ACI 6 «Сутра Алмазного Огранщика», занятие 6

960831-1.aaa

94A.txt
transcribed by Fran Dayan
DIAMOND CUTTER SUTRA
August 31, 1996

That last verse is that {sangey chuden} and then it says {dakey chinsok}. If you're
just reading it in general as a prayer you say {dakey chinsok} and if you are
about to start a dharma class and you're and you're one of the people who's
listening you say {dakey chinyen}. Okay {dakey chinyen}. Instead of {chinsok}
you say {chinyen}, okay. You gotta to write it on your notebook maybe, okay.
Instead of {dakey chinsok} you say {dakey chinyen}, okay. Which means by the
virtue of my listening to this class, okay. And if you're teaching a class you say
{dakey chisay} which means by the virtue of my teaching the class. All right. The
next point in the [b: Diamond Cutter Sutra] the Buddha talks about {lung tenpa},
okay (writes on blackboard) Say {lung tenpa} [repeat] {lung tenpa} [repeat]. It's
also called {lung du tenpa}. {Lung} means the word. We had it in {lung gyi chu},
right and {topi chu}, you had {lung gyi chu}. {tenpa} means to give the word.
And this is ... I don't know what you want to call it in English ... but it's where the
Buddha comes up to you you know, and he puts his hand on your head and he
says , "Okay, six more lives. You're going to be a Buddha named Sakyamuni,
you know, and and it's some special event in a person's spiritual life, you know.
A Buddha comes to you and puts their hands on you and says, "I foresee "...
{lung tenpa} means to predict or to give the prediction. "I foresee that in ...
now ... because of the stage that you've reached at this point, you will become
Buddha named such and such within so many lives", okay. It's a big threshold for
a Buddha ... for a Buddhist, right? [laughs] [laughter] And in the sutra the
Buddha is describing an event of {lung tenpa}. He starts talking about an event
when a {lung tenpa} happens. The {lung ten ten be} the person [laughs] who got
the {lung ten} was named (writes on blackboard) Say {chukyi chin} [repeat]
{chukyi chin} [repeat] {Chu} means dharma. {kyi} means of and {chin} means
cloud ... cloud of dharma, okay, {chukyi chin} And this was a young ... a youth ...
it's called {chuynin chuky chin}. It was a young man at that time. The Buddha
who was doing the prediction (writes on blackboard) Say {marmee zey}
[repeat] {marmee zey} [repeat]. {Marmee} means like a butter lamp. {Mar}
means butter. {Mee} means lamp and it's like one of those offering lamps. And
{zee} means maker, the maker of a butter lamp. In Sanskrit it called {dipcan kara
dipcan kara}. This is also a name of Atisha, Lord Atisha was called {dipan kara}
also, but this is not referring to {dipcan kara}. This is referring to a Buddha who
came before our Buddha and his name was {dipcan kara}. So in the [b: Diamond
Cutter Sutra] the Buddhas is describing to Subhuti an event where a Buddha
named {Chiquichin} cloud of ... I'm sorry ... a young man named {Chiquichin} got
that prediction from a Buddha named {marmee zey} and that's ... because he had
reached a certain level called the eighth Bodhisattva bhumi, okay {sigh keppa}.
Because he had reached the eighth level ... the eighth Bodhisattva level ... because
of that ...{chuquichin} had reached that ... then {marmee zey} a {dipcan kara} that
Buddha came and said, "Okay I'm going to tell you the future". You know, "after
so many lives you will become a Buddha on a certain planet and your name will
be ... Shakyamuni", okay [laughs] All right, your name ... you will become a
Buddha ... you will on a planet called earth and your name will be Shakyamuni.
So this is actually referring to the Buddha ... our Buddha. Okay, the Buddha in
our world. And he got that prediction because he had reached level number
eight and there's a particular state of mind at that level that I want to talk about
today, okay. (writes on the blackboard) Say {mikelwa} [repeat] {chula} [repeat]
{sopa} [repeat] {mikelwa} [repeat] {chula} [repeat] {sopa} [repeat] {Kelwa} means
grow. {Mi} means what? ... won't grow. {Mikelwa} means won't grow. {Chu}
means generally any kind of thing ... dharma for inst ... {chu} means dharma but
it means any kind of existing thing. So {mikelwa chu} means something that's
not going to grow in the future, okay. In the monastery people have all these
philosophical terms and they use them as secret codes when they're in a
restaurant or something, you know. LIke if the waiter is slow in Mysore you
say, "This dinner is really a {mikelwa chu}", you know. [laughs] This is a future
dharma that won't occur, okay. [laughs] [laughter] That called a {mikelwa chu}
{Chula sopa}. {Sopa} generally means patience in the sense of the ability to not
get angry or to not get upset. That's {sopa}. And in when you're talking about
what we've been talking about for the last three or four days ... when you talk
about achieving all the high levels of realizations ... {sopa} takes on a completely
different meaning and it means mastery, okay. Mastery, okay ... total mastery
over something. So this this spiritual level called {mikelwa chula sopa} has two
flavors to it ... two things are going on.         Something's not going to grow
anymore and you have a total mastery over something. There's two elements
here {mikelwa chu} and {sopa}. And that happens at the eight bodhisattva's
bhumi ... the eight bodhisattva level. How do you get to the first bodhisattva
level? Na aay, that's the first path. Yeah, when you see emptiness directly with
bodhichitta. You reached ... in other words you've reached the path of seeing ...
path number three ... you become an Arya ... you see emptiness directly and if
you have bodhichitta in your heart at that moment ... by the way is it directly
present in your mind? Is it manifest in your mind at that moment? Can't be.
Okay. It's in ... we say it in ... it imbues your mind but it cannot ... you cannot be
thinking I want to save all living beings because ... living beings are not ultimate
reality. The only thing that can present itself to your mind at that moment is
ultimate reality ... emptiness, okay. But you do have bodhichitta ... we call it
{simba} imbued ... your mind is soaked in bodhichitta, okay. So if you see
emptiness directly with bodhichitta in your mind ... soaked in your mind, not
manifest in your mind ... your reach the first bodhisattva bhumi. At the same
time that you reached the third path on the bodhisattva track okay ... the path of
seeing okay ... that's all those things happen at the same time. So you can
imagine that reaching level number eight is a long trip, okay [laughs] ...
bodhisattva level number eight. Number ten is like enlightened, all right. But
we're talking about number eight.            Number eight is where you reach ...
{mikelwa chula sopa}. So {mikelwa chu}... what do you think is the thing that
won't grow anymore? Mental afflictions, okay. Reaching level eight on the
bodhisattva track and getting to nirvana on the bodhisattva track are the same
thing, okay. At level eight you reach nirvana, okay. You still have two levels
more to go before you reach total enlightenment, Buddha paradise, okay. And
all those bodies that we talked about, okay. So at this point you've only reach
nirvana. Nirvana is defined as ... what? Permanent elimination of mental
afflictions due to? ... naah ... uh ... yeah seeing the four truths one by one after
seeing emptiness directly. Having that whole day's experience that we described
after after seeing emptiness directly. {so sor torpay gopa so so tango} it's called.
{so so tango} means you got rid of something because of something else. There
are two kinds of cessations generally. You don't have to go into in much but {so
so tango} means you got to a cessation because you saw emptiness directly and
then saw those four truths, one by one. And all those things that were in those
four truths. There are cessations that you reach that don't depend on seeing
emptiness directly and they're called {so so tangmin gi gopa} which means they
don't depend on that process of seeing those four. An example would be at a
certain point in the path of preparation. due to the goodness of understanding
emptiness intellectually you can no longer take birth in the lower realms.
Impossible ... totally impossible ... it can't happen after that. The path of
preparation. At a certain point, I think it's {jorlan sopa}, which mean mastery,
and it's the name of your root lama ... probably mastery and patience, right ...
you can you can no longer be born in the lower realms. Impossible. That's a
{gop}. That's a {gopa}, a cessation. That's the end of something but it didn't come
about through seeing emptiness directly and seeing the four noble truths one by
one. So we call it {so so tangmin gi gopa} which means a cessation that doesn't
depend on that. There are two kinds of cessations. So we're talking now about
the eight bodhisattva level ... the person has ... for for this person mental
afflictions are {mikel way chu} which means what? They're not going to happen
again, okay. The point is they can't happen again. You cannot have another
case of a mental affliction and I thought it would be cool to go over the mental
afflictions just so you can enjoy what you're not going to have. [laughs]
[laughter] all right. So I'm going to go over the mental afflictions just very
briefly. I mean, if
you're having a whole course about wiping these things out of your mind, out of
your heart, it would be nice to know exactly what you're getting rid of. There
are six major mental afflictions. We talked about it last Friday night. There are
six major mental afflictions and there are twenty minor mental afflictions ...
secondary ... and there's tens of thousands of variance. Ten of thousands of
different flavors. It's worst than Baskins and Robbins, okay. Thousand and
thousands of different flavors of mental afflictions but mainly six six principal
ones , twenty secondary ones. What's the difference between a major mental
affliction and a minor mental affliction? {randem.....} is the definition of a root
mental affliction. It's the kind of thought that once it occurs in the mind of the
person that it's attacking , it disturbs their peace of mind in a major way. That's
major mental affliction. It ruins your peace of mind in in many ways in a major
way. So, for example, if you had a ...one of these six occur in your mind it would
mess up your day. Your whole day all right and it and it would become
obsess ... it would hurt you ... it would ruin your peace of mind substantially ...
like maybe for an hour or two hours you would you would you would be ...
your mind wouldn't be at peace. And that's the definition of a mental affliction.
The definition of a mental afflictions is {randem ...} it messes up the peace of
mind of the person that has it, okay. So what would the opposite be? I mean if
you didn't have them you would always have peace of mind.                     It's very
interesting, okay. You'd always have peace of mind. Conversely, if you're not
feeling very good at any particular time you know ... if you're feeling upset or
stressed or irritated or ... what's happening? You must have a mental affliction,
okay. It's a sign. If you don't feel whole , if you don't feel at peace, if you don't
feel contented at any given moment there must be a mental affliction running in
your mind, okay. Major or minor. Minor is ... the definition of a secondary
mental affliction is that it ruins your peace of mind from a specific angle, okay.
{chok chi ...}. For example, jealousy is a secondary. Jealousy make your heart
feel bad from a very specific angle which is ... you find it distasteful that someone
else should have something good happen to them, okay {laughs}. Definition of
jealousy, you know. It bothers you that someone else could have something
good happen to them. And bodhichitta is like praying that everyone could get
everything they could ever wish for. So the minute you have jealousy then
forget bodhichitta, you know. [laughs] It's impossible. Jealousy is like, "I wish
this person wouldn't have gotten this nice thing happen to them" and bodhichitta
is, "I'm going to work my whole life so that everyone gets everything they ever
wished for" and it's totally totally opposite.      But anyway, minor mental
afflictions , secondary ones, they ruin your contentment, or your peace of mind
from a very specific angle. We don't have time to go over all twenty six. I'm
going to go over the six main ones. Yeah

