ACI 8 «Смерть и сферы существования», занятие 10

Class 10
Transcribed by: Karen Becker

[cut] [student: seems to be saying something different]Yeah yeah yeah.[student:
Can you can you clarify that?]Yeah. We got ... we get to the line that says {dakki
jinsok gyipay sunam kyi} okay, you see where it says {dakki jinsok gyipay
sunam kyi}? The key is in the {jinsok}, okay. {Jinsok} means "giving and the
other six per ... and the other five perfections" {jinsok}, so generally when you're
doing this prayer by yourself and you're using it to take refuge and and prayers
for bodhicitta, you say {jinsok}. Before a class students say {dakki chu nyen},
okay, {dakki chu nyen}, so you replace {jinsok} with {chu nyen} because you're
praying that as a result of your listening {nyen} to Dharma {chu} in the class you
you'll be able to gain bodhicitta. And and and ultimately attain Buddhahood,
you're praying for that, that the virtue of your coming to class, and the teacher
says {chu she} which is "upon virtue of mine" talking about Dharma, expressing
that, so the the class at that point should say {dakki chu nyen gyipay sunam kyi}
and the teacher should say {dakki chu she gyipay sunam kyi}. But when you're
by yourself at home you say {dakki jinsok gyipay sunam kyi}. Okay.[student:
Thank you] All right. We're gonna do ... continue with the death meditation.
And ... let's see if there's any announcements first. [student: When is the final?]
Oh that's a good question. Thursday will be a review. And if you've never been
in a review before that's when you get all the answers to the final [laughs]
[laughter], Good to come. Ac ... actually go over all the all the important points
in the class [unclear] and we go over what's on the final. I don't care if the final's
not a big surprise. I just want you to know what I think is the most important
things to know. Because that's the ... that's, you know, the point is that by the
end you know those those those tw ... last twenty-five most important things. So
all the information in the class got boiled down to eight or nine homework
questions every class and then all the homework questions got boiled down to
four or five quiz questions every class and the final only comes from the quizzes.
Because I think those are the most important things. So half the quiz questions
get thrown out, and what's left is is the information that I expect you to
remember a year from now. And, you know, people talk about these big
Geshes, but two years after you finish your Geshe you don't remember, you
know, it's like two years after you finish your PHD in al ... you know, math or
something, you know, you you don't really remember everything ... you
probably don't remember more than half after about two years, and so what I
thought of the idea of the courses is that is that you give me the information that
really counts, and that sticks in your brain and the final is that ... so the final boils
down to twenty five points, twenty five pieces of information that would really
help your life and that you really must try to remember. So that's the idea of the
final. So we'll we'll do review on on Thursday ... then you tell me how long you
need, I don't know, you want to do ten days ... or is that too long? You want to
do a week? [student: A week}Is a week okay?[student: [unclear] longer than
that}You take the final on the following Thursday, is that all right? No? Okay,
we'll we'll take the final on the following Thursday, It'll be same time same place.
[student: Any alternative dates? Maybe when the Tibetan track does it or
something?}Yeah, I'm not sure ... when's the Tibetan track[student:
[unclear]Yeah, so they'll probably do it a week from Saturday. How's that? So
it's either the following Thursday or the following Saturday at ten. We'll
announce on Thursday ... we'll probably try to arrange some classes by Art and
Carmen during the interim, see if you could do a weekend retreat, a two retreat,
a very intensive one, so if you're interested in that, you know, tell me on
Thursday. [laughter] I think we might have to restrict the amount [unclear], I'm
not trying to be cute, but if if you're really serious about it then let me know. It
would be very intense in that regard ... it would go like from a Friday evening to
a Sunday afternoon. No known location yet ... somewhere close. [student:
[unclear]}Huh?[student: [unclear]I don't know yet. Maybe Doug. [laughs] We
didn't get, we didn't get that far in planning.[student: Next next class?] Anything
else ... oh next class around July 15th and it will be Vinaya. We've we've covered
all five books of the great books of Buddhism plus Lam Rim, we've we've done
something from all of them. We've done something from {b: Abhidharma},
we've done something from {b: Perfection of Wisdom}, we've done a lot from
Madyamika and we've done Buddhist Logic and Perception, but we haven't done
anything about Vinaya yet. Vinaya is the study of vowed morality and it's very
important. We ... I can't teach Vinaya details to people who are not ordained, but
I can teach the structure of the vinaya. And I think it's useful to know ... it's
basically what is vinaya, how do you get vinaya vows, how many kinds of
vinaya vows are there, you know roughly what are they, how do you how do
you get them, how do you lose them, what do they do to you if you keep them,
what do they do to you if you don't keep them, you know, and there's a lot of
misinformation, I think, about vinaya, about monks vows nuns vows and other
subjects like that. I think it ... I don't think ... I think without going into detail
which I'm not allowed to do, it would be it'd be really good if you're educated
Buddhists, if you understood what the vows are, how people get them, roughly
what they are, and how they came to be, what they do to you ... things like that,
you know, those subjects I think ... my dream is that you are a very education
Buddhist, and and if you don't know them really, that that subject at all then it's
a little strange. You know, so you know, this get ... this course has never been
taught to non-monks so it wasn't a problem, but so all we can do is is do the
structure. So we're gonna use a short text by Je Tsongkapa, which some people
are working on translating right now, and a commentary by Ngulchu Dharma
Bhadra who is in our tantric lineage, very, you know, we had him ... a little bit of
text with him, very great, wonderful explanation of the vinaya, really beautiful.
So we're gonna do that. We'll start around mid July.[student: Is it gonna cover ...
you said it covered vowed morality ... only monks and nuns vowed morality
or]There's eight kinds and three of them are for the lay people, so that I can
cover in detail and I will cover in detail. So the lay peoples lifetime vows and one-
day vows we'll cover in detail. And then we'll cover the monks and nuns vows
and the novice vows and the semi-novice vows in in not detail, but as as much
detail as I'm allowed to to teach you. But I think it'll be nice 'cause I think you'll be
really the first Americans who really, aside from the ordained people, who who
really understand what the vows are and how they're structured and and what
they mean and what they don't mean and things like that. So I think it'll be nice
for you. Then I imagine that after that I'd like to do the {b:Bodhisatvacharya
Avatara} by Shantideva which we haven't started and we must do, you know ...
sooner or later we have to do it, so we might as well [laughs] do it in the in the
late fall or early winter. And I I imagine we would use a text by Gyaltsab Je
which Rinpoche taught for ten or twelve years and it's never been translated, but
it's a it's it's a incredible commentary to the {b: Bodhisatvacharya}, you know,
and {b: Guide to the Bodhisattva's way of life} ... that's what I'd like to doif we
don't die first. Okay. [laughter][student: Michael, can I just ask one question?]Go
ahead.[student: The fundraising?]Go ahead.[student: Okay. There's gonna be a
fundraising dinner]{cut}This is the second principle of death meditation is what?
