ACI 6 «Сутра Алмазного Огранщика», занятие 10

960901-2.aaa

98a.txt Geshe Michael Roach
Diamond Cutter Sutra, tape 12
Vajrapani Institute
09/01/96
transcribed by: Amber Moore

[unclear] you won't pick the right causes for reaching happiness, okay. If you, if
you don't understand their emptiness, you won't be able to select the right
causes for reaching happiness. What's the best way to get a good understanding
of scripture? What's the best way to sharpen your intelligence? [someone
sneezes] Not sneezing. [laughter]

[students: [unclear]]

No, no. Well, Guru yoga's a pretty good shot.

[students: unclear]

[laughs] Most importantly, keep your morality. It's very interesting, Buddhist
scripture says that, "that more you are immoral..", like Benjamin Franklin said...
what was that? [laughter] Something like, I don't know, "virtuous people don't
always end up pretty, but non virtuous people always end up ugly.", or
something like that. [laughs] According to Buddhism, the more you break your
morality, the, the more stupid your mind becomes, your IQ. can actually drop in
this life, okay. The, the more you are immoral, the more, the less you'll be able
to understand anything properly, okay. Especially the deep teachings, okay. If
you really want to see them properly, keep up a good, ethical way of life. It
doesn't, you, now what about, where are all these connections stated? Where
am I gonna learn about these? That's the function of the Vinaya scriptures. This
is the function of the Jataka tales. This is the function of the sixteen thousand
pages of the scriptures, which talk about, if you do this, you'll get this result. If
you do you do this you get this result. Why do you have to go to scripture for
that?

[students: [unclear]]

You can't figure it out, you can't figure it out. Nagarjuna said it real bad luck,
what? One thing, when you squish a bug, your own ribs don't start to break at
that moment. You know, it would be very convenient if as you squish a bug,
your own, your own leg bone went 'thht'. You know, and just broke into two
pieces. You know, and then nobody would squish bugs. These people in New
York wouldn't always be coming to Michael Roach saying, "Is it okay if I kill the
roaches in my house." You know, you know, they're really a problem. They
wouldn't be asking the question. If every time you lied to somebody, your, your
tongue felt like acid. If every time you took advantage of someone financially,
your own bank account suddenly dropped. [laughs] I mean life would be easy.
We would have all reached nirvana a long time ago. But Nagarjuna says, "It's
too bad there's this time gap." Okay, there is this time gap, there's a time gap
between the two. And they... the connection doesn't seem to be true. Let's get
back to emptiness. If you want to, well I'm trying to say this; when the sun
comes up in the morning, what's happening? Okay, we all have this experience
of the sun, it's a communal karmic ripening, okay. We all have this experience of
the sun coming up. Is the sun coming up? [laughter] Is the sun coming up? In
the morning?

[student: The world is going around.]

Are we going around and the sun therefore coming up.             No, no, is the sun
coming up, bad answer, really bad answers. Come on.

[students: ..[unclear] an appearance.]

We are projecting the coming up of the sun, okay. I don't know how many
billions of people on this planet, five billion, I don't know. Five billion people, at
the same time, are projecting a sun coming up. And when the sun moves across
the sky, what's really moving?

[students: Our projections.]

Your projections. [laughter] your projections, your projections, really, really.
Stop thinking of events as happening outside of you, It's not true. A sun, which
could come up in the east and move across the sky for the whole day, external of
yourself is the {gakja}. It don't exist. There's no such sun, okay. Money that
comes to you, without being generous, doesn't exist,okay. the question is not
whether you make a risky investment or a safe investment, it's... are you
generous or not? With, with understanding emptiness, are you performing the
perfection of giving with an understanding of emptiness or not? It makes life
pretty weird, if you live out your whole life this way. How are you gonna get
your car to run right? Help other peoples cars. [laughs] It sounds silly. People
are giggling because it sounds weird, , it sounds weird. How are you gonna be
healthy?

[students: Take care of other peoples lives]

Care for other peoples lives, okay.

[student: This rocky road didn't come from this life's harsh words, did it?]

Both probably, probably both, but that's a good point. I mean, I didn't say it
would work in this lifetime unless you do it with extraordinary motivation,
okay. Does that mean you shouldn' t do it this way?

[students: [unclear]]

What's the choice? [laughs] What I'm saying is there's no choice. That, that the
road doesn't get fixed by calling the county. If you do call the county, does it
always fix the road?

[students: No.]

Therefore this is not the cause of the road getting fixed, please! Forget the thing
between good investments or bad investments. Forget the thing about being
persuasive to the county or not being persuasive to the county. If you're
persuasive to the county and they fix the road, what happened? Your harsh
speech karma wore out. If you're persuasive to the county and they don't fix the
road? Your harsh speech karma didn't wear out. [laughter] Get used to it. Live
by it. Live by it. Does that mean you shouldn't call the county?

[student: No.]

No. [laughter] Still, does it mean if you didn't call the county, someone would
come and fix the road anyway, if the harsh speech karma had worn out?

[students: Yes.]

[student: Oh, really?]

Right, yeah, you don't have to call the county, right.
[student: That doesn't mean you don't have to get the water and...]

Where did they come from, please! [laughter] Here's a real Svantantrica, here's
a real Svantantrica.

[student: Then why, then why don't you have to [unclear]]

You know, the causes are independent. The supporting causes are independent.
The telephone call is independent. I understand... that's the whole Svantantrika
raising their head again. Think about it. Why do I do fundraising? [laughs] It's
probably an ignorant act, I guess. By the way, let's say I don't go out and raise
funds, I guess, or I don't go out and try to raise money for property and a big,
two big houses on that property. You know, ninety-six acres of prop... prime
Connecticut real estate, and I don't go out and seek it, okay. I don't make any
phone calls, could I ever get it? Would it be possible that one of my students
would meet a girl in a bookstore and mention that Michael Roach is looking for
monastery ground, and she says my aunt is looking to give away ninety-six
acres, and, and it just pops in my lap. Is that possible or not?

[students: Oh, yeah, that's possible]

It happened, it happened, okay.

[student: But there must be some other cause and effect or you wouldn't even
bother to find a place.]