[student: [unclear]]

I'm going to do all six. And I'm doing them from the point of view of {mikey wa
chu} okay ... from a rather optimistic point of view, okay. These are the guys
that you are going to kick out of your mind permanently when you see
emptiness directly because you you had a good class about [b: Diamond Cutter
Sutra] okay. So these are going to be the friends that move out of your house.
[writes on blackboard]           Say {duchak} [repeat] {duchak} [repeat] {duchak}
means desire. They say desire. It's suppose to be like the worst mental affliction,
you know. Anger you get once a week or once every ... it depends on what's
your problems are. [laughs] By the way if you're in this realm ... if you're sitting
at Vajrapani Institute ... and if you're not a ... if you're not disguised ... if you're
not a Tantric deity in disguise, okay ... which I don't know. I'll tell you I'm not
but I don't know about you guys. And if you haven't achieved ... well even if you
have achieved nirvana in this life ... the reason you're here is because you had ...
you've had this. The best person in the desire realm and the worst person in the
desire realm are about an inch apart, okay. I mean, we all have these six. All
over the world, no matter what language you speak, no matter what country
you live in, what you eat for dinner, what your face looks like ... if you're in the
desire realm, you got here because you had them. And that's another thing you
understand at the path of seeing ... in the {jetob yeshey} in the aftermath you
understand that there really are three realms and you understand that if you're
here and if you're in a body like this, which is much worst than it looks, okay, ...
if you're in a dead end body like this, which can only die and hurt you, it's
because you have mental afflictions and that's what got you here, okay. If you're
a human, you were very very virtuous but you still had mental afflictions. If you
were pure on the inside the outside wouldn't look like this, okay. And if the
outside looks like this, or anything close, you had mental afflictions and you're
here because of that. The evidence is ... that you're here, [laughs] okay. You
wouldn't be here if you didn't have them, okay. So the first one is {duchak}. I
wanted to read you the technical definition of {duchak} okay. It says {sachey kyi
lomba la yu owe min numbey} {sachey kyi lomba la} means it must be directed
at a samsaric object and that's important. That's very important. Like is it is it a
mental affliction to desire nirvana? ... or to desire to get out of this state? ... or to
desire to be like Lama Yeshe? ... or something like that, you know. Is that a
mental affliction? No. {sachey kyi lomba la} which means it has to be focused on
a samsaric object ... on a dirty object ... on a suffering object, okay. Like you
know ... everyone saying how nice you are cause you're teaching this class, you
know. And you get attached to that, that's {duchak}, okay. That's desire. That's a
that's a ... that kind of desire is towards a dirty object ... samsaric object. Getting
well known, okay. {yu owe min numbey} {yu owe min numbey} means that
samsaric object must be appearing to you as if it were attractive, okay. As if it
were something nice. They call it {sintay phuntsok}, Je Tsongkapa, it means ... it
has to be something that seems good in samsara, and the word "seem" is
obviously very important, okay. At some times your body seems pretty cool,
you know. Some times your life seems pretty cool. Some times a promotion
would seem nice. A raise or a bonus would seem very nice ... I haven't seen
them for a long time. These are {yu owe min nawa} These are things that look
as if they were nice, or like a good dinner. But we know that good dinner is the
scripturally example of suffering number? ... two. [laughs] Okay, because you
always get hungry after that and hungry is part of the good dinner. Getting
hungry is part of the good dinner. If you could cut the good dinner off at
dessert, right after the coffee, before the bill [laughs] [laughter] then it would be
you know ... that would be ... that would be happiness but the tail of the dog ...
there's always this tail attached to the dog ... and that's that you've got to pay the
bill and you got to get hungry again. And that that is attached to every dinner
that you can ever have. That makes the dinner suffering. Buddhists are very
careful to ...they don't cut the dinner off at the coffee and the dessert. They say
getting hungry is a necessary part of the dinner so therefore the dinner is lousy,
okay. If you have to get hungry again then the dinner is lousy, okay. So so two
parts of desire so far ... it has to be focussed on a on a samsaric object ... and that
object has to appear nice to you. {ramto kin mi dowa duba sembay semchoy
senbay demba} which means ... in and of it ... well by itself which is a long
story ... I won't talk about that ... you get this desire not to lose the object. That's
the third component. You start to have this feeling that you don't want to lose
this thing. {min jowa dopa} means you don't want to be separated or to lose this
object. So those are the three things you need for desire. The object has to be
samsaric. Secondly, it has to look nice to you. Look is very important, right?
And then thirdly you have to not want to lose it, okay. It's only this kind of
emotion that would make you do something wrong not to lose it and that's the
problem with desire, okay. The problem with desire is that the next step in the
food chain in that it triggers some kind of activity or thoughts that are not
wholesome. You undertake some activity of mind, speech or body to keep the
thing ... to keep yourself from losing the thing and that's why desire gets you in
trouble, okay. And there's a whole chain there which we will ... could ... I'm not
going to do it in this course but it's really really cool about how ignorance
triggers all these steps ending in ... you say something back to the boss, you
know, okay. Or you're chasing after something that you desire. Okay definition
number two. Oh, so by the way, this ... these mental afflictions ... this mental
affliction's supposed to be in your mind all the time. I don't like to call it desire
very much. I mean, okay call it desire but when you think about this mental
affliction it's what you call liking something, okay. It's more prevalent than
desire. Desire to me means, you know, watching an X-rated movie at in a hotel
room at three o'clock, you know, or something, you know. And then I get
desire or something. But this is ... this is happening in your mind constantly. As
you sit in this class for the length of this class this mental affliction will occur
maybe two hundred times or something. I don't ... I want to get in the in the
shade, you know. I want to ... I want the class to end a little sooner today.
[laughs] I want to have a good lunch. [laughs] I mean you're going to have
these ... all of those objects are ... they fit the bill, you know. They are samsaric
objects. They seem like they would be nice and you don't want to lose them.
Yeah?

[student: Do they have to ruin your whole day?]

They do have to ruin your whole day.         Let's say all together they ruin your
whole day. [laughs]

[student: Is the class a samsaric object?]

I'm talking about the desire to get out of the class. [laughs] Generally if you're
having the right ... is is the class samsara? ... is a Buddhist book samsara? There's
a big debate about it. {sanchey lang gyi sangey mi lamba .....} ... all changing
things are samsaric except for the path, okay. All changing things ... that's the
opening lines of the [b: Abhidharmakosha]. All changing things are samsaric
except for the path. Are the books the path? By the way path means {topa} ...
path means realization in the minds of a person ... in the mind of a person. That's
the definition of path. And then they discuss the books and they decide that well
we call them {langey cheda} which means ancillary paths, okay [laughs] ...
Auxilillary path. We'll count them in the path. Technically speaking they're
almost samsara, okay. Oh boy lots of questions. We'll do like two because we've
got a long class. Yeah?

[student: I would have thought the books were empty and it would depend on
our projections whether they were samsara or not]

That's that's true too ... that's true, too. I mean, when the Dalai Lama has lunch I
don't think it's the suffering of change for him. That's absolutely true, yeah.

[student: The things themselves aren't really samsara [unclear]]

No. Well it's hard to say, but in general any object in the desire realm is samsara.
There's a big debate about whether the ... the appearance of an Arhat is samsaric.
You know, when you look at Lama Sopa , is that something ... is his ... is the
shape and color of his body samsara?

[student: It has the potential to be}

Yeah. Yeah, for us it's samsaric because you can have mental afflictions toward
it. If it can generate a mental affliction in you, it's samsaric. That's the definition
of {sackchey} in the [b: Abhidharma] . {sanga cuy me drepa gyur} which
means ... okay

[student: [unclear] Buddha]

No, well that's the people who hate the Dalai Lama, you know ... you know ... so.
Yeah.

[student: If you have a desire for knowledge for knowledge and run to the
bookstore or the bookstore inside there go for the book. The book itself
physically samsara but not the knowledge within, so it's okay to desire a book of
knowledge?]

Yeah if you're desiring it in order to get knowledge ... spiritual knowledge ... and
especially in order to help others, it's not samsara ... but it's very close. It's really
close. I mean technically speaking the shape and color of the book are samasara.