What is the second principle?[students: [unclear] Time of death ... die]You don't
know when you're gonna ... the time of death is not certain and each principle
has three backup reasonings behind it ... you know, three three facts behind it
that that show why it's true. So I'll give you ... that's why I'm calling this number
four, because they they call them the nine reasons ... you had the first three
already[student: What're you calling number four?]I'm gonna give you the three
reasons why this is true ... about the ... what the ... structure of this is that there's
three reasons for the first principle of death, there's three reasons for the second
principal of death and there's three reasons for the third principle of death, and
those are called the nine reasons. [student: So how does four come into that?]We
had the first three last week, and now we got ... we're gonna today we're gonna
get four, five, six under this category and then there's gonna be seven, eight,
nine under the third principle. I I think it's good because when you actually
meditate on this you have to go through the nine reasons. You have to give ...
they call it {bel gom}. {Bel gom} means "you get so fluent in it that you ah
number five, ah number eight, ah two, six, you know, you can [laughter] you
can ... you're supposed to get so good in your meditation that you can just float
between them at will, you know, and know exactly what you're doing. If you
don't get like that you probably haven't done the [unclear]. Say {dzamling}
[repeat] {tse} [repeat] {ma nge} [repeat].{Dzamling} [repeat] {tse} [repeat] {ma
nge} {repeat.} {Dzamling} means {dzam bu ling} I think you know now, right?
[student:        Huh uh}{Dzam bu}?       Did we talk about {dzam bu}?[students:
Yeah.]Okay. So we're living on {Dzam bu}, you can say this planet, this world,
okay, the world that we know is {dzam ling}, okay. You can say planet earth for
now, okay. {Tse} means "life" - lifespan, lifetime. {Ma nge} is the same {ma nge}
up here, which means what?[student: Uncertainty]It's uncertain. It's not fixed.
That has a couple of meanings in Buddhism. There are realms, there are certain
locations, where life is fixed, where lifespan is fixed. There are certain realms
where beings are living where they always live to a certain length. No matter
what. Their karma ... the karma to get there is the same karma to see yourself
living for five hundred years for example. It's always like that. But we're not
living in that [laughs] kind of realm. In the realm that we live in, {Dzam ling}
which you don't have to picture it as a little round continent, you know, half way
away from Mt. Meru or whatever, you don't have to think about that. In the
realm that you and I know people do not have fixed life spans. It's just..it's kind
of elementary. [laughs] Okay. Ask Ron Brown, okay [laughter] {Tse ma nge}
lifespan is not fixed. We don't know how long you're gonna live. They say in two
respects ... do you remember this thing? I mean in two respects, one is the
nature of our karma is to fluctuate, and so the lifespans of beings on our planet
fluctuate ... throughout history it will fluctuate ... it will always fluctuate. People, I
mean, just the the normal, the average length of life will fluctuate. If there's an
atomic war or something, the average length of life for the next few thousand
years will be much shorter than it is now just because of the poison that's
spreading on the planet. And and that's predicted ... I mean that's expected. And
then it will drop. It won't be because of the poisonous fallout. The poisonous
fallout is the direct ... is an expression of your karma from living in a world
where people are corrupt and degenerated, so it could have been that, it could
have been something else. It it will be something. Something will come to
express that. And and that's not like ... that's just a fact of karma. If you live in a
world where most people's ethical standard is dropping, then the lifespan on that
planet will drop. And it, I don't care what it is, it could be a virus, it could be
nuclear fallout, it could be something else that we don't know about yet, but
something will come to express the karma ... to act out the karma that that is
created by a whole planet of people's ethical standards dropping. Which they are.
So it'll ... something will come. And and and lifespans will change again. Lifespans
will get shorter and we'll be we'll be here. We'll be one of the people on the
planet. And then Pabongka Rinpoche and and Je Tsongkapa point out another
way is the ... this is in a in a global ... I don't know what you're gonna call it ... a
kalpic level, right, okay, but on a on a day to day level it's random. Lifespan is
random, meaning, meaning there's no proper order to people dying, you know.
It should be that the people who get born first die first. And that the people who
are born later die later. But on this part ... in this particular realm that we're in it's
random, and it's senseless, you know, it's, you know, people's kids die before
they die, and people die out of the womb, people die in the womb, people die
getting born, you know, I mean, other people that, you know, sometimes very
bad people live a long time. There's there's no predicting what your past karma
is dictating. You can be in this life a very good person, and it doesn't mean that
you're gonna live longer in this life. This life is is mostly projected by forces that
happened a long time ago, you know. There's this thing in the {b: Bible} of why
the wicked prosper [laughs] you know, I mean that explains it, but it's kind of
hard if you're not a Buddhist to explain why really nasty people live these long
happy lives and and you know, virtuous people die young and then the opposite
happens and they die at the same time and ... there's no sense. It seems to be
completely random. So there's no certainty ... you can't take any comfort in the
fact that you are only so many years old 'cause it's random. There's no predicting
that you won't go before someone whose much older than you. When I came to
the temple in New Jersey we had about fifteen monks there, and one was Geshe
Kamden from ... he got TB in the refugee camp in India, he had one monk and
he was wheezing and couldn't walk for ... ever since I knew him, could barely
talk and all these other monks were all healthy, and chubby and happy and and
fourteen of them died, and you know which ones [laughs], you know. He was
the last one. He survived them all. And then he died, so, you know. You can't
tell. You just don't know. One died in a chair eating a roll and the roll was up to
here and he died and he just died [unclear]. I had to take him to the hospital. I
remember doing that. You know, you don't know. You you can't say [unclear].
So that's the first reason. Say {chi kyen} [repeat] {mang} [repeat] {sun kyen}
[repeat] {nyung} [repeat]. {Chi kyen} [repeat] {mang} [repeat] {sun kyen}
[repeat] {nyung} [repeat]. {Chi kyen} means "things that can kill you". Okay.
Things that can kill you. {Mang} means "there's a lot", okay [laughs]. {Sun kyen}
means "things that can keep you alive". And {nyung} means what?[students:
Little. Few.] Not many. [laughter] All right. Tsongkapa divides the {chi kyens},
the things that can kill you into two. The living ones are like in in Tsongkapa's
day more than now, wild animals, fire [unclear] and other humans [laughs]
okay. The inanimate ones he divides into the ones that are outside of you like a
car, like a car hitting you, and the ones that are inside of you which ultimately
refers to ... what's the what are your whole physical body resting on, it's it's it's
the four? The four elements. What are the four elements?[students: fire] Sa
[students:       earth]Chu [students:      [unclear] Mei [student: [unclear] Lung.
Sometimes say five say five, sometimes they say six, but these are the main ones,
and again I repeat, and it's something you have to study ... it's very interesting ...
it's in the first two chapters of the {b: Abhidharma} but earth is a name given to a
certain kind of energy because of it's resemblance to the, to earth. They don't
think there's little bits of dirt in your body, okay? It means an energy that keeps
things ... I don't know what you want to call it, but I can describe it to you.
[student: Solid. Solid]You can say it keeps things ... solidity itself.[student:
Right]It's solidity itself, meaning if the object has this energy in it, it stays in one
piece and when it loses it, it falls apart. As long as it has this energy it in, it can
stay up, for example, when this energy goes away, the thing just dissolves. Your
body loses this energy in a gross way when it starts to rot in the in the coffin,
you know, so you could say solidity itself. And then water is fluidity. And
wetness. Those two ... they actually have two two functions. This is ... earth has
the function of hardness and solidity. They each have two. Fire is the {sa chi se
pa}, heat and heat and burningness ... or something like that, okay, and wind has
the quality of dissipation, you could say. But what it means is, these really are at
work in your body, and they are they are, what do you call it? They're at in
conflict with each other all the time. They're in constant conflict with each other.