[laughs] No, I know, I know, I know. But what I'm saying is that... I mean,
observe the money that comes to you. I mean, lazy people get rich. [laughter]
People that work hard, don't get rich. Some people that work hard, get rich and
some people that work hard, don't get rich. And some people that don't work
hard, get rich and some people that don't work hard, don't get rich. [laughter]
It's the truth, it's the truth, this is not what's causing money. I mean, what's his
name, Marx and Engles work, they said that, "The source of all money is the
earth." All money comes from the dirt of the ground. People sell crops, they sell
crops, people sell it for houses, they buy lumber, somebody makes iron from the
earth. You know, they said, "the source of all wealth is the earth", it ain't that.
The source of all wealth is generosity. That's the truth. The other things don't
work all the time, so they're not the cause. Sometimes they work, sometimes
they don't work. If you... I always talk about the famous diamond deal
example, where you lie to the guy and you make an extra fifty dollars, okay.
Where did the fifty dollars come from? I was generous in the past. If I had not
lied to the guy at the critical moment in the deal, would I still have gotten fifty
dollars?

[students: Somewhere, somewhere.]

Would, would have come, would have come from somewhere. I would have
found it on the street, somebody would have cut the tax rate, you know, there
would have been a mistake in the bank account. It still would come, that's what
I'm trying to say, okay? And, and you, under that, you can act on this if you
understand the [b: Diamond Cutter Sutra]. If you understand how projections
work, you will see, what even the lower schools of Buddhism couldn't see. Is
that even the causes for things are not self existent. Your, your resistance to my
talking all that stuff, comes from believing that the causes for wealth are self-
existent, okay. Think about it, okay? I mean, that's the last thing I have to say,
that's the last class. That's the last thing on the last class. Think about it. I'm
saying that ultimately, even if your understanding of emptiness gets real, real
good. You get stuck like all those lower schools, three and a half schools of
Buddhism over two and a half thousand years, you will get stuck on believing
that the causes for what your trying to get in your life are self-existent. You are
grasping to them as self-existent. They are not self-existent, they are also
projections, okay.

[student: That real cause that you've listed, is that cause also, a projection?]

That's the whole point. [laughs]

[student: So the giving is also...]

The three spheres of giving are, are, are not self-existent. And you cannot
perform a proper act of generosity unless you understand that also.

[student: But, you'd have to be a Buddha.]

No you don't have to be a Buddha. You just see the emptiness of the three
spheres. You see the emptiness of your boss screaming. Okay, I'll answer your
questions for awhile. Okay, bottom line, last thing you remember from that
neat course that we had. That guy got up there and after saying allot of
reasonable stuff for a whole week, [laughter], he proposed that the logical
outcome of that whole class, was to say that, if you want nice things to happen in
your life, you must respect the laws of karma. And that was Nagarjunas mantra,
okay. Last question, and then I'll take questions. If you want to go to a place
where every single detail of that world causes absolute bliss to you, which is the
definition, pretty much, of a Buddha Paradise, okay. According to this idea, what
kind of non self-existent causes will you have to collect? What, what would
cause... and I'm not, I'm talking... let's talk about the difference between two
different paradises. In one paradise, only fifty percent of the objects give you
bliss, okay. [laughter] It's like a half paradise, a half baked paradise, okay. Only
fifty percent of the objects give you bliss. Like, the top of the poll gives you bliss,
but when you look at the bottom of the poll, it doesn't give you bliss. Seriously,
alright. The top of the stupa gives you bliss, but the bottom doesn't. The people
on the left side of the audience look like tantric deities, but the people on the
right side don't. [laughter] What's the cause of that? It means that your virtues
have not been performed towards every living being, okay. They have not been
performed for the benefit of every living being, you only performed them
towards...?

[students: Half.]

Half. And now we get into compassion. I didn't talk about compassion, for, for
five, six days, we didn't talk about compassion. We didn't talk about it. And this
is where we get into the immeasurables. The four immeasurables. Okay, your
deeds and your motivation, as you do your good deeds, now, if you don't want
a half baked Buddha Paradise, they must be done with the intention of helping
all living beings, okay? It's the only way to get a full baked paradise, okay?
Your, your good deeds must be done with the intention of assisting every living
creature. Those you can see around you, and those you can't. P.s. don't get into
this trap of working for sentient beings, and ignoring the ones right around you.
Okay? [laughs] You can't do your good deeds towards every sentient being,
okay. You can't feed every single sentient being, you can't comfort every single
sentient being. You have to work with the representatives of the every sentient
beings, who are the hardest ones. [laughter] Your family, the other people at
you Dharma center, [laughs]. The people at work. They, they is all sentient
beings, okay? They is all sentient beings. That's as close as your gonna get.
They are representing all sentient beings. Okay, so, so do your good deeds
towards them, the people around you. And, and imagine, have in the back of
your mind that I'm doing this for all living beings. Cause you, you... and don't
be one of these idealistic people, you know, saying, "I'm doing this for all sentient
beings, but I don't like this guy, at my office." And you know, it's, it's, it won't
work. If you keep that up, you have a paradise where you have bad breath, or
something like that, you know. I mean, who want's that? You can't leave
anybody out or your paradise will not be perfect, and it won't be paradise.
Okay, questions.

[student: You said, yesterday, or the day before, that the very best thing that we
can do for all sentient beings, is to move ourselves towards Buddhahood.]

Absolutely, yeah.

[student: And I, we also talked about Buddha being in his own paradise where
every thing is wonderful, and like, could you elaborate on the way in which that
Buddha is then in a position to help all sentient beings?]

Alright.

[student: Instead if being in a, kind of in an escaped place.]

I'll say it with reference to emptiness, okay. I'll say it with reference to the direct
perception of emptiness, at the path of seeing. I'll speak from the point of view
of the direct perception of emptiness at the path of seeing, okay? What's the
difference between learning it from someone who's seen it, and learning it from
somebody who hasn't seen it?            Okay, what's the distinction, what's the
difference? You can smell the difference, you can smell the difference. You know
the difference.       You, you, you intuitively know the difference, that's the
difference, that's the difference. Next question. [laughter] Yeah.

[student: [unclear]]

Technically, out of seven steps to develop compassion, or ultimate compassion,
equanimity is the kindergarten. It's K. It's K of one through seven. There's a,
there's an instruction on how to develop Bodhichitta and, and, and the first step
is called equanimity. And that's to... at least you don't hate anybody or, or dislike
anybody. I mean, I often try it on the busyou know, I have a nice two hour bus
trip home every night. So I'm thinking, it's human nature to like three people on
the bus, to hate... to be attracted to three people on the bus, to be repulsed by
three people on the bus and when you get home, you can't remember the three
who were sitting behind you. You know what I mean? And, and a re, a
prerequisite for getting bodhichitta is called, {tongnyom}. Say {tongnyom}
[repeat], {tongnyom} [repeat]. And that's where at least you feel similarly
towards all nine people on the bus. You know, which is not human nature.
Human nature is; if you move to a new Dharma center, where hopefully all the
people are more reasonable. [laughter] Within one month, one third of them
will be bad, one third of them will be nice, and one third of them, you won't care
much about, either way. If a guy comes to teach Dharma at your center,
[laughs], and he doesn't stay more than a week, [laughter], he's really good, you
know, he's really nice, you know. [laughter] If he stayed more than a week,
your own mind would start to say, "Yeah, but he does that thing." You know.
[laughter] That's why I only stay a week, usually. [laughter] And I'm not
kidding, and I'm really not kidding, if we were together all of the time, your
mind and my mind would start to see faults. And, andthat's not a function of the
external thing, that's a function of us. And you can't help it.

