ACI 9 «Этическая жизнь», занятие 1

Class One: Overview of the Course
July 29, 1996

This class is about Vinaya and just Buddhist ethics...the study of ethics, and you
can't really study that...or the reason to study that is nirvana...is because you
want to reach nirvana. So really, the very first thought you should have in this
class, I mean the reason you came to this class should be because you wanna
reach nirvana. I was in a Buddhist class recently and I asked people what nirvana
was and I got like fifty different answers. So I think first you have to decide
what is nirvana. Because you're not supposed to be in this class unless you really
wanna get to nirvana. So first you have to understand nirvana. Nirvana is
escaping from...samsara. So to understand nirvana you have to understand
samsara. Nirvana is the escape from samsara. So you have to decide what is
samsara. Samsara is pretty tricky.

You know, you say escaping from samsara and people have this vision of some
kind of a place. Like they think of this world. Or they, you know, they think if
you reach nirvana you go to some kind of heaven or something. Or some
people think that if you reach nirvana you're just sitting there in a lotus position
and your mind is...reach some quiet place or something, or whatever.
Samsara...escaping samsara is something different than that. Samsara, starting
with this, our own body, okay, your own body, is part of samsara, okay? Your
own body is part of what you escape. This body was caused by something
impure. The reason it's the way it is, is because it was caused by something
impure.

And we'll talk about it sometime. But basically this body is...is not very nice. I
mean sooner or later this body will die, and it doesn't...in Buddhism, we say
doesn't necessarily take a car hitting you. If you took this body and took it the
Museum of Natural History and put it on a chair and they came and fed it
everyday and gave it something to drink and gave it vitamins and massaged it
and exercised it and...only organic foods, right? And if everything was absolutely
perfect, you know, which never happens in real life, but suppose you got exactly
the right exercise, exactly the amount of sleep that you need, no stress,
someone's feeding you, only organic foods, best vitamins, best things to drink,
you never smokes, nothing...if you put that body in that museum, and don't
allow any cars or any bombs or anything near it, it would still kill itself, you
know?

That's the nature of the body. The organs inside the body are competing. The
heart, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, according to Tibetan medicine, are
actually in conflict. They are competing with each other. And sooner or later,
one of them gets weaker, one of them begins to assert itself, and...and they
break down. One of them breaks down, and they stop. One of them stops, and
it kills you. So the body itself, the body...the kind of body that you and I have
now, is doomed. And there's nothing you can do about it. I mean once you're in
it, you're stuck with it. And you can't fix things. You can try to do maintenance
in a very intelligent way, you know, and some people succeed and some don't,
but...but you basically can't save it. It is made of something impure, it's nature is
impure, sooner or later it will kill itself. You can just be sitting there and it will
kill itself. And...and that's one part of samsara.

The other part is mental. And the first Panchen Lama describes it very nicely in
his {lam rim} text...and these are all the mental sufferings that people have. You
can start with...and we've talked about it before...to me the one that hurts the
most is that a human mind cannot be satisfied. In its present format, in the
present condition of our minds, they cannot be satisfied. Human mind cannot be
satisfied. You work for what you want. You try to get things that you want.
About I don't know what percent of the time, you get them. So...but when you
get them, it takes about a day, or a week, or a month, and then the mind starts
to become dissatisfied with it. Like Clinton was very happy to become governor
of Arkansas, or whatever? Was it Arkansas? I don't know. But he was very
satisfied...like for the first week, I can tell you he was probably thrilled. But then
at some point he starts to be dissatisfied, he has to be president, you know?
Work very, very hard and get to be president.

Then you finish your first term then what do you want? Second term, you
know? [laughs] I mean the human mind cannot be satisfied. The human mind
gets what it wants, sometimes, and then it cannot be happy with that or
contented. It's a part of our nature. Our nature is like that. It's one of our
sufferings. And this suffering is inescapable. It's not like something that only
happens in Bosnia, or something that only happens in the Third World, or
something like that. Everybody on Earth, unless you're practicing very well, has
this disease. And that's part of our minds. That's samsara, too. That's a big
chunk of samsara. Another kind of samsara is another kind of mental...which is
that you can't trust anything in samsara. There's no normal object in this life that
you can trust. You don't know that the job you have, you'll have next week. You
don't know that the spouse you have you'll have next week. You don't know
that the health you share now will be gone next week. You can't say anything
with certainty about your life. You just don't know. You can't tell me whether
or not you will own the shirt on your back tomorrow. You can't...you can't say
with certainty that that will be something that you own.