They're always fighting each other. Like earth, solidity is fighting with
dissipation. Wetness is fighting with heat, and they're al ... they're always
struggling against each other. I translated to the Dalai Lama's doctor for a while
and and he he said health is an accident. He says the medical tantras of ancient
India describe health, which is the balance of these four, as an accidental
condition, and that the normal state of a human being is when these four are out
of whack, when these four are out of balance that's the normal condition of
human beings. And then you're always sick with something, you know, almost
every human being ... he gave a lecture to fifty people in Nancy Keran's loft in
nineteen eighty three, eighty two? Something like that, and there were fifty or
sixty people there, and he said, "anyone who's not well," you know, "come see
me tomorrow". So they looked like a normal group of people like you guys, you
know, the next day fifty people are line up [laughs] [laughter] outside, I mean
everybody has something. These four are are struggling against each every ...
each other in everybody's body and for anyone to have them all in perfect
unison, which is really just equal amount fight each other, that's called health,
and that's extremely rare. It's unnatural. And then ... so so Tsongkapa says if you
want to talk about death, death being uncertain, the time being uncertain, and
you you should really look into your own body ... you own body is going to kill
you, sooner or later your own body will kill you, you know. Your body has four
elements, four basic energies which are struggling against each other, and and
one of them will overcome another one and that'll kill you, you know, you'll get
eq ... an an imbalance in each proportion that leads to certain diseases, you
know, and and it will come. Sooner or later it has to come. It's it's not that they
think that there's ... it's not something that scientists didn't identify, it's just the
basic physical ... it's the physics inside the body, and and certain energies are
working against other energies and sooner or later you'll have ... you have to
die, one of them will destroy the rest. One of them will get so out of balance that
the others shut down and they kill you. It kills you. So if you live long enough,
your own body will kill you. You know, otherwise you'll get hit by a truck or
something like that [laughs] or killed by somebody else, but more likely your
own body will kill you. That's in the wheel of life. Who who is that? That's that
monster holding the wheel, that is the that is the elements in your own body. It
represents your your own physical body which is going to kill you sooner or
later.[student: Is that, is that the Lord of Death in general represents?]Yeah, in
general, that's not some guy who's ... somebod ... there is a guy when you get to
hell who's standing there, you know, but that's a different thing. The it's the fact
of the ... it's basically the fact that you're you're going to kill yourself somehow.
You you will kill yourself. Your, yourself will kill yourself. It's very un ... op ...
unoptimistic. Okay. The other thing that Tsongkapa points out is that you
remember the kampa ... what do you call those things, I don't know,[students:
waves, cycles] Kalpa cycles or waves. We are in the end of a a swing. We are
approaching the nadir, nadir?[student: Nedir] Is that the lowest point?[students:
yes] Okay. We are approaching that which means that because of our own
tendencies of non-virtue, all the objects in our world become less supportive of
life, meaning food becomes less nutritious, you know, and [laughs] you can see
it ... I guess that's junk food, I don't know. But it's, it means that ... and you can
see it in India. There's a weird thing in India, no matter how much you eat you,
you can't ... I think India has that karma. [student: Un huh] You know, you can
eat all day in India and just somehow it doesn't make you healthy. It's weird. You
know, like when we go to the monastery they serve us huge meals and you still
get sick after three days, you know. There's something about the food just
doesn't have the energy there that it has here and that's no mistake. And there's
a reason for everything. And the reason is the karma of the beings who are
living there. Yeah?[student: We just ... it's too much of a digression, but another
small example is someone's mother used to live like in the mountains back
[unclear] all her own food and herself and she came here and she ate grocery
store food ... violently ill, just from the food because we, you know, it's it's
deteriorated and we haven't noticed it because we're acclimitized, some outside}
Yeah, okay, this food isn't ... food isn't what it used to be. It doesn't give you the
nutrition that it used to, and the same thing with vitamins and medicines and
things like that. It's it's weird, you go ... in ... there's a kid in our monastery, he
got a cut on his leg and they shoot it up with penecillin and the guy ... it still
swelled up and he dies in two days. This is something about ... it's the karma of
the medicines themselves. If if they if they depended on some inherent quality, if
they were self existent, they would cure everybody in the world the same. But
somehow, and it really is true, you can make them the same as in Europe, they
just don't work as well. There's something about the karma of that country and
and we are collectively sharing the kind of karma where all the medical
treatments ... I mean we call it ... we say ... what do they call it? That be ... the
immune systems become [unclear] ... the viruses are becoming immune to our
medicines. That's the expression of the fact that our karma is getting lousier. You
know, I mean it could have been anything, and so, I mean it true that the
medicines are are losing their the..that the viruses are becoming immune to the
medicines. But why? I mean the Buddhist doesn't say "it's not true" ... it is true,
but why? Why it happened now and why it didn't happen thirty years ago. Why
is it happening now. And then they say, oh because AIDS appeared and it messes
up the viruses and they get more resistable, but why? You know. I mean, it's an
expression of our karma. Our karma is getting more degenerate and medicines
are working less. In fact ... in general on a whole.[student: Why [unclear] that
our lifestyles ... ] Very very insignificant jog. Generally we're ... I mean, we're
talking to the kids five thousand years ago ... it's anything. You know, we we're
talking ... these these ... I I kind of hate these waves, because these waves should
really be a couple miles high or something [laughter] [laughs] you know, okay.
We're on the very insig ... human history as we know it, human civilization, is an
insignificant, you know, micrometer on that on that wave. And there can be
jogs. He said ... well, then he says there's another thing called ... nope, it's just
more to support number five. And the whole thing goes like this. Say {sun kyen}
[repeat] {chi kyen du} [repeat] {gyur} [repeat]. {Sun kyen} [repeat] {chi kyen du}
[repeat] {gyur} [repeat] That means that anything that's in this category can
become this category. Which means what? Anything that can keep you alive ...
[students: Can kill you] Can kill you and will kill you. And I I ... we once had an
exercise in class that said name me anything that keeps you alive that can't kill
you, you know, I mean the things that you depend on for your, to keep you
alive, which are not very many. Transportation, food, you know, money, a
house, whatever but but you take like a house, you know, you you seek shelter
in a house so you don't get cold and freeze but houses kill people, they fall on
people, they find radon in them, you know, things like that. Houses kill people.
You get into a car in order to further your goal, you know, you get into a plane
to get somewhere so that you can live more happy and longer and then it it
crashes and you get killed so the thing that was supposed to help you live longer
kills you. And and food, people people abuse food and then it kills them, you
know. And what was supposed to keep you alive ends up killing you, and then
even if it's like these people who are very very careful about food and only eat
what they're supposed to eat, which I don't know many like that [laughter] and
I'm not one either, something goes wrong and it ends up killing you, you know.
We had this very very ... I don't know ... do you know Losang Gyatso in New
Jersey, this tall blond, he's like sixty five, he looks ... he's got big muscles but he's
really trim and healthy and he never eats anything he's not supposed to eat and
he's extraordinary, and very virtuous and ... but you know, some piece of lettuce
catches in his intestine and he he almost died like a year ago, they took him to
the hospital, they cut him open, he almost ... he came very close to dying, and
then it happened again last week, and he just got out of the hospital. So it doe ...
you know, a a nice little piece of healthy food can kill you too [laughs] you
know. [laughter] You know, organically grown [laughter], you know, lettuce ...
really, this guy's diet's very fastidious and healthy.[student:               Is he the
construction worker?] He he does ... he's a janitor, basically. He works outside.