[student: Will you label, will you label him an [unclear] and if you don't keep
recreating the projection, you'll never get to show up.]

It's like that, it's like that. Yeah.

[student: If you want to get very practical about this road. His Holiness told us,
and when he came here we asked him, "Do you have one piece of advice for us?"
An he said, "Pave the road." [laughter] And I'm wondering, you know, really
practical, would it be better to be doing, as a group, something to improve our,
our speaking [unclear] or, or is it dependent also, on the people coming in?]

Both.     But those who experience the road the most, will have the most
purification to do. [laughter] Seriously, and it's start thinking that way about
everything. It's true about anything you want in your life. Start thinking that
way, she said, "When His Holiness came, and they asked Him if they had one
piece of advice, he said, the, the best, the one piece of advice I have is, pave the
road." [laughter] And then she said, "Well maybe the best way to get the road
paved would be to go into the gompa, all the people, would it, would it be, who
should we get to do the purification? Who's harsh speech created the rough
road? And the answer is, anyone who rides on it, okay. If you ride on it allot, it
was allot of harsh speech. If you ride on it once in awhile, it was a, it was a little
harsh speech. But in either case, you have to purify it. If those who live here
purified the deed of harsh speech by being very careful about speaking about
each other badly, or to each other badly, would that be enough to fix the road? I
think that was your point.

[student: [unclear] do it.]
 Or would, or would those who visit occasionally also have to participate?
[laughter] And, and would the road not get fixed until, until it was... would the
road not get fixed until those stragglers came in and did their purification?
[laughter] Seriously, seriously.

[student: [unclear]]

[laughter] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[student: What if you don't, what if you don't mind it?]

The answer is this; once the road is fixed, by the purification of the people who
use it most often... what you're, what you're asking me is; if we want the glass to
be all water and no blood or pus, what do we have to do?

[student: Well, what I'm asking you is, this group... tell us exactly what to do
because because we're going around [unclear] and Prajna Paramita, what are we
supposed to do, like what will work?]

Study the Lam Rim Chenmo, seriously, very seriously. There's a section about...
Je Tsongkhapa makes it very simple. You know, it's not more than four or five
pages. And he gives a whole analysis of what causes each part of your
environment. You know, why are, why do, why did I, on thirty-ninth street and
ninth avenue, in New York, for three years, have to have this garbage container
outside with rotten fruit in it? You know, no [laughter] , seriously. Sexual
misconduct, in my past life or even in this life, okay. That created that stink.
Why did the guy come up and offer us a nice brownstone in the wonderful East
Village? We wore out the karma, okay? We wore out the karma. That's the
truth. Okay.

[student: [unclear] to escape the karma? Would, would, I'm just wondering.]

No, I know you're asking me, and I'll give you this answer: if you're having
trouble at your office, and there's people at your office who, who are, who really
push your buttons and finally it reaches this point where you say, or at your
Dharma center, where you say, "I just can't stand it anymore." You know, "I
gotta move on, I gotta leave, this, this, situation." And you move to a new
situation, think carefully, don't jump to conclusions, okay? At the new Dharma
center, say New York, [laughter], okay, because I, we get this come up. people
say, cause I'll come to New York and everything will be fine. And I say, "Don't
count on it." You know, okay, there's two choices, will there be another irritating
person there who pushes your buttons? Or will there not be another person
there who pushes your buttons? You tell me?

[students: Not if your karma's worn out.]

Excellent answer, {lektsok, lektsok, rikyipur}, [laughs]. Excellent answer, okay.
If your karma has pretty much worn out by that time, you will be happy at the
new Dharma center. If it hasn't pretty much worn out by that time, which is
normally the case, you will replace that person with another person almost
immediately, and you know that, okay. What it means is, when you get fed up
with it, one dharma, dharma center [a] and move to dharma center [b], to escape
the person who pushed your buttons, you are grasping to the self-existence of
the person who pushed your buttons. Okay, that action is being generated by
ignorance. It's, it's the typical action of a person who doesn't understand the [b:
Diamond Cutter Sutra], who never got a class on it, okay. Yeah.

[student: [unclear] ... does that mean your karma is running out?]

It's just the same answer, sometimes it's worn out, and sometimes it hasn't.

[student: [unclear] wouldn't go around doing things in the hopes it'll, that will..]

I'll, you tell me. Have you ever had a bad back ache or a bad headache, and you
are praying like anything that it would go away? I mean, there's no, in your
mind, all you can think of is pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, I wish this thing would
go away. I really, really pray that this headache, and I've had one, you know,
recently, like that. Just torture, you know. I, I pray that, and I want this thing to
go away, and does it go away? No, it just doesn't. Now, question, if you take a
pill, and it goes away, did the pill take the headway, headache away?

[students: [unclear]]

No.

[student: But you can go into it.]

[laughs] Okay? No, it wasn't the pill, it wasn't the pill. Why not, what's the
proof of it? Because sometimes you take allot of pills and nothing happens.
[laughter] You know? Okay, wake up! Wake up! I mean, it's obvious.

[student: What about the cooperative causes? Isn't that why you fund raise?]

Oh, no, I agree that there are things called cooperative causes, you know.
Meaning normally if you want the car to go, you have gotta put gasoline in it,
you know. Like, gasoline is a cooperative cause. And you could have some
excellent car going karma, but if you ain't got gas, would the car still go? You
know. The answer is, somebody would give you another car, or something like
that, okay. But, no, you still have to respect... I, I can't even, I can't lie.

[student: Oh, good.]