You can't be sure that the place you stay you will have a week from now. You
can't even be sure that the body you're in, you'll enjoy its use tomorrow. You
can't be sure. Nothing is sure in life. I mean life is very chaotic. And
you...nothing is trustable. You can't trust anything in life...from basic things, also
relationships. Like you can't predict how a relationship will go. You can't trust it.
It's nature...the very nature is to change. It must change. It will change. The
people that you love today, you'll feel neutral about them or you'll hate them a
year from now. The people that you don't...you could care less about...could go
either way. The people that you hate now can sometimes become your friends.
There's absolutely no certainty that any of those objects stays the way it is. And
it's a big suffering, you know, we suffer from that all day long. You...you have
basic things that you take for granted like being alive, or being healthy, or
having a good mind, and they could all disappear tomorrow.

None of them is anything you can count on. Nothing. And this is a suffering
that's related to our mind. The mind tends to perceive things due to certain
causes, and as those causes change or wear out, the nice things that we own, or
even the nice things that we are, has to go...must go...must change. Every part
of your life is fluid, and it's all shaky, and it could all change tomorrow, and
there's nothing you can do about it. It's...it's gonna be that way. You can't say
that any of the relationships you have today will not be totally different several
weeks from now. You have no guarantee at all. Nothing. And this is samsara;
this is the nature of samsara. This is the nature of the human mind and the
human body. Our bodies and our minds are...are defective.

And they...not...it can't turn out right. You know, you can struggle your whole
life to get something...nice place to stay. You can struggle your whole life to find
someone that you get along with, and someone you love and someone you can
be with. And you can struggle all your life to find some kind of security, and
you just won't find it. It doesn't exist, you know? You can...you might as well
give up now. [laughs] You can...I mean if you didn't notice yet, that's the way it
is, you know. And if you're kinda young, and things are still going okay, you
can keep trying, but it just gets worse, you know? There is no certainty about
anything. Even your mind, you can't control the state your mind will be in a
week from now. You cannot control it. This is suffering. All this change and all
this uncertainty is suffering. And...and we have it and it's part of our nature. So
escaping from samsara is escaping from that part of our own nature, okay?
Escaping from samsara is to escape from that part of our own nature. You don't
have to move out of New York, you know? It's not New York City, it's not
America. It's...it's that condition that your relationships are not predictable, your
life is not predictable, your death is unpredictable, your health is unpredictable,
your own mind drives you to be unhappy, and you...you can't stop it. This is the
nature of the mind. This is the nature of samsaric mind. So nirvana is...is to
escape that. When you get to nirvana, it's like here...

The definition of nirvana in Tibetan is {nyendrup malupa panbe sosor tango},
and it means the permanent stopping of your bad thoughts. According to
Buddhism, samsara is created ultimately by bad thoughts: anger, desire,
jealousy, hatred. Ultimately that condition that I described, that your mind is
constantly shifting, that your relationships must degenerate, that your own body
must collapse, all of this is caused ultimately by bad thoughts. And why and
how, we'll cover, okay? It can be proved. But take it for that way right now.
Nirvana is a place that you reach where you just don't have those bad thoughts
anymore. You just don't have them. You are not capable of them. No matter
how badly someone treats you, no matter how nasty a thing someone says to
you, no matter what kind of disaster happens in your personal life...your mind is
in a place...it's like some golden window, you know, it's like some portal, and
inside there it's just totally golden light, totally free... incapable of having a bad
thought.