He's sixty something and he he he carries these big logs and you know, he's
very, he's incredible and he he only eats good things.and they it killed him ...
almost killed him, very close. The doctor told me if we we hadn't taken him in
that night he'd be dead. So it ... you can't tell, you don't know, anything that's
supposed to keep you alive [laughs] you can't trust that anyway. Okay. That's
the nature of our of our life. The last thing Je Tsongkapa says about this point is
that, and you can read it in the reading, he says "what do you think life is for?" Or
"where do you think life is headed?" You know, what do you think life is
directed at?, you know.[student: Very Tibetan] In death ... no it is ... the only way
it can end up is dying, you know, I mean, he says that ... there's some expression
in English ... I forget it ... born to die, you know. He says that. He gets into that.
He says, you know, wha'do you think, I mean the the ultimate goal of living is
dying, you know. The the end of all life is death. So, inherent in all things that
keep you alive is death. Inherent in life itself is death. The end of all life is death.
And he he gets into that and gives it beautiful, he ... and quotes a lot of ancient
scriptures, very beautiful.[student: How do you trans ... what is {du gyur}?] {Chi
kyen du gyur} means "turn into" All the things that keep you alive turn into
things that could kill you. They always they always flipflop. They were supposed
to keep you alive and then they end up killing you. Like working. [laughter]
[laughs] Speaking from personal [laughter]. Say {lu} [repeat] {shintu} [repeat]
{nyam chung} [repeat] {Lu} [repeat] {shintu} [repeat] {nyam chung} [repeat].
Okay. {Lu} means, what?[students: Body] The body. {Shintu}[student: A lot] It
even sounds like what it is ... yeah. Very much. {Shin tu}[students: What? What
is it?]Extremely. {Shintu} means "extremely", and in ... when they speak
colloquial Tibetan, they {Shin tu} [laughs] {Shin tu [unclear]] ... he's a really bad
guy [laughter]. {Shin tu} {Nyam chung} means "fragile", is there another word
like that? {Nyam chung} can also mean "shy", but here it means "like a bubble" ...
I don't know how you'd say that.[student: Delicate?] Delicate's a good word.
Delicate's a good word. [student: [unclear]] It's not ... it's more like delicate, it's
more like extremely delicate. {Shintu nyam chung} And Je Tsongkapa talks
about a a thorn, you know, how how you know if you just get a small infection
from a little prick on the arm of something that's not clean or something that it
can end up killing you. You know, we tend to think of the body as this wonder ...
I mean we're brainwashed by, you know, I don't know who, into thinking that
the body is this wonderful mechanism and it's all working in perfect harmony
and and you know ... there's this idea of the healthy vollyball player on the
beach, you know [laughter] radiant [laughs] you know, nice skin and all ...
everything's healthy and somehow very strong and firm and, and, but actually
the body is like a bubble, and and all it takes to kill it is is the slightest thing, you
know, it doesn't matter how big and healthy you are, and how ... you know,
how strong you look and how ... in the, you know, in the glow of of their
twenties, you know, people just get ... they just die like that, you know. It
doesn't help. And the difference between the sickest person in this planet and the
healthiest person is not much, you know, all it takes is that and you're both dead,
you know, so he ... Je Tsongkapa talks a lot about about that and then he says, I
mean, compare your body to the planet, you know, I mean we had ... we kinda
got a feeling for it when we talked about the end of the planet and he says, you
know, I mean we ... there was the seventh sun rose ... was it sixth or[students:
Seven] I I six impresses me [laughs]. Six impresses me. What happens in number
six?[student: The continent] There's a poof. [laughter] and and Mt. Meru goes up
in smoke with the rest of the major features of the whole planet, you know, I
mean you can think of North America just go "poof", you know, just a poof and
it's gone, you know. And he ... and Nagarjuna is the one who who points that
out, you know, he said, I mean if the planet can be, what do they call it?[student:
Vaporized] vaporized in a few minutes by anything, then what ... so big deal, a
human body ... what do you think you are? [laughter] you know. It's really
fragile. It's it's not ... you think of it as air coming through two holes, through
these two holes, and by some miracle ... and Nagarjuna is is really, he's obcessed
by this idea that it's a miracle that out of these two small holes they haven't got
blocked yet for forty years, you know, that the air has passed through these two
tiny, you know, half inch holes and continues to pass back and forth, is it's it's a
miracle. You know, I mean, how many cars are left from forty years ago?
[laughter]. No really [laughs] I mean, how many 19 ... I'm 52, okay, how many
1952 cars are out on the street? I mean, he says it's a miracle. The..it's some kind
of karmic miracle that you're still alive and that the air is still moving through
these two little holes. And if it stops for a minute, two minutes, three minutes,
that's it, you're dead. If something, energy or any kind of blockage, if anything
can stop that air for three or four minutes you're dead. That's all. If it stops
passing through these tiny little holes, then you're called dead, you know,
that's ... and it's, it's a miracle that it happened yet. It will, it must happen, you
know, he's very adamant, and Nagarjuna's he gets into this long thing in in in a
book called {b: Shin te}. He says it's a miracle that you still wake up in the
morning. We're still breathing. [laughter][student: What do you call number six?]
Yeah.[student: What do you what do you call number six] Delicacy ... extreme
delicacy of the body, I guess, fragility. Extreme. What's the third principle?
[students all together: The only thing that can help you is the Dharma] I'll I'll do
it in English. Yeah. When you do die ... this should be like maybe "c" I
guess[student: Oh, "c"?] otherwise you're gonna get confused. Yeah, we have
reasons seven, eight, and nine ... he goes through a list of things that don't help,
okay. And there's this image in the in the scriptures of the family standing
around the beloved father and actually physically grasping onto his arms and
legs and begging him not to go and he goes, there's no choice, he can't stay and
you you gotta I think, get this image in your mind of passing to a place where ...
because the chemicals in the body are deteriorating ... because the synapses are
stopping, the electricity of the body is stopping and because the physical
components of the brain are sto ... are shutting down, they call it the domino
effect ... it's the scriptures, it's called, you know, {sa} breaks down, it affects {chu}.
{Chu} breaks down it affects {mei}. {Mei} breaks down it affects {lung}. They all
start to ... each ... the breakdown of each one affects the ea..the next one and so
they start to collapse sequentially, and and he, the power of those four elements
in your body starts to collapse. What it means in western terms is that your brain
is shutting down. And the brain is not the mind but the brain ... but the mind
rests on the brain, so as the brain is thrown into some really incredible chaos as
the as as everything starts to short circuit then the mind, which is resting on the
brain, starts to reflect that chaos. What it means is, you it it's it's you start to
hallucinate, you go into some deep hallucinations because the the brain is
breaking down, the mind which rests on the brain but is not the brain, also gets
it ... thrown into some chaos and you start to have these classic ... there's a classic
sequence of hallucinations and and then you you you can't, you're not aware of
anything. What I'm trying to say is that every living being in this world that we
know as they die is reduced to zero as they die. The the they're back down to
zero. You know, it doesn't matter if you were Einstein or a grasshopper, by that
point your your mind levels off exactly the same. You know, you're going
through the same hallucinations, there's no difference between those two
beings ... essentially, I mean if you're some great great great great yogi, which
we're not and which we probably won't be, it's different. But for normal people,
you're basically reduced to zero. Your mind is in in ... your brain is chaotic and
your mind is chaotic and that chaos is the same among all sentient beings. So
you're basically reduced back to zero. And and and then nothing can help you at
point. He sai ... he starts out with friends and relatives, I mean, it doesn't matter
who you know. You can't recognize anybody anyway, you know, you've
already gone past the point where you you can't think of and you can't recall
clearly any person in your life. Nobody who was your loved one, the one that
you spent you life with, anything. There comes a point in that breakdown of the
mind where you can't physically see them anymore and you can't hear them
anymore and then your senses go first, and then your memory is starting to get
dim and then that starts to get reduced, and and then you can't remember
anybody either, so what's the good of ... I mean of just who you knew, you
know, it doesn't matter what kind of contacts you had or any loved ones that
you knew, it's it's all gone and they're gone in ... forever, I mean in a sense,
they're ... you might meet them again karmically a thousand years later or
something, but basically you came together and you got separated and there's
nothing they can do for you. There there's nothing ... they can't help you.