You have to have the karmic causes. The gas is also a karmic cause, okay. And if
you didn't have, if you had the karmic causes to project a moving vehicle, and
you didn't have gas in it, it would still go, and this is why miracles happen.
Seriously, this is why someone can walk on water, okay. It's totally possible,
okay, it's completely possible, according to the laws of emptiness, okay. Forget
those contributing causes, a guy can walk on water. It's totally possible. To see
that happen, would require great goodness on your part. To see it happening to
yourself, would, would, [laughter], even require, would even require more
goodness, but ain't that the point? We want to reach that point, you will reach
that point. One day, there is a thing in Zen, there is a samadhi in Buddhism
where that water can be hard as earth, and you can walk across water. Okay, no
problem.

[student: That woman in the back has been waiting.]

Okay,[laughs] your arm is tired? [laughs]

[student: [unclear]]

Here's my answer, listen. What sun? [laughter] Seriously, here's my answer,
listen. What sun? She asked me, "If there was nobody on the earth, would the
sun still come up in the morning?" And I said, "What sun?" [laughter] Seriously,
this is a classic, perfect answer. What sun?

[student: [unclear]

Then that's a collective perception of a bunch of animals, that's fine, no problem.
Oh, we're talking any living being. And I'd say, What sun?]

[student: [unclear] animal life, or sentient life... because animal life evolves first,
but there was no sentient life to perceive it, the perception to perceive it.]

Yeah, no, we include them among sentient life. We don't draw distinctions
between animal life and human life, okay, we don't draw that distinction. Yeah.

[student: I understand that I'm supposed to make, how to infuse emptiness into
a situation of your boss yelling at you, but then you also said, how do you infuse
emptiness into helping an old lady cross the street, when you do a good deed,
how do you do that?]

She says, "what about, it's easy to talk about how perceiving the emptiness of the
boss might help you". You do not want to perpetuate that event, so you do not
respond with anger. But, but how about virtues? And she said," How about
helping an old lady across the street? You would definitely then, stop and help
old ladies across the street, okay. First of all. Secondly, you wouldn't grasp to
the self-existence of helping an old lady across the street. And, and the, and the
implication is that, you would clearly understand that by helping this old lady
across the street, in the future you would have a healthy and beautiful body,
okay. As your doing it, you know it. How do the Buddhas keep Buddha
Paradises running? [laughter] Remember we talked about using up karma for
having a teacher for example, you know. How does a Buddha perpetuate a
Buddha Paradise? Quite consciously, quite knowingly, they perpetuate them. I ,
I understand the emptiness of this paradise that I worked so hard to get to. I will
continue to do an infinite number of good deeds with infinite numbers of
emanation bodies, with the intention of helping infinite numbers of sentient
beings, in order to perpetuate this paradise which is pretty cool, and I want to
stay here, okay. [laughter] And they go through that, and they do it, no
problem. Is it artificial ? Yes. Is it real ? Yes.

[student: I thought that when you attained Buddhahood that ... spontaneous
effort.]

That, the thought is spontaneous. The, it's true that they, they're so trained in
that, that they're no longer thinking of it consciously. Yeah, okay, yeah.

[student: When a person, since I'm in [unclear] and bugs and garbage...]
Yeah. [laughs]

[student: ..and killing and karma. When you have to take the trash out and your
killing like half a colony of ants, and I'm wondering what you do about that.]

I asked my Lama the same question, because he used to send me out to mow the
lawn, okay. She said, "What am I supposed to do if I have to clean up the, a trash
can, and I know there's lot's of ants in there, and I know it's likely that I'm gonna
hurt some?" Or, even when you get in a car, you know it's likely, the minute you
turn on the ignition, you know it's likely that there's gonna be two rows of
squished bugs all the way down the Vajrapani rocky road, okay. [laughter]
What do you, what do you do? What can you do? It's, it's, it's not considered a
bad deed, if, if for example, you have to go to the store for a certain reason, and
you know, and you're aware that certain bugs might get killed as you go to the
store. The power of that bad deed is very small. There is some bad deed, but
you don't get in the car with the intention... you don't say, "I'm going to the store
so I can kill some bugs on the way." You know what I mean? I mean, the
intention is not to kill bugs. If you kill some life, incidental to another activity, it
is bad karma. You have to try to minimalize it as much as you can, that's why
monks, traditionally, had to carry around a sieve. They were supposed to sieve
the water before they drank it so they wouldn't kill any small beings in the
water. And there's a Vinaya rule that before you take water out of a stream, you
take the most compassionate monk in the room and you say, "You go watch the
stream for half an hour, and see if there's any small creatures.", you know. So
you can't be frozen, you know. It's not like you can't go anywhere, or you can't
step, you can't walk to your house, to the bathroom or something or, it's not like
that. But you have to minimalize it as much as you can. There's a mantra that
you can say. My Lama used to tell me, blow it on the blade of the gra.. lawn
mower. And I'll just say it for you, {Om Kirtsa} [repeat], {Ragana} [repeat],
{Hung Hri Soha} [repeat]. {Om Kirtsa Ragana...}

[student: Could you write it?]

I don't know if I can. I hate to write it. {Om Kirtsa...} I'll write it, but it's...

[student: [unclear]]

[laughs] It's actually at the end of some editions of the [b: Diamond Cutter].

[silence]
{Om Kirtsa Ragana Hung Hri Soha} Cool, who did that? Say it again. Angelica,
say it again. Say it again. Say it again.

[student: I didn't say it, she said it.]

Let me hear, let me hear. [laughs] Say {Om} [repeat], {Kirtsa} [repeat], {Ragana}
[repeat], {Hung Hri Soha} [repeat]. I don't know if it's completely, totally correct
spelling. It's at some, it's at the end of some editions of the [b: Diamond Cutter
Sutra], by the way, which is cool. Let me ask you another question, how does a
mantra work, okay? And we were talking about it on the break with somebody,
it's very interesting. The way a mantra works is covered in the second, is
covered in the second chapter, [laughter], I'll give you a choice. Root, root tantric
text, [B: Lam Rim], [b: Perfection of Wisdom], [b: Buddhist Logic book], Right,
it's in the Buddhist Logic book, okay? [laughs] The last place you would expect
it, Pramanavartika, second chapter, Dharmakirti, says, "Why do mantras
work?" [laughter] And it's surprising, it's surprising, not what you would guess.
Two conditions must be present, two conditions must be present for a mantra to
work. Condition number one; the person who first spoke it must be a holy
being, okay. The person who invented it must be a holy being. Condition
number two; the person who is trying to use this mantra to gain some holy
effect, like helping the bugs who get cut by the lawn mower, must be keeping an
ethical way of life, must be following an ethical way of life, okay. That's really
cool.

[student: You don't actually have believe in the mantra necessarily?]