Someone can attack you, someone can say something to you, someone can
physically abuse you, and you might have pain, but your mind cannot be
disturbed from that peace. And sometimes nirvana is called peace. Peace is a
synonym for nirvana in Tibetan: {shiwa}. So nirvana is reaching that mental
place where you are incapable of having a bad thought ever again. {Sosor
tango}. {Nyendrup malupa panbe sosor tango}. {Sosor tango} means you can
only reach that condition by {sosor tak}. {Sosor tak} comes about here...
It's the...there's...this is emptiness, okay? [laughs] This is direct perception. And
somewhere along here, somewhere between samsara and nirvana, you must
perceive emptiness directly. You must, okay? It's part of the definition of
nirvana. Nirvana is the permanent stopping of your bad thoughts due to having
seen emptiness directly.          Due to this experience.      This must take place
somewhere in here. Okay? Must take place.
Sometimes this is called wisdom and we have three trainings in Buddhism:
wisdom is number three. We call it...

[silence]

The Tibetan here is {sherub}.       And it's basically the direct perception of
emptiness. Okay? Emptiness can be perceived intellectually, which takes a lot of
training but not so difficult. The direct perception of emptiness in deep state of
meditation is much more difficult. And much more rare. Extremely rare. The
essence of the extraordinary training of wisdom is...is to see emptiness directly.
The scriptures state, especially in the [b: Abhidharma], that to reach that
perception of emptiness directly your mind must be at a certain meditational
level called {samten dampo nyendop michok me}. We'll call it:

[silence]

Say, {ting ngendzin} [repeat]. By the way, I'll say Tibetan. You don't have to
memorize it. If you're in the Tibetan track, you have to memorize it. But I just
think it's good for you. Most of the English course from the last year has now
transmigrated to the Tibetan track. So the point is, if I keep saying Tibetan
words, sooner or later you'll get comfortable with it and you'll move to the
Tibetan track, okay? It's a very easy language, not hard, okay? Say, {ting
ngendzin} [repeat], {ting ngendzin} [repeat]. {ting ngendzin} means that
extraordinary training of meditation, and it's called {ting ngendzin hapash hlapa
tingendzin gyi lapa} which means basically the ability to keep your mind on one
object, fixedly, fixated on one object. Okay? That's also possessed...that ability is
also possessed by baseball players, businessmen like my boss. The object in the
first case is the baseball. Like if you see the guy at bat and they closeup on his
face and as the pitcher release the ball the eyes start to dilate. You know, you
actually see the pupils dilate. And the guy's...if he's a good hitter...he's, he's
actually got {ting ngendzin} towards the baseball. And that's...it's not...you don't
have to be a Buddhist; it doesn't have to be a holy object. You can have
meditative concentration standing there in a baseball game. He doesn't hear the
crowd, you know, he doesn't taste the tobacco, you know, he doesn't smell the
catcher, you know, his mind is totally fixated on the ball, if he's good. And the
eyes are dilating and he's...and he's got {ting ngendzin}.         To differentiate
meditation on a holy object from normal meditative ability, or concentrating
ability, we say extraordinary. Extraordinary means Buddhist, you know, fixated
on a holy object, okay?         And that's why the three trainings are called
extraordinary.        They're actually called {pakpe labasum}, which means
extraordinary trainings.

[student: [unclear]]

We're gonna talk about it, okay?              I'm going backwards, okay? [laughs]
Extraordinary training of meditation is like a...you can think about it as a...as a
pond...and that the water is totally still. The top of the surface of the water is
totally, perfectly still...perfectly quiet, and there's no ripples, and there's nothing
moving. That's perfect meditation. That's {ting ngendzin gyi lapa}. Number one,
I'll put it up here.

[silence]