There's ... you're reduced to some kind of primitive mind state and you're gonna
be there for a while and when you come out of it in the bardo you you won't
recognize any of those things anymore, so it's it's over, you know, you can't, it
can't help you. Yeah.[student: Do all sentient beings of different realms, of
animals and pleasure beings have the same characteristic hallucinations, is it
different] Basically. Basically. I mean formless realm may be different. They
don't ... I don't remember them saying much about it to tell you the truth. This is
a no brainer. I mean, if you [laughs] if you if your friends your relatives ... I
mean if nothing ... there's obviously no physical object which can assist you at
that time. It can't reach you. It can't touch you. Your physical senses shut down
quite early in the process of death. They shut down in in the very early on. It
takes much longer for the mind to shut down but the physical senses are very
crude and very gross and they shut down very fast. So, there's no way, I mean, it
doesn't matter how many zeros on your bank account if you can't physically
perceive them anymore, you know. You don't have eyes, ears, nose, tongue or
or sensation anymore. So you are forever cut off from those things. It doesn't
doesn't matter what they were. It doesn't matter if your house was the sidewalk
or if your house was was the White House because you don't physically have
any more means by which to make contact with those things. 'cause your your
eyes and your ears and your nose are shut down so it it doesn't matter what
they were, beca ... you you're again you're used to zero, you're ... what do you
call it, financially you're [laughs] reduced to zero, you know. I mean, totally.
[student: You're broke.] Yeah. [laughs] and everyone's the same. You're equally
broke at that moment, I mean, you all have absolutely ... it's not only that you
don't own anything it's that even if you did own it you couldn't see it or hear it or
taste it or ... you couldn't make any physical contact with it. So it doesn't matter
what you used to own. You can't make any contact with it. It might as well be on
Mars because you can't contact it any more. It doesn't ... it cannot effect you
anymore. It can't do anything to you anymore. And you can't you can't use it
anymore. What's your most intimate material possession?[students: Your body}
[laughs] Okay. I see it like a big shrinking process, you know. In the Madyamika
Svatantrika school's there's this huge debate about who is you. Who is the you,
you know, and they decide it's your mental consciousness ... it's your six
consciousnesses, it's your awareness of your thoughts. They said "that must be
you," because everything else is just an object for you. So what it means in this
sense, if it was your possession and then life shrinks in more and then you lose
what?[students: Your mind. Your body] [laughs] You lose your body, okay. And
then you're not your ... you don't have a body anymore either, I mean, you're
shrunk down to your mind basically. You're you have shrunk down to a mind,
you know, there is no more bod ... I mean, if you think about it coming in from
the outside, first you lose your loved ones, then you lose your things, then you
lose your own body and the only thing left is your mind, and and that's the point
at where western civilization makes the great mistake of thinking that because
the body stops moving the mind must have stopped. It's an assumption and it's a
wrong assumption. There's no proof for it. At all. It's only a a wild assumption.
That because the physical body can't run anymore due to it's own problems that
the mind, which is totally different stuff, must have shut down too. The mind
must be dying also. It's a it's a gross mistaken assumption and it's not true
[laughs]. Yeah.[student:         Are there classic responses for someone who
[unclear]Yeah, there's a ... we we studied it. We had a whole class. Takes about
six weeks to cover the whole thing [laughs] Second chapter, Dharmakirti's {b:
Pramana Varttika}. We debate [unclear] [laughs] Twice, I think. So the body ...
you just think of yourself as shrinking down to to a mind, okay, and and and
that's all that's left. And the imprints in the mind ... what's left in the mind. What
are the imprints left in the mind, and here's where you get into the wheel of life
{ge pa se pa gu pa lem pa}, it's two ... it's link number eight and link number nine.
These are the thoughts you have as you die, and they do a thing called {tse
depa}. {Tse depa} means "to make a selection". It's like that lady sticks her hand in
the lottery thing and and pulls out something and and your mind at that point at
a very specific point as you die makes a {tse depa}. It selects a karma and that
karma becomes activated like an atomic bomb, you know, like {chu pa si pa, chu
pa si pa} is link number ten. Somewhere between link number eight and nine
and ten your mind activates one of the karmas, you know, you ... the ... and that
that determines a lot of what you're going to be next. That that pretty much
determines what's going to happen to you next. And that selection process which
doesn't take more than a few seconds is made is based on your own lifetime of
behavior, you know. If your behavior was virtuous during your whole lifetime,
basically the selection will most likely be virtuous. And you'll and you'll have a ...
the karma that that's thrown ahead will be good. And if you've led a fifty-fifty
life you've got a [laughs] fifty-fifty selection problem. [laughs] And if you've led
basically a lousy life then the selection will be bad. So so that's why {b:
Abhidharma} can help you. At ... you're talking about a few minutes of thinking
as you die, something is activated by your by your character that's been formed
throughout your whole life and if it's Dharma then you'll you'll have a good
selection and if it's not Dharma, you won't. And that's that's why only Dharma
can help you. Your mind is down to a very primitive level, you are not thinking
clearly, it's instinctual, you know, if you've led a virtuous life, the virtuous
instincts take over and if you've led a non-virtuous life, the non-virtuous instincts
prevail. And whatever prevails throws you ahead ... at that moment. Yeah.
[student: Does this process of picking of this karma happens after this separation
of mind of probably consciousness of mind from the body or at the time would
they still have some link?] They don't say but I think since, I I believe the bardo
would happen after that, so it's happening before the bardo, and I think the
bardo begins with the separation of your mind in your body, but your body's
alr ... already ... basically shut down.[student: So actually the, yes, but the
consciousness is still in the body.}Related to the body? Yeah.[student: In the
moment that this selection] I I I think so. I mean, I've never seen it detailed like
that. Yeah, you could say it's at the moment of ... it's at the final moment of
death. At the mom ... at the as the mind leaves the bardo. But that gets into ...
you have to study something higher than ... there's a ... that's a secret teaching.
[student: Now, when you talk about virtue and contact, does that include
wisdom?}Yeah, they're they're very little, I mean it includes wisdom in the sense
that if you've seen emptiness for example[student: That's what I'm talking
about] you can not select a bad karma. It's impossible. It's totally impossible.
[student: But to be virtuous with [unclear] some sort of grasp to a Dharma
contact, strong strong grasp.] Yeah. Well that ... an intellectual understanding of
emptiness assures that you can not select a bad seed.[student: Why is that?] And
and a direct understanding of emptiness assures that that you will only have
incredibly cool seeds [laughter] and it's a comfort. I mean, when it happens to
you as you see emptiness directly, you perceive this fact. You know this fact. You
will never again take anything less then a Dharmically perfect circumstances.