It didn't say that, it didn't say that. It said only those two conditions. Obviously,
I don't think you would go around saying it if you didn't believe in it. Maybe it's
assumed, maybe it's assumed, okay. Two more questions, then I think we have
to... you're not gonna get much of a break I think. Yes Anila.

[student: Often people write in for pujas to be done and what's going on there?
When they ask for, hope that, you know, my grandmother is better, I hope that
business goes well. You know, do this kind of puja, do that kind of puja what is,
what is going on? What I mean is, if their karma isn't going to ripen for that
thing to happen, then how can doing a puja effect that?]

Ani-la asked, "What's the use of sponsoring a puja?" You know, say somebody is
hoping that their business will go better, or that somebody in their family will
feel better, what's the... how does that work? That when your doing some,
you're doing some good religious deed, and you're dedicating it to something, to
someother cause. Generally speaking, karma can only be collected by the people
doing it. Generally speaking, it's against every law of karma, to say that I could
give you one atom of my karmic result, you know. The proof of that is very
simple, if it could have been done, the Buddha would have done it a long time
ago, and you and me wouldn't be here, okay. If it's possible to transfer good
karma from one person to another, even the slightest bit, then the
compassionate, holy, enlightened beings who have existed for kalpas, eons and
eons certainly would have loaned us a little bit. But it didn't happen. So in
general you can only collect karma for yourself. Now, if you are in one family,
the wealth of that family is considered to be communal. For example, a monk, if
a monk steals a, a pot from the kitchen of his own college to use at the other side
of the kitchen of that college, it's not considered breaking your vow of stealing.
Because it's everybody's, it's, you can't steal what you already own. And in the
case of a family's wealth, if, if, if with the agreement of everybody, you, you say
we're gonna offer these prayers for the benefit of people in the family, since the
wealth is shared, the karma is shared, okay. In so far as everyone has agreed
that the wealth could be used for a puja, then the people in that family could
benefit from it, karmicly, okay.

[student: So if you did it with out them knowing?]

It wouldn't be as powerful, but I believe it would still have some benefit.

[student: [unclear]]

Excuse me?

[student: [unclear]]

Family of what?

[student: Sangha.]

Oh, in what sense do you mean?

[student: From the prayer of [unclear]]

Oh yeah, yeah, they can and often times what's happening, it's very interesting,
the karma of the devotion is creating the result. Okay, the karma of the
devotion, and the faith, is creating the result. The karma of the persons devotion
as they make the offering is what's causing the, the effect to happen. It's very
interesting. It's the karma of that persons faith which is really creating the result,
not the, not the transfer of money, for example. Okay, and that's the principle of
the secret teachings, that's the principle of the secret teachings. The very belief
and devotion, in that object is what, karmicly, causes it to come about. The, the
secret teachings are in full, are fully... I don't know how to say, they are also
under the full power of these principles. There ain't nothing in the secret
teachings that doesn't depend on the principles we've been talking about today.
The secret teachings can only work, because of what we've talked about today.
And because of what we've talked about today, they can work. If things weren't
empty, and if objects in your life were not the result of a projection on a, on a, on
a pile of parts, the secret teachings could never work.

[student: Is that like saying I project, therefore it is?]

Nope, [laughter] you could say that, you could say that. I want to project,
therefore it is, no, okay. I'm being forced to have a projection and therefore is,
yes, big difference. You can't say, I wish this was, a hamburger and bite into it,
okay, no. Okay, okay, and then I'll answer that and then we better, okay.

[student: Suppose you want to give money to a dharma center, but in order to
do that , you have to lie to the government, [laughter] which you don't agree
with what they're doing with their money.]

Uh huh.

[student: Is that okay?]

No, okay, [laughter] it's a classic example of wrong livelihood, to do a bad deed
in order to raise money for a good cause, can't do it, okay, that's called dirty
money, okay. There can't be a good result. But she's talking about a {gakja}isn't
she? Come on man, there ain't no such thing, as money which is a result of
being clever about lying to the government. Is there? It's a {gakja}. Don't,
forget, stop believing in those things, it's a fairy tale, it's Santa Clause, it don't
exist. Getting money because you were clever, and you faked, tricked the
government, don't exist.        If the money came, shortly after lying to the
government, that's coincidence. [laughter] Seriously, okay, because sometimes
you lie, and they catch you [laughter]. It's not a cause. Wake up! Wake up, it's
not a cause, you know. Some guy told me, I lied about my immigrant visa, you
know, and I got a greencard so what's that about? And I said, that's not why you
got the greencard. Because you lied, you'll be refused about ten thousand
greencards in the future. If you got one, it's because you were honest in the past.
Stop thinking, stop thinking the way things seem to be. Start thinking, the way
things really are. You didn't get enlightened the other way did ya? [laughter]
Let's try this one for awhile. And, and I don't claim that the world is, is gonna
change in, in three days, it won't happen. But I do say, [a] if you keep up this
behavior over a certain period of time, if you stop reacting to what appears to be
the case, you will reach nirvana rather quickly. If you keep that up, and do your
four powers , sincerely, you will reach nirvana, and Buddhahood, Paradise. The
other way of acting hasn't worked so far, try something else, what, what can you
lose? The other way hasn't been bringing in anything anyway, okay. One last
question, Jay.

[student: Let's go back to the cause and result with the road. In a different
context. Like with His Holiness, why did he have to leave Tibet? Why wouldn't
he have stayed there and tried to find antidotes?]

He said, "Why did Hid Holiness leave Tibet?" And if all this stuff is true, and
obviously, if His Holiness is, is a tantric deity, He doesn't have any bad karma
left. So what, why did He have to leave Tibet? A baby Buddhist answer is, okay,
a baby Buddhist answer is, He left Tibet in order to, to teach us, okay. He had to
leave Tibet in order to get to the west, so that we could learn from Him. Okay,
and that's... He is Avaloketeshvara, nothing goes wrong in His world , but He
left Tibet in order to teach us, okay, baby Buddhist answer.              A more
sophisticated Buddhist answer; if we had had, collectively, the proper good
karma, He would have, we would have been born in his country and he would
still be in that country, there would be five thousand monasteries there and we'd
all be living this dharma existence there, okay. The Dalai Lama's having to run
away from Tibet was created by...?

[students: Our karma.]