[student: So if you recognize the book but the knowledge [unclear]]

Then it would be less samsaric, [laughs] okay. It's a big debate. The [b:
Abhidharma] calls it {jaydang} {lang mi jaydang} which means not quite path
which is mental but conducive to the path. So let's throw it in with pure things,
non samsaric things. But it's very subtle. And ninety nine percent of all that you
experience, even in a dharma center is samsara ... is samsaric and is is promoting
samsara, okay. That's a long story, okay. Second one is ... but what I wanted to
say was that this is more prevalent than you think. It's not desire in the sense of
having a big desire ... mac attack, you know. [ laughs}. It's it's going on in your
mind constantly and it's making you unhappy from moment to moment, hour
to hour, month to month. It's what makes you feel ... restless or that you can't
quite be fulfilled or you can't be contented. This is {dorchak}, okay. (writes on
blackboard) And by the way the point of the class is that you can not remove
that by any other means than by seeing emptiness directly, okay. (writes on
blackboard) Say {konchon} [repeat] {konchon} [repeat] People translate it as
anger but listen to the definition ... {Tibetan} which means {shi simbo} I haven't
been able to find in the scriptures. I take it to mean the three the three
components that we talked about of an action. Like the doer, the object and the
action itself. But it has a lot of different meanings in scripture and I haven't been
able to satisfy myself. I believe it means the elements of any situation. Let's call
it any situation, okay. {kia yuwhoh lah} means towards any of those. {rang
tokyi} of its own power. {mi supay semchen} cannot can no longer stand it,
okay. [laughs] A state of mind where you can no longer stand any particular
part of a situation, okay. Sometimes they say {gawang dupa} which means the
desire to get ... to get separated [laughs] from that object, okay. The desire the
desire to get away from that object ... samsaric object, okay. I shouldn't say that.
That's a little tricky. Let's say the desire to get away from any particular object or
part of a situation because you can't stand it anymore. You don't like it, okay.
That's {konchon} So so it's a lot more subtle than anger, I think. I think it's like
disliking things. This is something that's running in your mind all day long ...
very, I don't like this bug, it's buzzing in my ear [laughs] you know. I just had a
{konchon} , okay and like that, okay. I'm going to get more into this later but
what's wrong with that. I mean when I get when I get mad at the bug and I go
like that, you know, .... what's the problem? It's ignorant action. That mental
affliction is triggering an ignorant action. How do I get rid of that ... if I don't like
bugs how should I get rid of bugs. Take care of them. [laughs] Yeah, take care of
them. I mean, when my lama ... we had roaches in our house ... and when he
wanted to get rid of them ... you know you have a choice ... you can squash
them or ... he he would put out food for them ... let them have a nice dinner and
then catch them in glasses and take them outside. And if you've ever lived in
New York or New Jersey, I mean ... this can be a long process. [laughs]
[laughter] And he did it for like three or four years and he just carefully put
them one by one outside for three or four years and then they've have just
totally disappeared. They have not come back, they have not appeared. They're
gone. That's that's the difference between doing it with a mental affliction, which
would be crushing them ... because that's stupid! According to the laws of
karma, which are which are allowed to work because of emptiness, the others
come back worse. He would go a long way and put them ... we have like a ... he
would do it in the winter the day it would be cold so he had ... we have a
compost heap and he would put it way away from the house and put them in
the compost heap so they wouldn't freeze in the cold weather. They don't do too
well in the snow, so

[student: Does it mean that they affect the practicing bodhichitta so that
everybody would leave you alone?]

[laughs] No like that. We'll talk about it. [laughs] If that would be pleasure I
guess so. (write on blackboard) Yeah

[student: Does that have to do with non sentient [unclear]]

I was going to bring it up later today, in fact maybe in this class but just to
anticipate the act of patience ... the act of not getting ... excuse my language ...
pissed off is ... can be practiced toward animate or inanimate objects , okay. In
other words, if you get angry waiting for a bus because it doesn't show up ...
which happens a lot in ... where I live [laughs] ... you have created a bad karma
and you have broken the perfection of patience, okay. Or if you ... the example
in scriptures is stubbing your toe on a rock and cursing the rock, okay. It doesn't
hurt the rock but you've broken the perfection of patience ... which means not
getting angry. {nah} means me {gel} means king. What's {nah gel}? Pride
[laughs] okay. {nah gel} is pride. There are nine flavors of it. i won't go into it.
But you should study it some day. Number three is {nah gel} Pride okay. I'll
read you the definition. It's very interesting. A state of mind in which you take
on the aspect of haughtiness or arrogance due to the power of grasping to self
existence ... of something about you, okay. Like your looks or your strength or
your intelligence or something like that. But I ... what's interesting is that the
definition has to include this deludedness about your self existence. And we are
going to talk more about in the second half of the class after the break. But start
to get in your mind this this very very very important key, you know. This very
trick about emptiness. You could not have pride if you did not have the
tendency to grasp to things as self existent. If you weren't believing in a thing
that doesn't exist anyway, {gotja} you couldn't have pride in your mind. What's
that?

{student: [unclear]]
That's the whole point. You're included because ... to show that

[student: [unclear]]

This is to teach students with ... who didn't figure that out yet, okay. In other
words if you weren't grasping to to something about yourself as self existent
you could not entertain the mental affliction called pride. It would be impossible.
There ain't room in this ... town for both of us, you know [laughs]. And we've
talked about it before. You cannot be understanding the emptiness of something
clearly and also entertain a mental affliction at the same time. It's impossible.
What's the converse of that? If you're having a mental affliction you must be
grasping to something as self existent. It's very interesting, okay. If your mind is
not ... and by the way having a mental affliction means not having any mind at
peace. If your mind is not at peace ... if you're not contented ... if you don't feel
fulfilled ... if you're nervous, irritated stressed out slightly longing for things ...
restless ... channel surfing in life [laughs] [laughter] you must be having a mental
affliction.      And if you're having a mental affliction you must be holding
something as self existent. So how to cut it all off is getting obvious, you know.
Where to shut off the pipe is is obvious. It's it's at dependent link ... dependent
origination link number one. So those Boston people know that one. [laughs]
{marigpa} the blind guy, okay. Ignorance, okay. That's why it's link number one
on that wheel of life which surrounds the suffering, okay. That's link number
one, okay. Number four. (writes on blackboard) Which by the way means if
you want to see how your emptiness understanding is going, go to the person
who pushes your buttons and see if it still works, you know. If they push your
button successfully your emptiness understanding is not too strong yet, okay.
Yeah

[student: If your buttons are pushed and then right away you recognize that for
what it is, where are you then if you actually [unclear] perceive what's going on?]

You've collected a small bad deed and then next time it will be smaller and next
time it will be smaller and sooner or later the reaction time lowers to zero ... and
that's nirvana, okay. Say {marikpa} [repeat] {marikpa} [repeat]          {Marikpa}
means ignorance ... ignorance. And very importantly is to understand what the
[b: Abhidharma] says ... if you could ... if you using an example as a metaphor ...
knowledge is a friend. Knowledge is a friend. Then {marikpa} says the [b:
Abhidharma] is not simply the absence of the friend it's ... the enemy. What's
that mean? What it means is ignorance doesn't mean that you just don't know
about it. It means that you are actively mis-knowing it, okay. So ignorance is a
little tricky, you know. When they say ignorance is bliss or ignorance is no
excuse in the law, they mean you just didn't know about it. That ain't what it
means in Buddhism. In Buddhism it means you are actually actively strongly
holding the thing the opposite way. It's not just that you don't know about self
existence you are strongly grasping to the opposite. I sorry that things are self
existent. Yeah?

[student: You're ignoring it]

Yah ... not ... kinda like that. But what it means is ... maybe it should be called
misunderstanding.

[student: Can you debate about this?]

In what way?

[student: knowing you're actually mis.... [unclear]]

Yeah. They have to go through talking about that because somebody though it
wasn't, yeah yeah. In the [b: Abhidharma] yeah. Okay. But there's no arguing
about ... I mean the bottom line is that it's an active mis-knowing of things, okay.
(writes on blackboard) [laughs] Yes, it's five. Tibetan five looks like four. It
messed me up for years. [laughs] Say {tetsom} [repeat] {tetsom} [repeat]
{tetsom} means doubt, okay. And in the same breath you have to say the
Buddha warns his students ... meaning us too ... that you must doubt Buddhism.
You must be critical. You must doubt every single aspect. Don't believe what
anybody says. It doesn't matter who it is when they get up and talk about
Buddhism. You must examine it yourself. It must check out with your own
mind. You have to be able to confirm it or you shouldn't accept it. He was very
adamant about it. If you accept even the smallest detail just because you like the
teacher or you or you don't have time to think much about it [laughs] or for any
other reason, especially because you're attracted to the physical appearance of
the teacher or to the personality of the teacher or something like that. Big
booboo, you know. You must independent of the teacher's ugly, handsome,
smart, stupid, expresses themselves well, doesn't expressed themselves well,
famous not famous, you know, has a long biography, doesn't have a long
biography, had this person as their teacher, didn't have that person as their
teacher, forget it. You have to be able to confirm everything they say by your
own understanding. It has to check out with what you know and it has to make
sense to you. Otherwise, don't accept it. So that's not what {tetsom} means.
Doubt doesn't mean that. That kind of doubt, that kind of critical mind, that kind
of analytical mind is a is a great virtue. This is not, okay [laughs] Because it says
{nomo chen}. Say {nomo} [repeat] {chen} [repeat] {nomo chen} [repeat] {nomo}
means that word for mental affliction. It has to be a mental affliction doubt
which means something like continuing to doubt what has been proved to you.
Continuing to doubt what makes sense in every sense.

SIDE TWO

and and for no better reason then that Mommy and Daddy said it to you when
you were a kid, you doubt the opposite. For example, there's absolutely no
logical proof that the mind stops when the body dies. There is none. There is no
convincing evidence at all ... period ... that the mind stops when the body dies.
There's not. The body due to its own causes, due to its own nature, broke down.
The mind can't express itself with that body any more because it's broken. It's
like a guy sitting in a car. I'm gonna say the driver died because the tire went
flat. The car's not moving anymore, the driver must have died, you know. It
just doesn't make any sense. Just because the machine died doesn't mean that
the driver is dead. Maybe the driver can't get the machine to work anymore so
the driver went somewhere else. Or something like that. In other words, there
ain't no convincing evidence at all that the mind stops when the body dies. There
just ain't. But because we grew up with that, you doubt it, you know. You tend
to doubt it. Yeah.