You'll be born in a country that's all Dharma, you will only have friends who are
Dharmic, you'll have incredibly great lamas from early in your life, and you'll see
emptiness again soon and and you won't have more than six or seven more lives
like that and then you're out. Then you're a Buddha. And you'll see that. And you
know that. And it's some kind of incredible feeling that you know, and there's
no ... there's, you can't, it's just some kind of ... wha ... I don't know, it's like a
guarantee, and you can just look ahead and say "oh, that's gonna be
nice" [laughs], that's cool, you know. But even an intellectual understanding
prevents prevents a lower birth, you can not select a lower birth after that. After
the certain stage in the second of the five paths you can not take a lower birth.
Why? [laughs] Ignorance has a ... it's not that you don't collect the karma, it's
that they can't be activated properly if you have a certain amount of wisdom.
You have the karma, you have the {bak chak}, but they can't be activated. The
difference between link number 2 in the wheel of life ... if you came Friday night
you'd know all this [laughter] and link number ten is the ... I always tell people
you gotta go see Broken Arrow, you know, with John Travolta and they gave
me a kickback actually, no ... [laughter] it's a cool movie, it's a very gory, exciting
movie about atomic bombs and they steal two atomic bombs and they keep
activating them and unactivating them, you know, once they get activated you
can't unactivate them, but they figure out how to activate them. There's this
feeling that once it's activated you're in trouble, you know. There's, I mean
there's bombs, atomic bombs laying around the whole movie but some of them
get activated and then people have to run, you know [laughter] [laughs] there's
nothing else to do, and it's exactly the same thing. The difference between link
number two which is called {du che gu pa}, samsara, and link number ten which
is called {chu pa si pa}, is activation, the question of activation. Does the karma
[unclear] activated or not? And that's the whole difference. Karma number two
is immature karma. Karma number ten is activated and it's gotta blow up. It's
like that counter's counting down like in the movie ... it's just like that. It's been
activated and nothing's gonna turn it off. If you go as far as activating it, you've
screwed up big time, you know, bad not activating it ... has to do with with you
your understanding of emptiness. Yeah[student: So if you're saying if you have
an intellectual understanding of emptiness but you break your {tantric} vows,
[unclear]I don't think ... they they say that you you don't break certain things
after that. [student: Could could time actually slow down]There are certain
behaviors that you ... you you may still do bad deeds but they never get
activated and then basically, I mean, there's a basic things that you wouldn't do
those things. In their full form ... if you studied the Bodhisattva vows you know
how much the four attitudes play a part, you know, if you never knowingly,
purposely, gladly, you know, break a vow, I mean, you might mess up and then
feel bad or something like that, but you'll never again, you know, happily,
knowingly, consciously, purposely, break a vow, which is all necessary for
example to break a root a root bodhisattva vow. You just can't do it anymore
'cause you saw the truth, you know. We'll take a break and we'll get we have a
little bit left, very short. Death meditation has it has, you know, Tibetans love the
three this and the four this, you know this by now. The three principles you've
already had. There's nine reasons which you've already had ... three reasons for
each principle. And then the the bottom line is that you're supposed to make
three resolutions. The first resolution is in reaction to the first principle, which
was what? It's that's it's certain that you're gonna[students together: [unclear]
death.] Ha ha ha ha. I think for us very practically, study studying emptiness,
and keeping your bodhisattva vows, those are the ... I mean you've got all that
information ... people who are in their their bodhisattva vows class, you you
know that. [unclear] study ... studying empty ... it's basically studying Lam Rim.
Keep keep all your vows. I'm thinking, study and and keeping your vows and
then trying to reach bodhicitta, trying to reach that compassion [unclear], I'd say
those things ... and if I were going to say very briefly, [unclear], renunciation,
bodhicitta and understanding of emptiness. Understand suffering, understand
compassion and study emptiness. I mean those ... if you have to study three
things, those are the three. Understand suffering. Study compassion and and
learn to see emptiness. I mean it ... that's the whole thing. Everything else goes ...
everything else fits into those three. Yeah.[student: I don't hear you mention the
five precepts. Is that}That comes[student: you just assume that, or is that after
the bodhisattva vows?] When I say bodhisattva vows they actually you you
have to take some kind of precepts before you can have bodhisattva vows. I'm
just considering them part of the bodhisattva vows. Or you either have to take
some kind of layman's vows[student: Right. Well that that's what I thought, this
is why I wondered ... you just sort of assumed the five] Or ... or you have to be ...
you have to know and keep the ten virtues. If you even if you don't take vows.
So I mean there's a there's ... what I'm trying to say is there's a there's a place
there for people who have never taken any vows. That's just practicing ... that's
just avoiding the ten non virtues. So that's a basis foundation and then based on
that you can take bodhisattva vows. You have to have that before you can take
bodhisattva vows. Yeah.[student: Why would you study compassion rather
than practice it?] Oh I mean study in the sense of learn to develop it.[student:
Okay] I mean study in the old sense of study to be, you know. What was the
second principle?[student: The time of death is uncertain]Yeah. I think the key
here is quit worldly work, you know, people want to know what's "quit worldly
work". And there were students in New Jersey twenty five years ago when I was
there who who immediately went out into the forest in Howell and tried to live
there and they came back after three days all cold [laughs] [laughter] and hungry
and and you know, obviously it doesn't work. There's other people who went to
India and stayed there, you know, and got old there and be ... came back to
America, you can, can't live there and, you know, there's no dentist there and
stuff like that and, you know, I mean it didn't work. I think all those people came
back that I know of. Very few ever stayed there. What I mean is ... you have ...
quitting worldly work doesn't mean quitting your job, all ... it's a very delicate
balance, you know. You have to have a living that doesn't hurt other people and
and and ultimately in the highest levels of Buddhism, which were designed for
Indian kings, who were very busy, you you can be at work and ... but the point
is that you have to be practicing ... work has to become practice. So pick a job
that will remind you of your practice. And and that's about the only criteria I can
think of for a job. I mean, if you have a problem with anger then work
someplace like ... well go work at the angry [unclear] and I'm not and I'm not
[laughter] kidding. I'm not kidding at all. Let your ... let the work that you do be
something that you consciously decided upon to remind you of your own faults
or something, you know, you know, if you have a problem with vanity then go
work as a clothier or something, you know what I mean, or something like that,
but but let your work be something that relates to your spiritual life. And let it
only be that and choose it on that basis, because you'll never forget why you're
there, you know. People will ask you, "why the hell are you a cook. You could
have been a a physics major", you know, you know you say, "well, I had a
problem of where I didn't want to help other people", you know, "and I chose
this for humility's sake", or something like that. Let your work be that. Seriously.
It's very hard but it's very satisfying and ... because work is a joke, I mean the ...
otherwise that you're collecting money, that's a that's by by definition a lost
cause, you know, you can't keep it, and it's just gonna kill you. You're just gonna
pass the money on to someone else, so if you're working just for money it's
meaningless. Let it ... choose something that will promote your Dharma practice.
Atisha had many students. He only took one to Tibet with him. He took the
most obnoxious student he had. And quite consciously so that ... and he be ... he
made that student his close disciple, his closest disciple, because he wanted to
constantly be tested, you know, and it's ... I mean ... let your work be symbolic.