Your Projections. Okay, that's your projections, we didn't have the projections to
be born in a country where the Dalai Lama was also president Clinton, [laughs],
and, and he was running the country on these principles. We didn't have the
good karma to pull that off. So, all we can do is have this Dalai Lama whose
having to run away from his dear country, thousands of monks being killed,
thousands of monasteries being destroyed because we didn't have the karma for
anything else to happen, okay. In other words, it's totally possible that
everything could have had a happy ending if our karma had have been right. it's
not true that wealth has to be distributed among the people of the planet. If
everybody was generous, everybody would have more... [cut]

[cut] [student:.. have, without it being the seeds ripening of something in the
past for them?]

It is, it must be, okay, it has to be, okay. [laughter] Okay, one more.

[student: It's just an easy one.]

Alright. Buddhists like the hard ones. [laughter]

[student: How do you use the four powers to purify bad karmas of the past
that you don't remember?]

Great question, very, very nice question, good question to end the class on,
okay. How can you use the four powers to purify karma that you collected in
the past that you have no idea what it was, it was maybe ten thousand years
ago, how do you know what to purify?            There's a thing called {Chi shag},
general confession. And that's where, the answer has two parts. You can do
what's called a general confession, and you can say, it goes like that, {Uhula,
Lama Dorje Sempa chumpa la, sopa cho... [unclear]] And then it goes like, I
confess everything I ever did, you know, I confess everything I ever might have
ever done. So then some guys in my class in New York said, "Gee, that's
convenient."    You know, one confession, one purification, you got rid of
everything you ever did. And I said, gee, it sounds like that, let's ask somebody,
and we went to this high Lama in Sera Mey, and he, and we said, you know,
"Does a general confession clean up, out all your old bad deeds, even if you don't
know what they were?" And he said, "well, it's sort of like chipping away at a big
rock, youknow, and every time you do it, it chips away at it a bit more. But you
must keep doing it." In other words, it wouldn't be bad on a daily basis, to do a
general confession, and chip away at that big rock, okay. Second part of the
answer; if you observe carefully, the sufferings in your life, you can guess, what
kind of bad deeds you used to do allot, okay.

[student: Can you say that again?]

If you, if you examine your own life, and the suffering in your own life, your
particular sufferings and even your principal mental afflictions. Like I suffer
more from jealousy and desire that I do from anger, that's my personal
repertoire, okay. And each person has to examine, what is their own major
mental affliction and what is the biggest suffering they have in their life? Is is
some kind of life threatening thing? Well then you must have been killing
people. Is it that people don't believe you anymore? It must have been that you
lied. Is it that you can never get enough money? It was because you stealed,
you stole. Is it that your relationships always go sour? It was because you
committed sexual misconduct. Ecetera, ecetera, okay. Examine the biggest
problems in your own life and purify those, those propensities, those habits of
acting that way. If you have problem with something threatening your life, take
special care to, to protect other peoples lives. If you have a problem with lousy
relationships, take special care to be faithful in your relationships, like that, okay.
If you have a problem that even when you speak the truth people don't believe
you, take great care not to lie, take special care not to lie and that'll purify it. And
you, I, I promised you one, right.

[student: ...[unclear] something about rejoicing.]

And that really is the last question, and I'll even sit down, [laughs], and we can
talk about rejoicing. [laughter] This is Subhuti. In this week, by talking about,
and if this stuff is true and I always say that, If this stuff is true. If these things
we've said this week are, true, then something has gone on this week that, that
has not gone on in most of the rest of your life. You know, out of three hundred
and sixty five, times forty three days, in my case, which is twelve, thirteen
thousand days, or something, is it? Yeah, something like that. This is the first
time I've ever had a discussion like this, this is the first time I've ever been
through the [b: Diamond Cutter Sutra], okay. Out, out of twelve thousand days
of my life, I just spent three or four talking about some kind of ideas that
possibly could lead me to Paradise, and that's extraordinary. I mean, it doesn't
happen, it really doesn't happen. So, so be happy about it, you know, you, it is
the way to Nir... to Paradise, okay. It is the way to be happy, it's the only way,
okay. You have to understand emptiness. It's the, it's the absolutely the only
way to remove your bad thoughts is to understand emptiness. It's never
happened before, it's a, it's a great thing, and it really is true and it can work, you
can do it. So rejoice, when you rejoice all the power becomes much more strong.
So just be happy. You know, the main thing now is, the main job now is to be
happy. Be really happy about what happened. And the only reason we got to do
it was because of our Lamas blessing, okay, so be happy about that, okay?
Meditate for awhile about that, okay. [cut]
[different location?]

[cut] .. for the coffee, you know, for tea, for the Tibetans, tea is like lifeblood.
[laughter] And, you know give a Tibetan Dairy Dream or something like that,
and he'd say, "Uh, {chema}." And {chema} means "fake". {Chema} means
artificial. And by the way, that's another example of why you should be around
a Lama all the time, because you pick up these things, it like, you know, rubs off
on you, you know, anyway. So, there is a point before you enter the {tsok lam},
the first path on the bodhisattva track where you get bodhichitta which is
{chema}, you're faking it, you're forcing it. It is belabored, you know, you're
trying to be a good person, it's not natural and it's necessary, you always have to
go through that stage. Of, of trying to pretend, you know, trying to get the
emotion or trying to get that feeling that you really do care about all sentient
beings and you want them to get enlightened. That's a, sometimes it's called a
{purangi shing tabu}, which means, "sugar cane like", sugar cane bodhichitta,
meaning, there's no essence in it, it's just the skin. And, and it's not considered
hypocritical, it's a necessary step. You know, you can't just pop from not caring
about people, to caring about every body, you know. [laughs] There's gotta be
some point in between there where you're, you're trying to do it and it's not
natural for you, and that's called {sembkye chuma} But once, the {tse}, the
measure of reaching {tsog lam}, on the first path, the path of accumulation on the
bodhisattva path, is when you get true {sembkye} or true bodhichitta. Getting,
the day you get true bodhichitta, and the day you walk on the path of
accumulation it's the same thing, it's the same moment. So how does this differ,
this is three paths down from there, I mean, two paths down. This is path
number three, the second half of path number three. What's the difference
between that and the true bodhichitta you got to get onto path number one?
Okay, this is, this is the sensation of bodhichitta in the mind of a person who just
became an Arya. And it's much sweeter and much different. This is the
bodhichitta of a person who has just reached the first bodhisattva bhumi. And
it's totally different, it's a totally different thing. And when I say sensation, what I
mean is, that for a certain few minutes, you have a physical sensation of this
emotion of some kind of clear liquid, nectar coming out of your chest area and,
and feeding all living beings, and, and as that's happening, you have the
realization that you will spend the rest of you life serving other beings, and the
rest of your lives. You know, that, that from now on, most of your activity is
going to be directed at helping other beings.