[student: the brain is a man [unclear] therefore the man has dies]

I know yeah. So all the mental functions are contained in the brain. Including
sensation which is a mental function. Including sensation which is a mental
function. The ability to feel things. So I can cut your fingers off ... no problem.
[laughs]

[student: no, no that's a no no]

Any way. But that's ... just because the electricity stops, okay ... Buddhism would
say that that's a function of the machine and not a function of the mind which is
resting on the machine, okay. The mind obviously has a deep relationship with
the machine, obviously. No one can deny that. And obviously when the
machine is badly damaged it hurts the mind. When you drink alcohol the mind
gets stupid. There must be a connection between the body and the mind but but
there's no convincing evidence that just because the electricity flow of the mind
stops, that that invisible untouchable, uncutable, unmeasurable, unrestricted ...
my mind could go to the refrigerator in the Geshe house right now. [laughter]
It's not restricted to my skin, forget it. It can go beyond my skin. But that
ineffable thing disappears when the the physical stuff stops. There's no proof for
that. That's just an example. So {tetsom} is is continually to cling to doubts which
you should have figured out a long time ago. But just and just because you're too
lazy, basically, all right. Number six. (writes on blackboard) Say {tawa} [repeat]
{tawa} [repeat] They translate it as wrong view. Wrong views, there's five.
Wrong views. I I sweated a lot over that translation. Wrong to me means ...
don't do that! ... you know [laughs] ... you know, that's wrong. It seems like a
judgmental thing and so that in that sense I'm a little nervous about the
translation wrong. Maybe say incorrect or inaccurate or something. I'm don't
even not too sure of the translation view. It's is the Tibetan word to look at
something. But I would say more like world view, okay. A mistaken world
view. There are five flavors of it, okay.         I would almost prefer to call it a
mistaken world view. Which is not judgmental like wrong and I don't know ...
it's more broad than saying view. Because it is a world view. It's how you view
your world, okay. And there there are five flavors. I just go over them quickly
and then we'll take a break.. Number one is called {jicta} which is the big trouble
maker. It's grasping to "you" or "yours", "me" or "mine" as being self existent. It's
believing that "me" or "mine" is self existent, okay. That's {jicta}. That's number
one. It's called perishable view because it's focussed on something which will
perish... which is you ... and also because if you apply the right antidotes you can
kill it and it's perishable, okay. But that's a ... I'm not going to get into all that.
Number two is called {takta}. Say {takta} [repeat] Extreme views. Extreme
views. Extreme views is a little tricky. It is a necessary consequence of thinking
number one, okay. If you if you believe in number one you'll have number two.
To put it very briefly, and we're going to cover this in another class, is to think
like this. If ... somebody comes up to you in a Buddhism class and says, "You
have never had a correct perception in your whole existence!" okay. "Things
aren't the way you thought they were",okay. And then as a reaction to that you
say, "Well then, nothing exists at all" ... and that's an extreme view. That ... this
view is called extreme view. What are the two extremes? By the way in the
middle is what we call ... what? ... Madyamika, okay. Professor Thurman's
daughter.[laughs] Uma, okay. The middle way, the middle way. That's the
middle. What are the two extremes? Let's say it in plain English. Extreme
number one is everything just the way I always thought it was. Everything is
just the way I always thought it was. Everything is just the way it seems to me.
That's extreme Number one. That's called the extreme of existence ... {yehta}
Everything is just the way I thought it was. And then some lama comes to your
class and says, "Every perception you've ever had is wrong" So you think to
yourself, " If it ain't the way I thought it was it must not matter at all" It must not
exist at all. That's extreme number two, okay. If it ain't the way I thought it was
it doesn't exist at all. And oftentimes attached to wrong view number two there
is "And I can do whatever the hell I want to do", you know. The world is an
illusion. Samsara and nirvana are the same. Doesn't matter if whether I'm
ethical or not ... it's all empty anyway, okay. [laughs] Okay, crazy wrong views.
Total absolute ultimate wrong views, okay. So those are two flavors. Either
everything is the way I thought it was, which is called {yehta} or if it's not that
then nothing matters or nothing exists at all. And a and a Madyhamika, a
Buddhist has to stay in the middle between those two. You have to thread the
line between those two. That's Madhyamika.                   That's the meaning of
Madhyamika, okay. Number three. Say {lokta} [repeat] {lokta} means wrong
view, okay. This one is just called view, right. This is the flavor called wrong
view. Wrong view meaning opposite view, okay. Opposite view. What it means
is you think that things that don't exist do exist and you think that things that
don't ... that do exist don't exist. And the examples are two. Future lives, past
and future lives, okay. If without any evidence you don't accept them, it's {lokta},
okay. If you can't accept them yet because you don't have enough good
evidence, that's not {lokta}. That's that's good critical Buddhist mind. That's fine.
That's great. If you can't accept it yet because you haven't gotten enough proof
for it, that's not {lokta}. If you don't accept it after getting enough proof for it,
[laughs] or if you don't accept it and you're sur ... and you really truly believe it
can not exist, only because your mommy and daddy said that or something like
that, that's {lokta}. {Lokta} is a stupid belief in something or a stupid belief that
something is impossible for no good reason at all, okay. That's {lokta}. For
example, not believing in past and future lives ... assuming there's no past or
future lives without thinking about it, okay. That's {lotka}. Second example
would be to believe that enlightenment itself is not possible, okay. Or that
seeing emptiness directly is not possible ... something like that. That's a pretty
classic {lokta}. It doesn't mean you shouldn't doubt or be critical, okay. We
talked about that. And Maitreya has a beautiful line in a scripture where he says,
"If it don't sound right yet, just shelve it", okay. "But don't reject it". If you reject
it you collect very very bad karma. Because it does exist.[laughs] So just shelve
it for now. Put in a category of things that "I'll check on those later. I can't accept
those things yet." And I think every American Buddhist has a certain number of
those. There are a certain of things that they say in the teachings that, "I just can't
buy that yet." The important thing is don't reject it. Don't say it's stupid or
something like that. Say, "I can't buy that yet. Maitreya said just put in on the
shelf. I'll keep it over here until some guy shows up and explains it to me in a
way that I can accept." {lokta}? or

{student: what you just said]

Shelving it. He says {tonye gu sha} {tonye gu sha} means to leave it in
equanimity, okay but don't reject it. {tonya ma shea} means but don't reject it,
okay. Number four is {tawa chunzin} Say {tawa} [repeat] {chunzin} [repeat] It is
thinking that your other wrong views are perfect [laughs] ,okay. Holding on to
your other wrong views and saying, "My views are correct. All my world views
are just right", okay. {tawa chunzin} holding your own views to be perfectly
correct. Number five is {tunchin da tunchin son goowey tawa} that's a long one.
What it means is to believe in certain kinds of ... in certain spiritual practices
which are harmful and particularly harmful to you. For example, any kind of
spiritual practice that would hurt your body, okay. Like whipping yourself or
not eating for six days and hurting yourself or ... I've even seen Buddhists who
insisted on doing certain protrastions for ... until their legs were hurt and until
they're actually handicapped. That's that's not Buddhism, okay. That's not ... we
that's not a good practice. That's wasting a precious opportunity. Don't don't do
spiritual practices which hurt you, okay. This also includes like very wrong
views about what is the right thing to do. For example, in India at a certain
point, there was a teacher who said, "Free sex" you know. "Sex is like a flower by
the roadside and [laughter] everyone should just go and pick it" you know and
he said that and that would be {tsultrim ... soowee taba} that would be a wrong
view. To say that, "ah, you know, don't be hung up. Everything's all right you
know. Just love each other and physically too and other people's wives and other
people's husbands and it's just a joy", you know. That would be a classical wrong
view. Let your anger out. Express your anger [laughter] Don't bottle it up, you
know. Yell at your boss back, you know. There is a virtue to resolving
something by bringing it out in the open. That's not what I'm talking about but
to say that it's a virtue or that it's beneficial to harm somebody back because they
hurt you ... an eye for an eye ... is is total wrong view ... classical wrong view
number five, okay. Last thing to say before the break ... I keep saying that,
right? What are the three spheres that are active to that prediction? We're
getting back to the prediction. Because the Buddha ... because that young man
reached a point where he stopped these six, totally, permanently, forever ... then
the Buddha came up to him and said, "Hey, cool. You are going to be
Shayamuni Buddha on such and such planet, in such and such year. Now I can
tell you that. I can I can predict it. There's a predictor who's {dipan kara}
Buddha, okay, the {manee zey}. There's a Buddha who's predicting that this guy
is going to become Shayamuni. There's the Buddhahood which he is predicting.
There's a boy who is being predicted to, okay. And there's an emptiness of each
one of those three. And the Buddha would never do such a prediction without
seeing that emptiness at that moment, okay. And that's why it comes up in the
[b: Diamond Cutter Sutra] here. The Buddha says to Subhuti, "When that
Buddha came up to me and put his hand on my head and said, "Hey great job.
You've removed your mentally afflictions permanently. Now you're going to be
called Shayamuni Buddha after so and so many years you'll reach
enlightenment."" But at that moment that Buddha wasn't thinking of me as self
existent. And that Buddha wasn't thinking of himself as self existent. And that
Buddha didn't see the whole prediction as being self existent, okay. If he had, he
wouldn't have been a Buddha and there wouldn't have been any prediction. A
prediction which is self existent can not exist. It's a {gokja}. There was something
going on. There was some emptiness going on at that moment or there could
not have been a prediction. There were three emptinesses going on at that
moment or there could not have been a prediction, okay. We're going to talk
about those three emptinesses after the break so have a nice break, come back in
ten fifteen minutes, okay.

[student: question]

Number six is view ... of the main mental afflictions?

[student: Wouldn't it be six of the six]

No,no it's only five. So how ... if you count the five views how many major
mental afflictions? Ten. Sometimes they say ten. Because it is five that are view
and five that aren't view, okay. View is number six and has five .....(pause)

What's going on. Now we're go into the higher schools, Prasangnika school.
They say that this person at that point has overcome any manifest kind of of
grasping to self existence. So what it means is (thank you) once you've reached
this level things are not even appearing to you as self existent anymore, okay.
Remember remember that thing, that after you see emptiness directly you don't
believe it anymore but things still look like that. Eighth eighth Bodhisattva
bhumi, they're not looking like that anymore, okay. That's the difference.
Somebody asked me that question. I'll say it again. Until the time you reach
the ... until the time you see emptiness directly everything looks self existent and
you believe everything is self existent.          After seeing emptiness directly
everything still looks self existent. But you don't believe yourself anymore. You
know you're crazy, okay. At the eight Bodhisattva bhumi you don't think
they're self extent anymore and they don't look self existent anymore. You still
have extremely subtle seeds of of that kind of perception. You still have
extremely subtle seeds in your mind for seeing things as self existent but they'll
never act again, okay. And of course according to the higher schools the
tendency to see things as self existent is itself a mental affliction, okay. The
tendency to see things as self existent is itself a mental affliction. So when you
reach nirvana it has to ... go away because nirvana is the permanent stopping of
all your mental afflictions, okay. That's the higher school's thought. Not all the
schools accept that but that is the way it is. Yeah

[student: Is that the root of all the others?]