Do something which has a symbolic meaning for you, I mean, and make it into
practice. On the other hand, because any other reason for working is, I mean,
doesn't mean anything. Working is meaningless. Make it meaningful.And make
an honest living, don't hurt other people, and make it something that reminds
you of your spiritual life. And then and don't get caught up in it, you know. Keep
this, keep this distance from it like a snake. I've seen so many Dharma students
say "I'm just gonna go work for three years and then I'll have enough money to
really practice" and they separated their work from their practice in the first
place, and then they never came back to what they thought was practice
anyway. And they're still working out there, you know ... I know where they
are ... one's at Pennsylvania University, you know, and still saying, you know,
"next year for sure", you know, and it never ... it won't happen. Don't fall into
that, but but it's your work can become your practice, and it must be. Ultimately
in the highest teachings of Buddhism{cut}It's perfectly consistent to be working
any kind of job from a janitor to a president of Warner Communications and
and be a totally perfect practitioner. There's no problem with that. And then in
practical terms I think you must have a job that doesn't leave you exhausted at
the end of the day, and that leaves you time for your long retreats and things
like that. You must have that time, you know, I I think any other job is
dangerous.[student: That really narrows it down. [laughter]] I know. Your
choice. See that's your choice. What's your choice?[student: What do you mean?}
What's the choice? You don't have any choice. What's the option? There's no
option ... there really is no option. [student: Well that that's what I'm saying.
There's no options for work.] No, there are. [laughter][student: That's that's
what I'm saying [unclear]] No there are. There are many. And as I'd ... and I also
I would throw in another thing, that you have a serious career and it shouldn't
be just Dharma bumming around, or so you ... it's a weird ... you have to have a
serious career, parttime, doesn't leave you exhausted,[laughter] you know, it's
hard to find. I think if you worked on it ... most people just stop and don't work
on it, but he ... I think you need something like that, you know, I think you need
to find something like that. And you shouldn't be in a job that that doesn't
provide for your needs, you know. There's a lot of Dharma students that go ...
they're getting this mid-life Dharma crisis where they didn't learn anything, they
don't have a trade or a skill or a profession, they feel bad, and they they start to
lose their vows ... fifteen western sanga have disrobed this last year, you know,
they have been monks and nuns for twenty years or something. They reached
this mid-life crisis where they ... you know, they haven't done anything, they
haven't learned anything, they don't have a regular career ... you gotta have
sus ... a ... you gotta have a sustenance, you have to have an honest living that
doesn't hurt other people, and then you you absolutely must at all costs, carve
out the time you need or you are fooling yourself and you're gonna die and you
you'll be lost, you know, you you'll literally be lost. The whole meaning of your
life will be lost. And it's a big challenge and it's a big stakes, you know, that your
life is extraordinarily precious and every day is precious and you have to carve
out the time you need, and it's not easy in our society ... our society's working
against you, you know, but you you have to do it, and it's a personal thing that
you have to do. You know, the class stops tonight, in a sense, and I can't do
anything after that, you know, it's up to you. Can't ... you know, you have to
design your life, but don't kid yourself, you know. You must have couple hours
a day of practice ... must have ... minimum and then you need times when you
can devote yourself only to practice and that ... and you have to worry about
how to pull it off, okay, and if you don't, then you'll suffer, okay, and your life
won't have any meaning. You you'll come to the end and you'll be very sad that
you wasted your time. You'll be sad that you didn't make the time. You'll realize
you made a mistake. So that's just each person has to do themselves. [student:
Could ... specifically the [unclear] antidote [unclear]] Well I think anything ...
depending on your level and depending on what ... I don't say there's an
antidote. But, and I don't say that you have to change careers at this point, but
maybe stop looking at it the way ... don't look at it as a as an income or as a as a
sustenance. Look it as as a labratory for your practice. I don't think there's any
circumstance more beneficial for practice than an American office setting, you
know, I found it to be very fruitful. And I'm not just kidding, I mean, I've had the
chance to have every kind of ... my boss has encouraged me to do bad ... you
know legal lies and and there's ladies all over the place and there's people
screaming at me and there's people for me to be jealous of who have the
position that's just a little higher than mine, and I think you have everything in a
normal office, you've got everything. It's a very precious thing if you look at it
the right way, and then as you get more and more far along in the teachings, it
becomes a whole different thing for a higher level of practice and that, and you
need it, you ... ultimately you need other people around to practice. And and
we're actually going to do a text about that. I think when we do the vinaya, you
need other people around to reach the highest levels of Buddhism, you need
other people around. It's it's it's that relative to other people. You have to have
other people around you to to get there. Without them you can't do it. So you
need a setting where you have some people around you. What is all sentient
beings, I mean it's the people around you right now 'cause you're not gonna
meet all sentient beings, you don't have time. [laughs] It's the ones in in contact
with you, who will push you up to enlightenment. Okay. What's the third
resolution ... third principle?[students: Only the Dharma will help you when you
die] Right. No one nothing else can help, practice only Dharma. We're opening a
book store, you know, and I get all these people coming to me and saying, "oh,
you should have this book", you know, and I start to get dizzy with all the views
in the world, you know, all the world views, you know. They say "are you
gonna carry this Pali thing, or this Sri Lankan thing, and this Thai thing is really
good and this Korean thing is neat and and here's something by this American
philosopher that's really cool and, you know, and I and I start to get ... I got a
little dizzy, you know, I start to think, you know, oh, you know, but but there's a
definition of a Dharma book in the scriptures. It says, if a book doesn't have the
capacity to lead you to nirvana and enlightenment, don't even waste your time,
you know. If the book doesn't deal with how to get to enlightenment or nirvana,
for God's sake don't waste your precious human life by reading, and that applies
to magazines ... I mean newspapers ... know what's going on, be informed, do
not spend Sunday for two hours three hours [laughs] with the New York Times,
you know, it's just your your mind ... your healthy mind's space and time is
extremely short and extremely precious and and expose the mirror of your mind
only to things which can enlighten you, you know, and that means that those
very holy books, Shantideva, you know, things by the Buddha, things by
Nagarjuna, you know, seek out those things and only expose your mental real
estate, that precious irreplacable real estate, you know, fill it with those things,
because you don't have time ... there's no time, and and you know, sometimes
you get tired, go read a novel, it's okay, see a movie or something. Whe ... use it
for when you get tired, but but otherwise only expose your mind to good
things, and and things that can really purify, because you don't have the leisure
to to expose it to every different interesting viewpoint in the world, and and
they won't get you enlightened, if if you're at this stage, you've already come to
this class, you've already reached a certain level, then don't waste that precious
time on other things, you know, you don't have time, and and it ... everything
you read gets imprinted on your mind stream, and everything you expose your
mind to, meaning other people and and books and tv and music and everything,
makes a certain imprint on your mind. And expose it to the great holy beings of
history, you know. You have you have Nagarjuna, you have Tsongkapa, you
have the Dalai Lama, you know, expose your mind to those things, because
whatever your expose it to it's gonna be stuck there. It it all makes an imprint.
And then there's times and you gotta take a break, you know, and Lama Yeshe,
who's a very holy Lama, would say, you know, go home after work [laughs] if
you can't sit down and read Tsongkapa, which you can't after work, you know,
get a cool drink, go lay down in your bed and and think compassion thoughts
for other beings. And there's a special thought that's useful here. And that's a
good way to end death meditation. It's like ** {star star} [laughter], I mean, in the
whole Lam Rim which contains the entire teachings of the Buddha I think this is
the most important line. And it says ... it's talking about a thing called {nam dak}.