[student: What about [unclear]
Like a tulku you mean?

[student: Well no, the [unclear] release,       can manifest someone in one body
[unclear]]

Well it's in the Abhidharma, is that if you reach a certain level of concentration,
you can manifest yourself as a bird or something like that. You know, you, can,
you can, sent out movie pictures of yourself. And you don't even have to be a
Buddhist to do that.

[student: [unclear] can manifest a hundred more bodies.]

I'm not aware of it, put it on the list, you know, not sure, haven't heard that, but
I, I can't claim to be comprehensive. We'll go on for like another ten minutes,
cause, cause I, I don't mind all night, but I, I know that at nine, like twenty
percent of the people want to leave and at nine-fifteen like forty percent want to
leave and.. [laughs] Okay, go ahead

[student: This experience of bodhichitta you mentioned at, also in meditation,
well is it possible to get a glimpse of that?]

Of this particular one?

[student: Yeah, and also or something like that, and also, in meditation, in sort of
normal meditation, for a normal person, can, can you, I mean, what is it when
you have some sort of experience of, that you're not, you're not your self, I
mean you're not, you're..]

Yeah, I mean, allot of people, I think, I think, almost every Buddhist, American
Buddhist can, can, can, talk about certain experiences they've had in meditation,
and they're always wondering, was that it or not? [laughter] Was that it or not?
Because, until it happens, I think, by definition, you're wondering, did it happen
or not? I mean these Lamas are always talking about it, and, I would really like
to get it and maybe I got a little bit of it, or got a taste of it, or maybe I really did
see it and I didn't notice it, or, or something of that nature, okay? What I want to
say is, along with this last thought is the absolute {nyerpa} meaning absolute
nailed down total certainty that this was it and, and there ain't nothin' like it, and
when it happens, you'll know it. And there, and you'll never doubt it. If
something happens and you're not sure, it wasn't it. Seriously. It's a totally
different experience, you're a totally different being after that, and there ain't no
mistaking it. You go through these steps, and you don... you wouldn't have to
ask anybody. No Arya would ever have to ask somebody, did I do it or not,
you know. {Tong}, okay, {tong lam}. That's the nature of that. So what are the
other things? They could be flashes of that or pre, pre, presentiments of it or
something or, or you know, they could have relevance, but if they're not. But
what I'm talking about is an event that that can be calculated, coldly calculatedly
planned. You know, could say, I want that to happen I'm gonna study the
scriptures, I'm gonna hear explanations from qualified people as much as I can,
I'm gonna get the water and the fertilizer and the sunlight, which is Guru yoga.
You know, I'm gonna be near my Lama and serve him, or her. And I'm gonna
get all the causes and conditions ready, and you can just plan it out. I mean you
can just, like a recipe for a cake. You know, you can say, "I'm gonna need Guru
yoga, I gotta have a touch of, you know, study of {chi dedrak], I'm gonna have
to go to teachings, I'm gonna have to be trying do the six perfection, I'm gonna
have to be working on my compassion and everything. You, get the ingredients
ready very, very calculatingly, and then it will just happen, you know. And, and,
and, and the point is that you can do it, you just need the right ingredients.
They say in Buddhist philosophy that once you get the ingredients together, you
couldn't prevent it, you know what i mean? You could stand there on the seat
and say, "don't go", you know what I mean? And the thing would pop out, you
know what I mean? Once those conditions are prepared if you wanted to stop it
at that point, you couldn't, okay. Yeah.

[student: Is it just like any other of our projections, like they're just karma that is
ripening and are forced on us? By...]

Yeah, yeah, and we're gonna talk with reference to nirvana in the next few
classes but, yeah, you are forced, despite yourself, to see emptiness directly. It's
what.. of course because it's dependently originating. Yeah

[student: I didn't hear very well, but what you said [unclear] as far as emptiness
could be a projection?]

I was kind of avoiding that, [laughter].

[student: Maybe you could speak to that a little bit.]

I'll cop out, [laughter] I'll say, on the [jor lam] on the second path, are your
perceptions... do you perceive emptiness on {jor lam}?         Do you perceive
emptiness on {jor lam}?

[students: Yes. No. Yes, yes. No.]

Well, you guys decide and I'll come back later. That's what we do on the debate
ground. We go have a Coke or something and we come back. Do you perceive
emptiness on the path of preparation, before you reach the path of seeing?

[student: No, no.]

Not directly, but you do perceive it. You do perceive it intellectually, okay. And
necessarily, that's through a process of projection, excetera. So emptiness also
has it's own... [cut]

[cut] thing that you perceive through that process, in that case.

[student: [unclear] If he, if you're aware that you, you've met the Buddha, ]

Yeah.

[student: What does that mean?]

[laughter] What , what we said was, I forgot to say, that reminds me of
something that I wanted to say. What, what it means when you met the...
people ask me, "Do you, do you see a guy with a bump on his head, and ears?",
and stuff like that, you know. Is that it means?   Not primarily, that's not
primarily what it means.

[student: It's the Dharmakaya.]

It's the Dharmakaya. You are aware of having been in the presence of the
ultimate reality of the Buddha, which is part of the Buddha, which s his, which is
his... ninety percent of the Buddha. [laughs] The rest is just...

[student:      You're experiencing the Dharmakaya, the emptiness, is that
intellectual?]

Not at this, not at this path.

[student: Right, okay.]
Yeah, oh, by the way it is intellectual during {jetop yeshe}, during the second half
of the path of seeing, and you think back and say, "Hey, I met the Buddha.", at
that, at that it's your projection again, yeah.

[student: But during the direct experience, it's not intellectual?]

Not at all. Cannot be.

[student: Not at all. Is it a projection?]

Is it a projection? Why? [laughs] Whoa, that's a tough question, that's a really, I
was afraid you were going to get to that. I mean, the text books say it's not a
projection at that point, okay, at that moment. But, I'm not sure that you could
posit the existence of any object, without, that doesn't have dependent
origination and so emptiness does have it's own dependent origination, which is
the fact that you are projecting it. But at that moment, I don't know that you
could say you were operating through a {dunshi}, okay, and that gets a little
touchy. So let's leave it at emptiness as you think about emptiness, okay.
Otherwise the emptiness perceived by the first half of the path would not have
dependent origination, and it could not have an object. So, I'm not gonna get too
deep into it. You do not perceive that emptiness through any kind of cursive
thinking. You're not thinking to yourself, hey this is emptiness, or something
like that.

[student: No that's not what I meant.]