Say {tsultrim} [repeat]. You got...you gotta make noise in language...it's not a
language class but you gotta make noise, okay? {Tsultrim} [repeat], {tsultrim}
[repeat]. Okay, good. It'll start to get you...stick in your mind and after a while
you'll be learning Tibetan. So, just warning you, alright? {Tsultrim} is sometimes
translated as morality. I like to call it ethical living because the word morality,
you know, brings up images of Billy Graham screaming at you and the Christian
coalition and all that, you know. I...it's just an ethical lifestyle. It's a...it's a
good...being a good person, in your everyday life. That's {tsultrim}, okay? This
training is described as being like the quality of that pond, that it's very pure.
The water is very pure. So if you had a big pond of water and the water was
very, very pure, that's an ethical way of life. If the surface of the water was
perfectly quiet and had no ripples or disturbances on it, that's the extraordinary
training of meditation. So where does wisdom come in? They say that if the
object called emptiness is going to reflect on that thing called the surface of your
mind, the mind must be totally pure and totally quiet, okay? You cannot see
emptiness...it's totally impossible to see emptiness unless you reach the first level
of the...of the form realm...of a whole different realm. Your mind has to reach a
meditative level which is out of this world, okay? It's out of this desire realm. It's
such a perfect meditation, that your mind, as you see emptiness directly, must be
in the first samten level, the first samadhi level...must be, okay? Otherwise, you
cannot see emptiness directly. Reaching that level takes a certain amount of
training like jogging or weight-lifting, you know? If you wanted to lift a certain
weight, you would have to do a certain kind of regimen everyday. And to reach
that level of meditation takes maybe an hour a day. You must meditate at least
an hour a day to reach that level of concentration. In addition, your conscience
must be perfectly clear. And that's the rub. That's the hard part, okay? People
say...people constantly come in to me...I've been meditating for six years, and
nothing happened. And then I say, well...the first question really is, are you
doing the preliminaries properly. There are certain warm-ups to a meditation
session...that if you don't do them properly, the meditation will never go very
well. There's...there's like seven steps to get into deep meditation. But more
importantly there's a relationship between these three trainings. Meditation
depends on an ethical way of life.             If your conscience is not clean and
clear...happily clear...you will not be able to meditate perfectly. It just won't
come. It will never happen. And that's just a fact of meditation. The presence of
something unclean in your life, and knowing it, and being aware of it
will...will...will prevent you from reaching a deep state of meditation. You just
can't. So, in Buddhism, an ethical way of life it's more important than just being a
good person for that...for the sake of that. To reach the higher goals, to reach
nirvana, you have to see emptiness directly...you must. To see emptiness
directly you must have this level of meditation. You must reach this level of
meditation. You cannot do that without having an ethical way of life. And...and
it's compared to the reflection of the moon in the...in the pond. You know, if the
pond water is going like this, the reflection will go like that, and you'll never see
emptiness. Emptiness is such a subtle object that it cannot reflect in your mind
stream unless that mind stream is perfectly still. And that's meditation. It can't
be still, unless it's pure. The water has to be pure. Your mind...your heart has to
be clear of any bad deeds. So you have to clean up your life for that reason.
You'll never see emptiness if you...if you can't. And if you can't do that, you'll
never reach nirvana. Impossible. It's part of the definition of nirvana. You can't
do it. So you can see that training number one leads to training number two.
Number two depends on number one, okay? That fact is not talked about much
in America. Or at all. I mean they don't say, when you go to, you know, this
temple and you're gonna meditate, they check you at the door and say did you
do anything bad this morning, you know. 'Cause your meditation is not gonna
work. I mean people don't do that. And Je Tsongkapa in the poem you're
gonna read...there's a poem, a letter that he wrote, to one of his most beloved
disciples. It's your reading for...for this first class. And in that letter he says, back
in 1400 when he wrote that letter, he says people even nowadays, they don't
realize the connection between one and two. He says everybody has forgotten
it. He says people do understand the connection between three and two. You
know, people understand that if you can't get into perfect meditation, you'll
never see emptiness. He says, people understand it like barely. This is back in
1400 in Tibet. But he says people who understand that you have to be living a
good life to reach that state of meditation...he says, everybody forgot it. He
says, nobody...nobody remembers that. Back in 1402 or whatever he wrote this
letter. It's like you can read that in his letter. He says people don't understand
the connection between living a good life and being able to meditate properly.
Living a good life is...what is a good life? You know, I mean different people
have different ideas. Different religions teach mainly the same things, but with
some differences. In Buddhism, we say that to really understand the rules of a
good life, you know, what should you do and what should you not do, you
know, what's a good thing to do, and what a bad thing to do, you must study
Buddhist scripture, okay? You must study the word of an enlightened being.
Why? Because the connection between what you do now and what comes to
you much later because of those actions is so subtle that only a Buddha can
perceive it perfectly. They say colors like red and shapes like round or square
are on this level of reality. And everybody can perceive them pretty easily.
Except for blind people or whatever. And on the second level is emptiness. And
only a select few people in the world have seen that directly. Maybe fewer. And
then on the third level is the...the real subtle connection between the good and
bad things you do and what happens to you a year later, you know...why is the
air conditioner not working quite perfectly? Why is it a bit noisy, but it's still
cooling us, you know? Why do I have this mixture of goodness and badness? I
mean only a Buddha can tell you, "Oh, back on October 3, 1966, remember, you
were cooling off this thing, but you quit 'cause you wanted to go eat and...that's
why." I mean, we don't have that capacity. So the Buddha taught sixteen
volumes...sixteen thousand pages about ethical living. You know, how do you
live an ethical life? And that's the...