Say {nam dak} [repeat] {nam dak} [repeat]. {Nam dak} is described in the Lam
Rim and it's a practice where you see the whole world as something pure and
something ... it's sort of this, what do you call that ... what do you call that thing
where you think where everybody's out to get you?[students: Paranoi] Yeah, it's
a reverse paranoia. It's a reverse paranoia. It's where you think the whole world
is out to help you and the whole world has been planned around your
enlightenment. Every event that happens to you during the day has been ...
what do you call that ... orchestrated by the Buddhas and bodhisattvas to get you
enlightened, you know, and that's a very very powerful ... and it's actually true,
okay, we're all ... [unclear] and we've all been waiting [laughs], we had to come
to this stupid class every night, I mean, it's waiting for you [laughs] [laughter],
but I mean it's kind of a reverse paranoia where you think every person you
meet is is some kind of holy being who's been waiting for you to wake up, and
they've all been waiting for you to purify your life and your heart and they're
doing everything they can to get you there, even if it's screaming at you, or
criticizing you, or or something, you know, and and there's a reason why there's
this place on sixth street, and there's a reason why New York was put on the east
coast, 'cause you were there, you know, and and it's it's this thing ... kind of
sweet crazy mind that believes that the whole world is out to assure your
enlightenment, and and it's and it's something that you have to develop, it's very
important and it's actually true. So you you have to work on that. There's no one
in your life who's there by accident. There's no place or thing in your life which is
there by accident. It's all been orchestrated for certain ultimate spiritual goals,
you know, for your benefit. Something like that ... yeah?[student: Is this the
same thing as seeing the purity?}Yeah, that's it, yeah. [student: What was the
question?] Same thing, same thing. So that's all ... that's death meditation. Now I
can't ... we have like ... I like to take a month off or two and that's exactly what
we're gonna be doing and I can not do death meditation for you. I I sometimes I
feel bad 'cause I get up here and we go through the whole thing, I see it carefully
recorded everywhere, I know where my notes are from Dharamsala ... I've
never opened them [laughter] since that ... twenty years ago and I don't know
how to make it part of your life. I think you have to ... when you do your
morning meditations you have to think of these nine reasons and it's if you ... I I
I ... my own observation of practice is that you have to do something fresh every
month or two, you know, you do your meditations in yo ... in the morning or
evening, when ever is best for you and stay on one subject for like a month or
two.      And for example, death meditation ... now you have a nice death
meditation, you, we did the whole realms, why? I mean, the point is, when the
air stops moving through those two little holes you're gonna be in one of those
realms, and we tried to prove on this ... if you understand emptiness, we tried to
prove why those those realms are possible. If things are empty, then those
realms are possible because all all it takes to get there is what? [students:
Projections] It's a shift in your own projections, you know, it's not like a big trip
to go on, you don't have to get a reservation on an airline, you know, it ... all it
takes is for your mind to shift slightly and you are in those realms. Because they
consist of your projections. So all it takes is a shift ... is a is a few moments of
your mind shifting, as much as your mind shifting upstairs here to the
downstairs when you put your shoes on. That takes more {tse pas} than than it
takes to get to hell, you know. It takes a hell of a lot more {tse pas} [laughs] to go
from [laughter] to go from this floor after class down to put your shoes on than
it takes to go to hell. Than it takes to become a hell being. It it ... much more. So
they it ca ... it will happen and it does happen in a few seconds of thought and
you're there. So, it's just a shift in your own mind and you're there. It doesn't ...
it's as easy to get there as that. And that's very close, that gets a little nervous,
you know, so you have to, you you have to meditate on on death. And the
reason we went through all those realms it's not just, you know, to do this {b:
Abhidharma} stuff, it's to realize that those realms are all possible and and
Vasubandu's not an idiot, he would not describe those realms if they weren't
something there. Which you can confirm by reading his ... the rest of his book, I
mean, somebody who describes in details fifteen seconds of the perception of
emptiness is not gonna be a fool about the hells, you know, he he knows
something, he's trying to warn us about something, so you know, you have to
do a death meditation, do it every day, you can not get this from a class, you
have to meditate on it, you have to get it from getting used to it by doing it
every single day, you have to do it every single day, you had the the death
meditation ... it's up to you, I can't ... my job ends now, I can't do anything else, if
you don't do it then this this class is totally useless, you know, hearing about it
once is is almost totally ineffective. It it can't do anything to your life ... it won't
change your life at all, I promise you. You you have to meditate on it. It has to
get infused in your mind through doing it ... now do it for two two months, you
know, let's make a deal, okay [laughs], like try to do it for two months. Do that
death meditation, you have the whole text and you'll get the second half now,
and try to do it. It will not effect you otherwise and nothing will happen. The
Kadampa Lamas said that if you don't have death meditation, you you you can't
achieve anything. You won't achieve anything, so, but that's why we're doing it
first. And it won't have any effect if you don't do it. And the test is if you change
your mind, and if you don't find yourself changing from these classes then go ...
quit, you go do something else [laughs] you know, really, I'm a little scared
'cause I'm not sure people feel they're changing, you know, if you're not
changing then something's wrong ... you're not doing something. You know,
you have the information ... you're probably not doing it every morning, you
know, I would guess, you know. If you're not changing then change because
then do something, 'cause if your lives are not getting sweeter and and and more
holy then there's something wrong, and then you're not doing it, and there's no
reason to come to class then, there's no reason to have class, 'cause it's not just to
learn more information. That [laughs] doesn't help, it doesn't affect the brain at
the moment of med ... death, you know, it's the it's the internalization that comes
from frequent meditation every day and if if you skip two or three days a week
it won't happen either, I guarantee you. You have to do it every day. Yeah?
[student: When you say do this death meditation, are you talking about as
you're walking around, developing your awareness, as your describe it are you
talking about sitting down?] I I'm talking about both, but but now I'm talking
mainly about sitting in the morning, 'cause if you'd meditated on it in the
morning it will start to effect your day. And and let it be your subject for the next
two months, you know. And then we'll go to another subject, you know, but I I
find that after two months, almost two or three months exactly, I I lose all
progress on that subject and I have to move on. It's get a dry. I don't know about
you, but they they last about two months for me. Yeah?[student: What you said
at the beginning of this, as I understood it, was is the main point is to walk
around, you know, thinking I'm gonna die today, develop that feeling and that
was death meditation [unclear]] It is. It is the awareness, but you have to be
doing it in the ... doing it in the morning is what triggers it during the day, and
what it ... we said death meditation wasn't was just getting panicked about death
and then not doing anything, it's supposed to be some kind of healthy fear
[laughs] that motivates you to ... take, and if you ever get to a point during the
day where you really believe this is your last day on earth, you'll do really good
things and you'll do it every day. It's very interesting. It's a very interesting
effect, you know. Every day that you really pull this off and think this is my last
day on this planet with my friends, this is my last time I'm gonna see Fran
Corella, you know, I'm gonna be nice to her, you know [laughs]. [laughter]
That's a very intelligent way to live and it's it doesn't matter even if there's no
Buddhism or no enlightenment, it's still the best way to live, you know, so. We're
late. That's all, okay. We'll meditate a little bit afterwards, okay, so we'll do the
prayer and then and then hold it for a while and dedicate it to all the sentient
beings who, you know, there's all these jillions of sentient beings just dying and
they don't know what's happening and they never went to a class, they have
no ... they're just helplessly dying. And dedicate it for them, that they'd learn
these things.{prayer: short mandala}{prayer: dedication}
Death and the Realms of Existence