. One more
point, and, and very serious, you know. Suppose a person had seen emptiness
directly, and, and were trying to describe it to someone else, and, and were, and,
and talked about it for a while, and then was, and then those people come to you
and say "well, I really want to do it, I really do want to do it," you know, and I,
you know, people do that, people say that. They say, they come to you and they
say, you know, "I like that, that sounds cool, I understand its benefit, I've been
trying for a long time. Now what to I do. I really want to do it. I really do want
to do it, you know. I, I now, I kind of believe its possible the way it's been
described. I really want to do it. What should I do, you know. What should I do
next?" You have to collect those five perfections. You must perfect those five
perfections. You have to concentrate on them first, at least with an attitude I
hope I get enlightened, okay, so I can really help other people. Secondly, you
have to study intensively, and meditate. It's not enough to go to one week
course about, about that subject, and there's, your study has to be broad and it
has to be continual classroom hours. It's in all the scriptures. It says that
{sherab}, three kinds of {sherab}. First one is {tu jung gyi sherab} is the wisdom
that comes from pure hours of hearing it over and over again. It takes that
much to sink into your brain. You understand it discursively on an intellectual
level right now. It is not sinking in. It takes hundreds and hundreds of hours of
hearing it, and, and meditating on it const, {tu jung gyi sherab, sam jung gyi
sherab, gom jung gyi sherab}, the three steps of all gaining wisdom. Classroom
hours {tu jung gyi sherab}, contemplation intellectually {sam jung tyi sherab},
{gom jung gyi sherab} sitting in deep meditation. You must have those things.
But if I had to state the single most important cause, you know, if it were my
dear wish that everyone have an experience like that, I would say guru yoga,
okay. You must find a Lama that fits your particular personality, okay, and your
particular needs. Must find a Lama. Must get close to that Lama. Where ever
that Lama is, I mean, geography doesn't matter, you know. If you asked me
where's the worst place in the United States where I would ever want to live,
New Jersey. Second choice, Manhattan [laughter], and I'm absolutely serious.
I'm a California boy, and I was living in Arizona also, but the worst place I can
imagine, but you don't, forget geography, forget your job, forget whatever. Go
be with that Lama, you know, and, and serve that Lama, you know. Serve
doesn't mean occasional food and a flower, you know. Serve means, and I, and I
don't say this to many people. In fact I don't think anyone's ever heard me say it
in my normal classes in New York, but I mean, give, give everything, you know.
Whatever money you have give it to them. Normally they'll give it back to you
in about ten seconds, okay, and that, I've never seen that not happen actually,
but don't be worried [laughter]. Give them everything and just devote yourself
to them, and I talked about slack work too, you know. If they need a house,
build them the house. If they need to be, if they need meals, cook them meals.
If they need laundry done, do their laundry. If you have to take care of them
when they're sick, take care of them when they're sick, but the magic of that
relationship, and being close to that, that being, there is no other thing even close
if you want to perceive emptiness directly. There's nothing that even approaches
that karma, and you just, and Lamas are hard to find, you know, Lamas who are
worthy of serving that way are hard to find, but, but that's really the, if, if you
asked somebody who might have seen it how did it happen, they, they might
say, they'd probably say "guru yoga."