[silence]

All of the Buddhist teachings...we have about a thousand texts in the Kangyur.
The Kangyur is the speech of enlightened beings translated from Sanskrit into
Tibetan. So we still have about a thousand separate works. The shortest one, do
you know? [b: Heart Sutra]? There's a book called [b: Om]. And it's one
syllable. [laughs] It says [b: Om]. [laughs] That's the shortest book in the
Kangyur. The longest one is like hundred thousand verses or something, you
know...covers many volumes. But basically a huge part...and the first part of the
Buddhist canon, of the whole Buddhist scriptures, is called the vinaya. Okay, say
{dulwa} [repeat]. You guys are sleepy. {Dulwa} [repeat], {dulwa} [repeat]. Okay,
{dulwa} is the Tibetan name for vinaya. Okay, that's the first huge collection of
Buddhist scripture. And in that collection of scripture, and in that scripture the
Buddha describes what it would be like to lead an ethical way of life. Oftentimes
he does so by describing stories of the past where somebody did something
wrong and got some horrible result from it for thousands of years. And most
often, the bad guy is...the Buddha in his former lives, okay? [laughs] It's very,
you know, when you read it it makes your goosebumps because he'll go
through this...describing this bad boy, for example, who beat his mother on his
head, and then he'll describe incredible, fantastic adventures that the boy went
through and incredible things that he saw, extraordinary things that happened to
him, and then at the end he'll give the punchline and he'll say that was me. You
know, and most often the stories are actually from his own life. And he's
describing how not to live an ethical life by describing his own mistakes...most
often. So there you get sixteen volumes of that or something around that. Then
you have the extraordinary training of meditation and that's treated in...

[silence]

Say {do} [repeat] {do} [repeat]. {Do} is the Tibetan word for sutra. Sutra has
three different meanings, okay, and you should know. First meaning is the
difference between sutra and tantra, okay? Sutra meaning the...the teachings of
an enlightened being which are not secret, and tantra meaning the teachings of
an enlightened being which are secret, okay? So all the Buddha's speech,
everything the Buddha ever taught, can be divided into sutra and tantra. That's
not what it means here, okay? Sometimes sutra means a short book, and the
word {do} means short book. That's also not what it means here, okay? The
third meaning is one of the three great collections of Buddhist scripture...one of
the three {pitakas}. And that's what it is here. So don't get confused, okay? This
sutra means that huge collection of Buddhist scriptures spoken by the Buddha
which talk about how to reach meditation...how to reach perfect meditation,
okay? And for wisdom, which used to be up here on the board...