Absolutely! That's why on a good painting of The Wheel of Life, and in a
painting of the Wheel of Life which follows the original Vinaya lines, from the
Vinaya sutra that tells you how to paint that picture ... the pigeon, which it's
suppose to be, and the snake are coming out of the mouth of the pig, okay. The
pig represents ignorance and the first two major mental afflictions we spoke
about ... liking things and disliking things ignorantly in such a way that it would
cause you to do bad karma, is coming out of his mouth. You know, desire and
anger, okay. So it is the root of all evil. Yeah. Someone else had yeah

[student: [unclear]]

They don't look self existent any more.

[student: But they're not perceiving emptiness directly?]

No. They are focussing on on relative objects and that's [unclear] [laughs]
Things don't suggest self existence to them anymore. They don't look self
existent anymore. As they look at it they are totally aware of its dependent
origination, how's that? Visually, I believe it would be the same. A Buddha sees
things, you know. A Buddha's mind is deceptive reality. It is not ultimate reality.
A Buddha a Buddha's body ... the colors and shapes of a Buddha's body are
deceptive reality. Deceptive? Why do we call it deceptive? To the mind of a
normal person the way they look and the way they are is different, okay.
Anything that's like that would be deceptive reality. So Buddhas can see
deceptive reality but they don't get fooled by it. And neither do eighth level
Bodhisattvas, okay. Okay, we'll go ... yeah, one more

[student: Is one Buddhist's deceptive reality the same experience then as another
Buddhist's. Where I got to that is ]

I'm sorry, say it again

[student: Your direct experience of emptiness would be the same as my direct
experience of emptiness.]

Yeah

[student: Then after that ... at the eighth level then one Buddhist's
exper ...deceptive reality, but they're not fooled by it ... would that be same as
the other Buddhas?]

No. Well let me put it this way. When you perceive emptiness directly at the
path of seeing as a Bodhisattva, that direct experience of emptiness and the direct
experience of emptiness by a Buddha ... in terms of their content ... is totally,
perfectly, absolutely the same. You can't see emptiness any better than you do
at the path of seeing. It's not like your ability to see emptiness changes. It's not
like the emptiness changes. You're either seeing ultimate reality or you're not.
Once you see it once it's as ultimate as it will ever get. That's why it's ultimate
[laughs], okay. That's what ultimate means. Now she's asking, suppose a ...
given that fact ... let's say does a does a Bodhisattva at the eighth bhumi ... does
his perception of normal stuff and the perception of a Buddha ... are they
different? Completely different, okay. A Buddha is perceiving everything that
was, everything that is, and everything that shall be simultaneously in every
corner of the of the universe. At the same moment. And also all ultimate
realities in the universe at the same moment that they're looking at Lama Yeshe's
stupa, okay. Does one Buddha's experience of ultimate reality differs from
another Buddha's experience of ultimate reality ... I mean does one Buddha's
experience differ from another Buddha's experience even in terms of regular
stuff, obviously not. They're both seeing every existing object that ever was, is
or will be simultaneously. So, I mean, that content is totally is totally the same.
Do they merge into one being or something like that ... no never, okay. Never.
Each individual consciousness is is always and forever separate. That's why I can
not collect karma for you and that's why I can not share my karma with you.
You know, I could be perceiving this week of classes as me standing in a bunch
of ... among a bunch of tantric deities who are just trying to ... humor me
[laughter] into teaching a class that will help me be a better person. I could be
perceiving it truly that way. And you could be perceiving it as a regular old
Vajrapani thing and they're trying to get me to go to this dinner and everything
and [laughs], you know ... and and you could be have a totally different
experience of it. I can not share my experience with you. Impossible. I can't
take out twenty percent of it and stick it in your mind stream. Your ... karma is
restricted to your the particular mind stream of the person who's collecting it.
All a Buddha can do for you is come into the world and teach so that you can
change yourself. But they can't they can't change it for yourself. If they could
they woulda ... and we wouldn't be here [laughs] alright. But they didn't, right?
Okay, yeah

[student: But in this text it said that the Buddha took a piece of food out of his
mouth and gave it Subhuti, I think it was, and Subhuti tastes what the Buddha
tasted]

Not exactly. [laughs]

[student: [unclear]]

[laughter] Subhuti tasted some food , didn't have the experience of ... otherwise
he would have had the experience of the emptiness of the food and the food at
the same moment or something like that ... directly. One more question. Then
we gotta to go on. I don't mind to stay but I assume some people would like to
have lunch and stuff. Do you have a question? Nope, okay. Okay. Alright.

[student: If Buddhas are not seeing every single object in their own way [unclear]
but they still have their own set of karma that's making them [unclear] How
does that happen?]