I know, I wish I , it's, it's pure, it's pure, direct perception, water poured in water,
okay. Oh, and I wanted to say one more thing. The moment you see emptiness
directly, you become two of the three jewels, okay. You become, from that
moment on, two of the objects, two of the three ratnas, you become the refuge
of the entire universe. You become two of the three, not bad. [laughs] Alright,
it's very interesting, you know, when people, when Buddhists all over the world
are doing their {Sangye cho dang tsog chig chog nam la... } you're the one they're
talking about, it's you that they are...

[student: What level do you realize that?]

Once you have realized emptiness directly and become an Arya, you are two of
the, you, you are two of the objects of refuge. You are two of the three objects
of refuge. And by the way, object number three, which is the jewel of the?

[students: Sangha, no, the Buddha]

Buddha. [laughs] Oh by the way, why are you the refuge of Sangha? Why are
you the jewel of Sangha, by the way, which is not the same as sangha, right, you
know that. The refuge of the sangha and the Sangha are not the same thing.
The refuge of sangha, the thing you take refuge in, Buddha, , Dharma, Sangha.
The jewel, or the ratna of sangha is anyone who's seen emptiness directly.
Definition. So your already in that group. You've already graduated into that
group. The, the ratna of Dharma, the refuge of the Dharma consists primarily,
and not exclusively of the direct perception of emptiness. So you've already
reached number two, sorry, Dharma and Sangha. You've got Dharma and
Sangha, you are, you are, what people are taking refuge in, from that moment
on. Now, what about Buddha? The main Buddha refuge, primary Buddha
refuge, is the Dharmakaya. So you ain't that yet, but you just met it. You're
very close to it. So really, you become like two and a half objects of refuge.
[laughter] From that moment on, it's pretty cool. You are what the world is
taking refuge in. Why? You know, what's the.. how do you get protection from
seeing emptiness directly?

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah, because now you got the main weapon to stop your mental afflictions.
Okay, And in the case of the yelling boss, who I get to go back to, I'm already
starting to get geared up. [laughter] Or should I say, wound up. I'm already
thinking whether I should go in on Tuesday or not. I think I can say I was flying
or something. [laughter] What, how does it protect you in the case of the yelling
boss?

[student: [unclear]]

What?

[student: [unclear]]

So, big deal, how does that protect you?      Empty or not, he's still the same
screaming boss.

[student: You won't react.]
You won't react. What better protection. That is protection. That is taking
refuge. You take, you don't take refuge in the morning in front of your altar,
you take refuge when you don't respond to the screaming boss, because you
understand his emptiness. That's refuge, how can that. What does that protect
you? It protects you from something in the future. Screaming bosses. [laughs]
And incidentally, helps you to knock out your mental afflictions, that's
protection. That's the only protection. There ain't some dude who can reach
down from the sky and say, "No more bad bosses in the future for Michael
Roach.", you know, "He's had enough." [laughter] Fifteen years of bad bosses,
[laughs] you know, it's not like that. The protection is your own knowledge, of
the emptiness of the three spheres, of the boss yelling at you, you don't respond,
and then you don't have to meet bad bosses in the future. And then incidentally,
you'll start to remove your mental afflictions by, by that practice and then
ultimately, as the bad karmas wear out you will be forced into Buddha paradise.
Let's stop there I think. [laughs] [laughter] Really? Are you gonna break in at
that point? [laughs] Okay, go ahead, better be good.

[Ani la Jigme Palmo: When you become a Buddha, what do they call you?]

[laughs] I, I honestly, it's important, I wasn't kidding last night. And that was an
appropriate last thing to say, and I wasn't just joking around. There's a very
important point, and it's one of the realizations, is that, when I become a Buddha,
they won't call me Mike anymore. What's the point of that? Think about it.
Think about it. It's a, it's an extremely important point and it is a discreet
realization at that point, it's an important realization at that point. It has to do
with projection, okay.

[Ani-la: Is it a negative or a positive? Do you know what they will call you or do
you know what they won't call you?]

No, it's negative.

[Ani-la: Oh, okay.]

Okay, maybe it means that when they meet your Dharmakaya in the future, it
won't be through a process of mistaking a {denchi} for the Dharmakaya.
Because at that, that, and that answers your question about, you know, is there a
{denchi} involved with, with emptiness, you know, is there projection involved
with, with emptiness? Whether or not there is, at that moment you are no longer
mistaking the projection for the real thing, okay? Okay.

[student: So you have to distinguish?]

Oh yeah, when you perceive emptiness intellectually, it's through a [denchi].

[student: So you can access that place, kind of at will. From then on.]

No.

[student: No? I mean look at the path of habituation, you're still continuing your
meditations and real life.]

But you don't necessarily have that experience again very soon.

[Student: But it's pretty close.]

It's close, but most of your perceptions of emptiness, even on the path of
habituation, are intellectual again.

[student: [unclear]]

No, and that's very useful in the case of the screaming boss. You, you can't go
into deep meditation while your boss is screaming, he won't sign the pay check
next week. Michael Roach went catalactic, when I was screaming at him , you
know. [laughter]

[student: [unclear] it's not the hook]

Yeah, yeah.

[student: He's just occurring, that not the hook, like that's a [unclear] that's
occurring.]

Yeah, yeah.

[student: And you have that gap between the projection on to what's occurring
that [unclear]]

Yeah, yeah. You're aware that he's not what he appears to you. At least you
know you're wrong, you're still wrong, but at least you know it, okay. That's
{gyima tabu}. That's the what?

[student: The illusion.]

That's the illusion, okay. Let's meditate for like five minutes, okay. I think, just
meditate, have some {yirang}. Have some... rejoice! We are flirting with the,
the destruction of your mental afflictions, you know. It's a very cool place to be
flirting, you know. We are, we are, we are, dancing around the subject, the only
subject that can remove your mental afflictions forever, and, and, and make you
truly contented forever and that would be really nice, you know. This whole
thing about going through the day swinging between liking people and disliking
people. And not in a major way, but just this continual struggle of going down
the street, with like and dislike grabbing at you, and beating you up as you walk
down the street, you know. It'll be over. And your mind will be in a place where
you just... happy all the time. So, so be happy right now. I mean, rejoice that we
are flirting with the weapon for the destruction of the mental afflictions, you
know. And it's very rare to have the opportunity, and it rare that, that a group
of people would sit in one place and talk about these things, extremely rare.
That.. especially in a accurate way. So rejoice, just be happy for awhile. It
enhances the merit immensely, okay. [cut]