[silence]

...is called the abhidharma basket. There's a section of Buddhist philosophy called
abhidharma. This is not that. This is the whole group of scriptures that treat
wisdom collectively...are known as abhidharma. The order of the scriptures in
the Kangyur, the order of all the scriptures that the Buddha ever taught, is
exactly this. First come the vinaya scriptures. Then come the sutra collection.
And then comes the abhidharma collection. This is the order of the Buddhist
canon. And Je Tsongkapa says, you know, it doesn't take a genius to figure out
that it corresponds to the order of the three trainings. You have to start with the
vinaya collection of scriptures because your spiritual practice has to begin with
an ethical way of life. Your whole spiritual life, everything you're going to do
spiritually, has to start with vinaya, has to start with living a good life. Based on
that foundation you can move up to the sutra collection of scriptures, which is
the next part of the canon, because that teaches perfect concentration. And you
cannot have perfect concentration, meditative concentration, Buddhist
concentration, if you're...if you have something on your conscience. Can't do it.
And you can't...and the third basket, or the third great collection of scripture is
abhidharma. It comes third because it relates to the training of wisdom, and you
can't get that unless you have perfect meditation. Okay?
{Chung lungba dzuh}...{chungla}...in...in...as a basket it's called {lungpa}, which is
just [abhi]. Tsongkapa is reacting to a corruption of Buddhism during his time.
You know, during his time and before his time, there were people in Tibet who
got a spattering of Buddhist philosophy from a few Indian teachers that showed
up in Tibet, and then they heard about tantra and tantra sounded like a lot more
fun, and they started doing tantra. And then after a while the whole thing got so
corrupted you had people saying, something like, I just want to see emptiness or
do secret practices and I don't need the first pitaka, you know? Once you see
emptiness directly you're freed from this very boring thing called ethics, you
know? You don't need ethics if you've reached that high level called wisdom or
meditation or especially tantra. There were people in Tibet saying that, and Je
Tsongkapa came back with, you know, why do you think the Buddha spent
sixteen thousand pages describing an ethical way of life? You know, was
he...was he stupid, or he didn't know that it wasn't necessary, or he didn't see
emptiness, or he wasn't practicing tantra, or what do you think, you know? I
mean, he's trying to prove that not only is an ethical way of life related to
emptiness, you can't reach emptiness unless you are ethical. Impossible. Totally
impossible. So he's saying the people who say it's not necessary and not related
are...are crazy. And he was very adamant about it. And then he went through
describing the relation of the three baskets. So, we're gonna start with vinaya.
We're gonna talk about {dulwa}, okay? {Dulwa} is a word in Tibetan that means
to tame something or to control something. It's the word in Tibetan, it's used for
what you do to a crazy horse. Like when you're breaking a horse, that's called
{dulwa}. {Dulwa} means trying to control a wild horse. That's {dulwa}. A {dulja},
which means the wild horse to be tamed, is the Tibetan word for a disciple. A
student in Tibetan is called {dulja}, okay? {Dulja} means somebody who has to
be {dulwa}-ed. And {dulwa} means to control, or discipline, or train--to bring a
wild horse under control. And that's the literal meaning of {dulwa}. This is very
famous quotation by a lama called Ngulchu Dharma Bhadra who's very
important in the lineage of Vajrayogini...who is one of the main predecessors of
Pabongka Rinpoche, who was our teacher's teacher...who was Rinpoche's
teacher. He said this about the meaning of {dulwa}. So I'm, I'm not gonna...you
don't have to write the whole thing out. But I'll...just say it, 'cause it's a blessing
to say it. Say {dulway} [repeat] {denu} [repeat] {kyi} [repeat] {zhuja} [repeat]
{pongdun} [repeat] {korchey} [repeat} {kyi} [repeat]...this is supposed to be like
this...{nyomong} [repeat] {ba} [repeat] {dulwa} [repeat] {dang} [repeat] {wangpo}
[repeat] {dulwa} [repeat] {chepechur} [repeat] {dulwa} [repeat]. Okay. {Dulwa
denu}, this part here, it means the...the basket of vinaya...all those books about
the vinaya, okay? All those books about leading an ethical way of life, okay?
{Kyi zhuja} means its subject matter, its subject matter...the subject matter of the
scriptures on vinaya, okay? What is the subject matter of the scriptures on
vinaya? {Pongdun}. Say {pongdun} [repeat]. {Pongdun} refers to...{pong} means
rules; {dun} means seven, number seven, okay? Seven rules. How many bad
deeds are there if you group...? Abhidharma says, {rabrum chena migewa chu}.
There's eighty-four thousand different variations of bad deeds and bad thoughts.
But if you're gonna make it easy for American disciples in 1996, what's the
minimum number you could talk about? Ten. Basically ten, I mean the ten non-
virtues, okay? You know them. We'll go through them really fast. It never
hurts. First one? Killing. Okay, killing any living creature. Okay? Second one?
Stealing anything of value, like more than ten cents or a dollar, or whatever,
okay? Third one? Sexual misconduct which mainly refers to adultery, but not
only, okay? Three that you do with your body, okay? Three bad deeds that you
do with your body, okay? Those are the three of body. Then there are four of
speech, first one being?