Each Buddha has collected exactly the same kind and amount of karma which is
allowing them to see every single object in the universe at once. So the karma
that they collected was ultimately the same ... kind of karma but it is individual.
They are they are not merging into one universal Buddha or something like that.
Each of them is in a Buddha paradise which happens to be exactly like the other
Buddha paradises [laughs] but it's individual, okay. Because they've they've
collected every possible ... what's that word in English? ... I always... permutation
of karma ... of good karma, okay. Each one has collected every possible
permutation of good karma and is perceiving every kind of pleasant thing that
exists, okay, ... ultimately. Okay. What's all this stuff got to do with your day to
day life? Okay. I mean, what's this all ... and this was where I personally always
had problems with these teachings, you know. Every time I went to a teaching
on emptiness ... it was ... I mean everytime I went to a Buddhist teaching it was
either [b: Lam Rim] or mental training {b: Lojong] and they're telling you how to
cope with life. How to cope with this lousy life. You know, they're not talking
about changing it necessarily. They're just telling you here's how you can kinda
transform it into something more palatable, which wasn't my interest, you
know. I mean a more palatable lousy life wasn't really what I was after. I mean
it's nice. I mean, it's nice not to get as angry as you use to get but but to make
samsara more palatable didn't seem like a big deal. Okay, so I'm a little bit
happier as I get old and die. But I'm interested in the old and die part. I mean,
Buddha said you can get over {kega na shey}. He said, you can overcome the
four sufferings. You don't have to die anymore. You don't have to get old
anymore. You don't have to get sick. He didn't say, you don't have to have
blowups like you use to, you can just have minor irritations [laughs] I mean. He
didn't say that. He promised something much more extreme ... much more
extreme. He said you don't have to get old like you use to. You don't have to
die like you use to. You don't have to get sick like you use to. That's that's what
I was interested in. So it seem to me that you were either getting two extremes.
Some people get up and talk about how not to get mad at the boss by ... by
thinking of him in certain ways. Or or else they were talking about this very
very technical emptiness thing that I couldn't see any logical application to my
life, you know. From what they ... it seemed that from what they were saying
I'd have to go into meditation all the time and somehow think ... see some kind
of blankness or voidness and then I wouldn't get mad at anybody because they
wouldn't be there anymore or something like that, you know. They seemed to
me very opposite or they seem to be very disconnected and at this point in the
[b: Diamond Cutter Sutra] the Buddha addresses that question. Don't forget
Buddhas are omniscient. They're very sneaky. They can speak a sutra two and
one half thousand years ago knowing that we will be sitting here wondering,
"What the hell has this got to do with my life?", [laughter] you know. It's not at
all difficult for them to plan this sort of thing. For them planning two and one
half thousand years from now in Vajrapani is no more difficult than planning
what they're going to do when they get up out of their meditation. For them, it's
exactly the same distance. Because they're omniscient. So they plan for us and
they said, " These guys are going to wonder what's the heck this has got to do
with ... with their life." And the next part of the sutra is talking about a great
Buddhist saint who lived in the land of the King of {Kalinka}, okay. Sounds like
calling card I guess. {Kalinka} and the story goes like this. This this Buddhist
saint, who had perceived emptiness directly, is sitting in the forest meditating
and the King's wife happens along with her ladies in waiting and she sees the
saint. She has a lot of faith and a lot of devotion. So she approaches the the
saint ... I believe his name was {Supernawa}. I'm not sure, I was trying to confirm
it but ... that means patient one, okay. [laughs] And she says, "I have some
questions to ask you about about Buddhism. And she starts to ask him
questions. And the ladies in waiting are kinda wandering around and she's
sitting next to this saint talking about Buddhism, asking him questions and the
King happens to go out for a ride. He's riding along. He's on a hunt or
something and he's riding along and he comes into this clearing ... there's his wife
with this Buddhist yogi, you know. And he gets angry. He assumes there's been
some fooling around going on. So he has all his other body guard with him and
he says, "Okay, you guys get down off your horses and tie this guy down to the
ground." So they spread eagled him on the ground ... this Buddhist saint. And
then he gets a knife. And then he says ... and he starts to slowly cut off the
saint's fingers and then his hands and his toes and his feet and his leg ... and then
he slowly amputate each part of his body ... very slowly, okay. I believe this
might have been a former life of the Buddha ... check the sutra, okay. He's
probably speaking from personal experience. In fact he is as I remember. He
was that saint. So he's speaking from what really happened to him. And then
the Buddha says to Subuti "By the way, I didn't get angry at all". You know, "I
didn't get upset at all", okay ... "While they were cutting off my fingers and hands
I did not get upset" Did he feel pain? He did feel pain. It did hurt and he says
that. He says, "It hurt", he says, "but I did not get upset and I did not hate the
King. I did not feel like {nusem} {nusem} We talked about before. I did not feel
any kind of hatred towards the King. It didn't occur in my mind in the least that
I should try to hurt this King back or I should try to get back at this King or I
should try to do anything to the King. He says, "It did not even occur to me."
And in the next line he says, "Because I didn't see anything about that situation
that was self existent." And then in the next line he says, "If I had seen anything
as self existent while he was cutting off my fingers and my toes, I would have
gotten angry." So there's whole spiel right there. It's very cool. All the clues are
there, you know. What's this got to do with your life, you know? How is it
going to help you with the boss is in your face? The guy ... main ... the guy boss
is in my face. The woman boss, is his wife, is pushing my buttons. I call them
button pusher and face ... in my face, you know. [laughs] And she doesn't get in
my face but she does other things
she ... somehow ...sometimes I think they're {Chakrasambhava} and his wife or
something. [laughter] But they know exactly what to do to get me upset.
Especially after I ... I'll go back after teaching this class and by ten o'clock they'll
do it to me, you know. [laughs] And what is what is it to perceive the emptiness
of that situation, you know. And it goes back to what we said before. If you're
having a mental affliction, what's the litmus test of having a mental affliction?
How do you know you're in the midst of a mental affliction? Your peace of
mind is upset ... somehow ... irritated, nervous, stressed, angry. Any kind of lack
of contentment or peace of mind, a mental affliction is operating, okay. It can
not be operating if? ... if you're perceiving the emptiness of the situation clearly,
it says. Does it have to be direct? It couldn't ... almost couldn't be direct, okay or
else you wouldn't get paid for that hour [laughs] I guess. Because you can't think
of a diamond during that hour. You can't have any ... any normal perception
during that time. So it doesn't mean that. It means while the saint was having
his fingers cut off by the King, he looked at the situation and it's the same as the
screaming boss, it's just a little more painful, okay. What was going on? Why
didn't he react? Why didn't he respond to violence with violence? He would just
be perpetuating it, okay. If you want to meet another King, who comes and cut
your fingers off, then then do violence back to him and you'll guarantee that
you'll meet another King who will come and cut your fingers off. So that's
where he came from in the first place, okay. You're getting your fingers cut off,
not because you were sitting next ... close to his wife. You're getting your fingers
cut off because you cut off somebody else's fingers before that. You see. If you
want to have this thing happen again ... if you want to perpetuate it ... what is the
word for samsara in Tibetan? {korwa} {korwa} means circle. It means that ...
what do they call it? ... there's a word in English ... a vicious circle a vicious circle.
That's samsara. The word samsara means vicious circle. Vicious circle in English
means what? The Israelis do violence to the Arabs. The Arabs, because their son
was killed, has to kill one of the Israelis. So [unclear] I have to kill two Arabs.
And then they say well they have to swear that I have to kill his father, you
know. And then this vicious circle never ends. Because each event is is
perpetuating the next event and here's the trick, here's the rub, here's the point
of the class ... the natural reaction to someone hurting you is to hurt them back.
That is also the precise karmic cause to make them come back and hurt you
again. And that's why samsara's a vicious circle. So break it! How do you break
it? Just don't react. Okay. Now somebody comes up and says, "Hey, just don't
react when someone punches you in the head. Turn the other check. Let them
punch you on the other side of your face." I mean, I grew up ... it wasn't until I
was twenty five that I understood what turn the other cheek means. It means
that if they punch you on this side of your head, go up to them and say, "Would
you like to punch me on the other side of my head?" you know [laughs] Okay.
What it means is don't react but don't react because you understand what's going
on. If you just ... if someone comes up and teaches you don't react you'll nover
be able to implement it. You know that. You know it's wrong to yell back at
somebody. You know it's wrong to do violence to someone. But because you
don't have an understanding of emptiness you can't do it. If you do have an
understanding of emptiness you will be able to do it. And it's the only thing
that'll allow you not to do it. That's the perfection of wisdom. And that's how
the perfection of wisdom helps you, okay. You know ... you just know that
because a thing is empty, it's happening to you because you did it to someone
before and the last thing in the world you want to do is to make it go on in a
vicious circle. So with knowledge you ... because of your knowledge you don't
respond with violence. Now in the same breath, and then I'll take some
questions ... I I have to say, "I'm talking about violence with anger" okay. I'm
talking about violence motivated by a mental affliction. I'm not talking about
forceful action by ... on the part of Buddhist, okay. I didn't say, "A Buddhist can't
take forceful action". If that boss or anyone else is harming another person and
you have the capacity to stop it, you must act. Your Bodhisattva vows require it.
Even forceful action. Your Bodhisattva vows require it, okay. You are required
to take even very forceful actions to help another person and and in a very
limited way you are even required to do violence to a person if if the situation
calls for it. You are allowed to break six of the first seven bad deeds. What are
they? If you're a monk, okay. If you're a layman you can break all seven.
Killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, slander, harsh words, idle gossip.
You're allowed to do all seven if it would be of extraordinary benefit to another
person and by the way, if you've been a Bodhisattva for millions of years.
Really. So we don't have really have to worry about that. But in theory
[laughs],okay. In theory, I repeat, you could be required to undertake a very
violent action against someone if it was the only way to prevent them from
hurting others and themselves, okay. What about the last three non virtues?
Never! Ever! As my Lama would say [laughs]. His English is very idiomatic. He
learns most of his English from TV commercials. So he says "Never, ever!", you
know. You can't break the last three. The mental non virtues never can be of
any use to anybody.         They can never be applied in a situation ... in an
extraordinary situation to aid somebody. Forget it! So what it means is ...
although you may be required to fight back to the boss, if he's hurting someone,
you can never hate him. You can never do it with the slightest bit of anger. I
always tell people, "If your heart getting faster, forget it. Just shut up!" [laughs]
You ain't ready yet, you know. The best thing to do is get a ... is to just shut up ...
don't respond, okay. If your heart starts going bing bing bing bing and your
hands are getting sweating and it's very common for certain people at that point
to say. "Oh yeah, in that Buddhism class they said, You've got to respond fiercely
if someone's in danger. So it's okay if I yell right now." Because you want to yell
[laughs] Not because you have any kind of compassion going on. You just feel
like it. So you twist Buddhism to fit your own desires, which is very common.
So what I mean to say is ... the reason I got into that was Buddhism doesn't say
you have to be ... sit there and be wimpy ... never said that. Don't respond with
a mental affliction.     If you're responding with a mental affliction you're
perpetuating your own vicious cycle. And if you want it to go on ... if you want
to meet that unpleasant object again ... then let your natural reaction come out.
Because that's exactly the one that got him there in the first place, okay. There
was one more point on the homework and then I'll take a few questions. So by
the way if on the homework it said [laughs], "Why didn't why didn't that saint
respond to the King? Why didn't why didn't he try to get the King back?" He
did not want to perpetuate the vicious cycle, okay. Yeah.

[student: You tried to tell him that nothing would happen?]

There is a famous incident in scripture ... that scripture doesn't mention what he
did. But there is a famous scripture called {Udyyama Abhidamma} which my
lama is very ... he made us study it in great detail and at a point in that scripture a
person who is who is a Arhat and an Arya. He's already seen emptiness directly.
He doesn't have any more mental afflictions. He's about to be murdered by an
assassin sent by his own son. King {Udyyama} is about to be murdered and he
he can see enough of the ... he has enough wisdom ... and he knows who these
people are. They're like saying, "We have to talk to you, King", you know. And
he knows he knows that they have knives under their under their sleeves. And
he knows they're about to murder him. And they say ... in the scripture it says,
"Out of compassion, he tried to get away." Out of compassion for them and for
his son, he tried to escape but his karma his karma kept him there. He could not
escape. He had the power to fly, for example. But at that moment the power
failed him. So even for an Arhat you're still caught up in your old bad karma.
Yeah

[student: Would you say that the saint [unclear] shouldn't become angry because
he didn't want to perpetuate the karma and [unclear]. Doesn't that imply that he
was grasping at his own self existence having protected his teacher in that way]

You can protect your teacher and not grasp to your self existence. And in fact,
you know the three elements in that situation, he the cuttee, right? [laughs] So
he's one of the three spheres and he's not perceiving himself. He does have
some. He does have some. If he's if he's not an Arhat, well yeah ... if he's not an
Arhat yet he is perceiving himself somewhat as being self existent. And he
probably is ... not intellectually ... but he's inherently ... he's by nature ... by the
nature of any living being who is not an Arhat ... he is grasping on to some self
existence of the situation. But apparently not enough to be angry. Which
implies that he was either an Arhat or very close, okay.
[student: [unclear]]

It's fine, no problem. Don't forget that. She said that,"If the only person you
were helping, when you were responding with strength" ... let's say strength and
not violence, okay ... "if the only person you're helping when you respond with
strength is your self" ... is that allowable?" Oh yeah, taking care of your yourself
is the foundation of taking care of all sentient beings, okay. When you talk
about taking care of everybody you is one of those sentient beings, okay.
[laughs] Really, you you are one of those sentient beings and you you have as
much responsibility to care for your self as you do for them. Caring for your
self means getting to Buddhahood as fast as you can. Which happens to be the
best thing you can do for everyone else, also, so no problem. It's kinda cool.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to get to enlightenment. The best thing
you can do for others is to get yourself to enlightenment. So no problem. Yes.

[student: Does that apply to animals also if someone is hurting an animal?]



Absolutely. We don't distinguish between ... you know those four words you
learned for being, person, living being, sentient being, self ... they don't ... they
apply to all five realms. Hells beings, animals, pretas, humans, everybody.

[student: [unclear]]

I'd say proceed with force with caution, you know. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It's a good question. You know. Are you suppose to sit there like a vegetable
until the day you become an Arhat? No. But but the human capacity to fool
yourself is infinite. And especially with regard to spiritual things and ethical
things. So ... that's all I can say. The nature of fooling yourself if you can't stop
yourself ... but try to stop yourself [laughs]

[student: [unclear]]

That's why I'm talking about responding with strength if it's necessary. If you
see that it would be harmful to them ... for them to continue to act badly ... you
have to ... you're required by your Bodhisattvas vows to respond with force, you
know. Yeah.

[student: [unclear] on how you respond]
[laughs] It happens to me. It happens to me at work. For example, there's a
bodhisattva vow that you must respond to a person's question, especially if it's
sincerely asked, you know. If a person asks you a question, you are required to
respond ... sincerely ... thoughtfully. And then the text says {mixsa naymay} Do
you remember {naymay}?             {Naymayba} are wonderful things [laughs]
{Naymay} are exceptions, okay.[laughs] {Naymay} listed in the text. One of
them is, if by dising the other person, you know. In the office dising, right? If by
disrespecting the other person they would learn a valuable lesson you are
required not to answer. Or you are required to make a flippant answer ... that
would upset them, if you know it would help them. It's very interesting. That
that's part of that bodhisattva vow but it requires great wisdom in its application,
you know. Obviously, you know. If you truly care about the other person and
truly concerned about their welfare, and you know that by not answering them
or by giving them a flippant answer they would be ... their spiritual progress
would be advanced, you're required not to answer sincerely, okay. Very touchy.
Very very touchy. And again you can fool yourself very easily. In other words,
you have to do at any given time what's best for the other person ... and for
yourself, okay. Yeah

[student: [unclear]]

It comes in the bodhisattva vows again. There's a bodhisattva vow that you
cannot teach emptiness to a person, if according to your best judgement, it
would harm them. And specifically if they would lose their faith in Buddhism
and specifically if they would lose their faith in Mahayana Buddhism. If by
teaching someone emptiness they would gain the wrong view that the
bodhisattva way of life is crazy or irrelevant or something like that, then the
moment that they get that idea in their mind and they reject the bodhisattva way
of life, you have broken your bodhisattva vow, okay. That's the definition of
teaching someone emptiness when they're not ready. After ... right after that in
the scripture it says ... Je Tsongkapa examines your question ... He says, "Now
what if you, to the best of your knowledge, thought that it would be alright to
teach them. You thought that they would not [end of tape]
960831-2.aaa

Diamond-Cutter Sutra, tape 9

Vajrapani, CA

8/31/96




of your honest judgment is enough. Okay, so if, if according to all you know
and all you feel and you give it a really honest appraisal and then your appraisal
turns out to be wrong you don't break your vow. Okay, he says. One more, one
more point, um, and then I'll take a few questions if you want, but I know you
are hungry and it's gonna, tomorrow's gonna be a long day so get ready. So
what's happening to this a....arhat, this guy, who because of his understanding of
emptiness and because he saw all those things the moment after he came out of
the direct perception of emptiness he has finally been able, through the process
we just described, I mean if you just sit there and let people cut your fingers off
and don't get mad, then probably your not going to get very mad again and
sooner or later you'll be able, able to overcome anger itself and you will never
get mad again. So here you have this guy called an arhat, he has reached a state
called nirvana which is a permanent destruction of his own mental afflictions
because of his understanding of emptiness, 'cause, because if you keep acting up
like this over a period of time you're not gonna have these mental afflictions any
more those six are gonna have to move out of your house. Um, what the
emptiness of that arhat experiencing his own mind empty of mental afflictions
you tell me, anybody, what's the dependent origination of an arhat's mind? It's
also a projection, it's also a projection, okay, he is being forced by his karmic
seeds to see what, his own mind as being totally pure of mental afflictions, it's
cool, it's very interesting. Of course his mind is dependently originating. Of
course it's another projection, it's just one more projection, it's one more object,
he is being forced by his past deeds to perceive his own mind as never again
having a mental affliction. And that's the only way you can get your mind to be
like that, okay, what did you think someone was going to operate, you know, I
mean they were going to identify the synapses that w link to anger and and cut
them out of your mind, or you know what did you think was going to happen,
how did you think you were gonna get to be an arhat, it's just another shifting of
your own projections nothing external is happening. It's not like someone's
coming and extracting mental afflictions from your head, it's not like that, you
are being for it's like everything else in the world, it's like every other change
that can occur in the world, it is dependently originating. You are being forced
by your own karma to see an otherwise blank mind, as not having any more
mental afflictions, it's one more projection that's being forced on you by your
past deeds. The mind of an arya like every other mind and like every other
object in the universe is blank, it's the glass of liquid on the table between the
three beings and and he in particular is being forced to see his mind as totally
clean, and permanently clean, why? His own past deeds, his own past thoughts
and and and words and deeds so it's cool, even the, even the mind of an arya, a
mind which is totally free of all bad thoughts again, ever again {ne geway chu}
something in the future that'll never happen is a projection it's a result of the
same processes, okay, and by the way it could never have been any other way,
there aint no other way, if it were any other way it would be {gakja}. Any other
kind of arya's mind don't exist anyway and could never exist, okay. We'll do a
few questions and then have a well deserved lunch, yea.[laughs]




[student: How do you know that they're all gone just because you haven't
experienced a mental affliction for a year doesn't mean that it's not going to
come up next year or something like that, couldn't you still have the karma to
have one come up?]




It's a good, it’s a good point, and that's why in the definition of the eighth level,
they say: "{nyomo dang nyomo ge bakchak sepa}". Say {nyomo dang}, repeat,
{nyomo ge bakchak}, [repeat], {sepa}. {Nyomo} means "the mental afflictions".
{Nyomo ge bakchak} means "all seeds for those mental afflictions", have also
been wiped out of your mind. So that's, that's the, that's where his question, the
answer comes from. I didn't give you the whole definition, I mean the eight
level is not only removing all          your mental afflictions it is to remove
permanently all the propensities for those mental afflictions, every kind of
energy in your mind that could ever trigger a mental affliction is also gone.




[student: How do we know that?]
I guess they know it, [laughs], by the way , it is simultaneous to, the permanent
ending of the habit of seeing things as self existent. So maybe that’s a clue,
maybe it hap...,maybe that’s a clue, the last affliction you have to get rid of, the,
the very last mental affliction you have to finish off, {sepa} is the one that thinks,
that sees things as self existent. Okay? That’s the, that’s the final, and I guess
when that happens you know. I mean that’s, that’s what I’d say they know. It’s
called {sepa shepa} the na, {yongtzen shepa} in the Abhidharma. It’s the
knowledge that you finished it all. Okay? And...




[student:...unclear you what?]




That you finished off the mental afflictions and their, and any kind of energy
that could trigger them in your own mind. Okay?




[student: the example this thing has had direct perception of emptiness, would it
be possible to act this way on the basis of an intellectual percep...]




That’s, that’s the whole point. You know, that’s the whole point. He’s saying,
you’re assuming this guy has seen emptiness directly and probably he’s close to
arhat or an arhat. He’s saying ,what about just plan old us, you know, if we, if all
we have is an intellectual understanding from a couple a days of teaching,
should we try it , or is it useless? No, that is the path, that is the path. As with
bodhichitta you have to fake it until you get the real thing. Okay? {laughs} That’s
a practice. Even in tantra. The, many of the levels are called, are called {chumay},
the first, the first half of tantra is called {chuma}, you’re "faking it". You, you try
to imagine that something’s happening when it’s not happening yet, and, and
imagining it with the right devotion makes it happen, but that’s another subject,
yea.
[student: Would it help to think of it, would it help in not getting angry to think
of, just not take it personal, not think of it someone doing something to you but
think of it as purely your karma, and that person not really, necessarily as a
person connected to you but ...unclear]




Yea, that’s {jek tembay lam}, we talked about it the other night, that’s, that is a
path, but it’s a worldly path. You know, just to use other methods to not get
angry, they are a Buddhist path and they are an important Buddhist path but
they are still in the world, we call them, the Abhidharma says they are still in the
world. Until you use the understanding of emptiness to stop your anger, then all
those other methods are called {jik tembay lam}. They are worldly methods of
stopping , of, of ,of, temporarily preventing anger. I call them band-aids, okay.
band-aids are important, and, and they’re useful and you have to learn all the
band-aids, those are very important and they’re extremely useful and they help
you to get to the real one. They’re the virtue that allows you to reach the real
one. But, but in the end it’s only understanding the emptiness of the situation of
the guy who’s getting angry, the guy who’s getting angered at, and the anger
itself that’s gonna let you stop it.




Yea?

[student: I get the karma doing the violent action to protect somebody else?]




She said do you get bad karma from doing a violent action to collect someone
else? Again I refer to the boddhisattva vows, in the bodhisattva vows when they
cover the vow about doing something forceful to help someone else then
somebody asked the question, in the scripture, like based on Asanga’s root
scripture somebody comes up and says; “ Do I collect a bad deed if with the right
motivation and with the right training, and with the right understanding I do
violence to person to stop them from hurting someone else?”               and Je
Tsongkhapa says: “ Not only do you not collect the bad deed you collect an
infinitely good deed.” Okay? So you can’t measure the goodness of, of the
karma that’s gonna come back to you. It’s, it’s a very cool answer and he says it
a couple of times. Okay.
Yea?




[student: Can you talk about how projection about the ordinary .........to the... to
the [unclear]]




[laughs] Stop.




{student continues [unclear].......all the ,the projection of change, to think about it
I’m not sure exactly........path of seeing, post path of seeing........what part of the
perfection’s   of the projections of them..............]




He says: “How does the process of projection change between a person who
hasn’t seen emptiness yet, a person who has seen emptiness directly and then a
person who has been an Arhat already?" For example Are they projecting, is
the process of projection any different? No, the process is the same. It’s exactly
the same {dokpa} tiny {dokpa}. What is the process? Your mind is collecting
data, your mind forms that data into a nice unreal mental image whole, and then
your mind calls it glass of water as opposed to glass of blood or glass of nectar.
Your mind because you’ve been forced by your own past karmas imputes it in a
certain way. So from that point of view the, the process is totally the same.
Even for a Buddha, when a Buddha looks down and sees those marks on his
own body it’s exactly the same process going on. What’s different is the
understanding of each person, and the belief in the self existence of the thing.
Okay? The person who hasn’t seen emptiness directly has a certain belief in a
self existence of what appears to him as self existent. He sees it as self existent
and he believes it’s self existent. After you’ve seen emptiness directly you do still
see it as self existent but you don’t believe your self, so there’s a big difference.
After you’ve reached the eighth bodhisattva level you don’t see it as self existent
and you don’t believe it’s self existent. Okay? And once you’ve gotten through
the other two bodhisattva levels you don’t have any kind of propensity for
seeing it as self existent or believing it as self existent. And that’s the four
distinctions.
{student: [unclear}....what exactly is the projection?]




Lama Yeshe’s stupa for example, I mean an eighth level bodhisattva could, could
sit and enjoy this stupa, but he understands, he doesn’t believe in it’s self
existence and it doesn’t look self existent to him any more either.




[student: So that is a little different.]




Absolutely. A, the projection’s the same




[student: unclear]




Oh no you’re right. By that time the projection is, there’s probably some
difference in the quality of the projection. Yea.

Yea?




[student: Is this kind-of like what Nyingmapa’s calls pristine awareness?




Eh, I don’t know. I really don’t know. I haven’t studied those schools. I haven’t
studied that concept. In, in, in traditional Buddhism, it’s called {du min lay
dakpa}, {du min lay} means from the,"prime-evil, prime-evil purity..."
[student: unclear}




Prime-evil purity, in other words this stupa has been totally devoid of self
existence since forever, you know, things never were self existent and in that
since primevaly they have been pure. Does That help you any? No. [laughs].
Okay. Until you interact with it with knowledge the fact that this object has had,
has been totally pure of self existence since forever doesn’t matter. I mean, for
example your own mind has been nons, it’s been totally pure in the sense of not
being self existent since forever. But it don’t do you any good until you start to
understand it. A, you know, okay. Maybe two more questions and then
we’ll......




[student: In the story of the saint being amputated and his understanding of
emptiness in terms of understanding the karma of it, can you, how do, within
the concept of emptiness how do the laws of karma relate?]




We’re gonna, she says how do, in the context of emptiness how do the laws of
karma relate? And we are gonna talk about it in the final class, that’s class
number ten. And the point there is Nargajuna and Tsonkhapa spending their
whole career trying to convince people that not only do emptiness and
functionality get along, you know. Not only is it true that karma and emptiness
can coexist, they need each other. If things weren’t empty karma couldn’t work,
if karma weren’t around emptiness wouldn’t mean anything. Okay. And, and
that’s, we have to talk about that. I call it the marriage of emptiness and ethics.
Okay, I mean they are not only not contradictory, they are intimately, they
embrace each other, and they can’t live without each other and that you have to
study. We’ll get to that in class ten. Okay?

John




[John: I had a quick one about the homework]
Go




[John: Towards the end one of the questions concerned the function of a,. on the
path of meditation, on the path of habituation, of your first understanding of
emptiness. The way I read it, we’re talking about the first understanding of
emptiness on the path of habituation. Did you mean...?




Ah no, I didn’t mean that. yea ....




[John: You didn’t mean that?]




No




{John: You meant the path of seeing understanding.......]




Yea




[John: the way it functions]




Yea, yea and I meant specifically the second half. The {je cub yeshe}, the wisdom,
because that’s the one that really helps alot and that’s the one mentioned in the
definition of nirvana. {So sor tok}, 'seeing the Four Noble Truths and their
sixteen aspects one by one."
Yea?




[student: The questions is; I have a problem with before everything. the infinite,]




Yea, yea. Yea.,yea, yea.




[student: mind is beginingless, is karma infinite, do you have, you know and
then also if that’s the case then we all have the same mouth and we all have




[laughs]




[student; and all beginingless, and, and I’m not sure if karma has a finite. Is
karma final?]




We’ll talk about it. [unclear] [laughs] It was empty. [laughs] I think you have to
say this it’s important to say one thing. Abhidharma fourth chapter, ultimate
presentation of karma; karma ripens in three stages, okay? Karma can ripen in
three different periods. The first one is called Karma that you see, and that
means karma that ripens before you die, karma that ripens before you die.
Karma whose result’s you see in this life. Okay? And the great masters of tantra
say in their beautiful books, that’s how tantra works. That’s the whole idea of
tantra. Okay. That’s a key to tantra. So that’s, it’s it’s definitely possible that,
for example if you have been generous in the first part of your life, that people
will be rushing to give you money and property and all that other stuff, in the, as
you get to your middle age, okay. And if you practice certain secret practices
extremely well that before you die you could actually see yourself become a, a
tantric deity, and you would be a tantric deity. Okay, and that’s, that’s the first
ripening. Second kind is called karma that ripens in the very next life. And I can
think of the example of the big five bad deeds. They’re called the five immediate
deeds and, and in your next life you always go to the lowest hell, if you kill your
father, if you kill your mother, if you kill an arhat, if you try to hurt a Buddha, or
if you are Devadatta in five hundred BC. and split up the sangha. Which
fortunately we can’t do anymore ,okay. [laughs] We can do a close one, but we
can’t do that one. If you do any one of those five, then in the very next life, you
must, in the next re birth by the way you must go to the lowest hell. Why did I
say next re birth and not next life?




[students: [unclear]]




Yea. Technically the next life is your bardo. No technically you got one little
rebirth to live before you go to your main rebirth, and you do go through that,
even if you commit one of those five. You still have to go

through a bardo. Why?




[students: [unclear]]




That’s how you get there. That’s a function of a bardo.




[student: So even with tantra, you would still go to the lower hells?]




No, and we’re gonna talk about that. She asked if you commit one of those five
and then got into the secret teachings could you purify them and not go to
lowest hells? Absolutely, yes. You could purify it, and that’s one of the great
things about that path, okay. Whu[laughs] [laughter] But the, but the function
of a bardo if you get into it, which is also fourth chapter, no third chapter
Abhidharma is that you need to get to the hell. And if that spirit body with
which you traveled to the hell, okay, you need that to get there. That’s why
people born in the formless realm, don’t have [pause]...




[students: [unclear] a body,]




a bardo. Cause you enter the formless realm wherever you die. Cause there’s
no place, there’s no form. okay? But that’s a long story. One more question and
then we’ll stop




Yea?




[student: [all talking at once]]




Sorry, sorry. [laughs], [laughter] Karma which ripens in the next birth after that
and beyond.       Okay, karmas which ripens in the next birth after that and
beyond. How big is your karmic pocket? How long can karma stay in there?
What kind of karma’s have you got in your karmic pocket that you, you long
since forgot doing? You know, How many karmas are you gonna be stuck with
that that guy three thousand years lives ago did, that was you okay but I don’t
remember it at all and it doesn’t’ seem fair that I should get stuck with all that,
you know. Like I’ll take the good ones like being in a Dharma class that he set
up, but I don’t want the bad ones [laughs]. Yea, the karmic pocket is quite deep,
it can be millions of years long. And you must study the teachings for , for
cutting a hole in the bottom of that pocket. And that’s called the four powers.
And we’ll cover that. We have to cover that. You gotta find a way to short
circuit those old bad karmas. Cause just not collecting new bad karmas, by not
responding with knowledge aint enough because that karmic pocket is real deep,
you know. Does that necessarily mean that we all have the same karmic
pockets? No. We’ve, we’ve worn out bad, we’ve all done the same bad deeds
infinitely many times, and so has the Buddha. But, but some of us have been
able to wear out certain ones by experiencing them or by purifying them and we
don’t have as big as pockets as other people or like that. It is in the scripture
very defiantly stated that the Buddha was sitting with us in a class like this at
some point many times. Shakyamuni Buddha, good old {Chukyi Ten}, was ah,
sitting with us in our classes many, many, many, times. He was our classmate
many, many, many times, but he just worked harder. Ya know there was a day
when he was exactly like you and me and we were sitting side by side in classes
and he just worked harder. And, and he got out. One more question and we’ll
stop.




{student: I’m curious about      married or living with somebody.[unclear, plane
flying overhead]




There is a kind of karma called {dakpu debu}. Say {dakpa} [repeat] {debu}
[repeat], {dakpu} [repeat] {debu}[repeat]. It’s hard to translate because {dakpu}
means "owner" and {debu} means "karmic consequence." But what it means is
an, is like an environmental result. And what that means is two or more people
can collect karma together which causes them to experience an object in
common. Okay. Like all of us here in this, on this platform today have been
together in the past, certainly and we have all collected a great virtue together.
You know we served some lama, we did some great deeds together and, and the
karmic result of that was that we are all here together today. Absolutely true,
must be true because we are experiencing the same teaching today. That’s a
common karma. Why? Why when you go from south San Diego to Tiajuana
and you cross this totally imaginary line ah, people are poor on one side and
overly wealthy on the other side, you know. The line is totally imaginary.
Everybody to the north of that imaginary line has collected the same kind of
karma to experience a relative state of comfort. And many people on the
southern side of that line have, have collected together a karma to live is some
kind of poverty together. And that, that’s just a, and that also in the King
Wodiana story. In the King Wodiana story people in that land have a very bad,
they suffer together because as a people they allowed some um, terrible things
to go on before. For example if, if everyone in the United States supports the
idea of abortion, you know, if we as a people support the concept of that kind of
killing which according to Buddhism is murder, and is, is considered a, co, a
particularly, the scripture says a particularly repugnant kind of murder because
the victim can’t defend them selves ,they have no means with which to fight
back, they’re too small. You know it’s like a big bully picking on a little guy. If,
if as a culture or as a people we support that kind of activity then as, then as a
people we will live together in a place that will have alot of murder or alot of
violence in that country, now what, like we’ll be born in a place like Bosnia at it’s
worst time, or Chetchneya at it’s worst time and as a people we will suffer,
together, if, if we, if you actively support that, that kind of thing. Okay. That’s,
so husbands and wives are experiencing a shared karmic maturation and it is
often the case that one will, if one dies then the other will die with in a fairly, I
don’t know the statistic but I think if you checked it out even the karma for life
seems to be intimately connected and they, often when one dies the other will
die within some close amount of time. Like that. And, and I’ve heard Lamas
describe that. Okay we’ll do a prayer.




[prayer: short mandala]




[prayer: dedication, Tibetan, then English]