[student: Lying.]

Lying. Good. I like this, you know, I was teaching a Buddhist class to a bunch of
old-timers in...I won't say the place. And nobody could name the ten non-
virtues, so I was like...aaah.     Yeah, first one is lying, okay, creating a...a
misimpression in someone else's mind. If you...if you define it that way, which is
the way to define it, it becomes a lot more subtle. Second one?

[student: Divisive talk.]

Yeah, divisive talk. If it's in the top ten, we must be doing it all day long. So it
doesn't have to be, you know, some secret plot to di-...to split up two friends. It
can be those very subtle slips of the tongue where you slightly put someone
down in front of somebody else, and as a result they get slightly get alienated
from them. And we do that all day long. All day long, we are constantly
dropping hints that so-and-so is not as cool as I am, and you should probably not
like them as much as you do, and you should like me more. I mean, that's the
basic format. You...you have variations, but that's the basic format, and we do it
all day long. Number three is speech...harsh words. And all of the scriptures are
very careful to say it does not have to be a curse word. It could be, "Hi, how are
you?" You know...[laughs]...said in the right way and knowing that the other
person's feeling will be hurt, okay? Fourth one?

[student: Idle talk.]

Idle talk, okay? Just, you know, we used to say gossiping, but you don't have to
be gossiping over the fence with the other...person. We do it all day long. Any
kind of talk which is not relevant or necessary is idle talk. The ultimate form of it
is: saying your prayers without thinking about them. [laughs] Seriously. Okay?
Ultimate form of idle talk. Last three?...are of mind. The last three you do in
your mind. What are they? First one is craving. You know, craving other
people's things. And it makes you unhappy all day long. You know, I had it a
couple of times today at work. You know, it doesn't...you can crave other
people's possessions.        It's the coveting that's mentioned in the ten
commandments. You can also crave their personal qualities, and that's where
jealousy comes in. So all of that is under number eight. How about number
nine? Ill will. Ill will means...number nine...that means like not being too upset
when something bad happens to somebody else. And we do this constantly.
You know, even when it's destructive to ourselves, even when there's bad results
for ourselves, we are never that sad when someone else screws up, never as sad
as we are when we mess up, you know. And there's this kind of very sick, subtle
pleasure that you sometimes take when you see somebody at work mess up and
you're like, "Oh stupid them," you know. It's very subtle, and if it's in the top ten
out of 84,000, you know if it's more important than 83,990 others, it means we're
doing it almost all day long. Number ten?

[students: Wrong views]

Wrong views...classic two: not believing in past and future lives, and then
thinking that the idea of karma is stupid. Do you do that? I mean when was the
last time you gave a speech about the stupidity of karma. You haven't done it
recently, but if you did any kind of bad thing today, from the slightest irritation
at someone, then implicitly you have that wrong view, because you are saying,
that's not gonna have any result on me, it will not boomerang back to me, you
know? You didn't say...you didn't have a very, slight irritated thought towards
someone and then sit down on your chair at work and say, "Oh, my God I just
created a huge karma," you know, "It's gonna come back to me; this is gonna
happen, this is gonna happen, this is gonna happen." You didn't do it, 'cause you
really don't believe in it. You know, sounds good theoretically, but it's not
enough to keep you from killing roaches or anything like that, you know.
[laughs] We have it, and every time you do even the slightest bad deed,
which...which is...can be very subtle...it takes about a second to think an irritated
thought about someone, it is a bad karma, and you're spitting on the rules of
karma, you know. You're spitting on the laws of karma. You're saying I don't
believe you. If you don't stop and say, "Oh my gosh, you know, what did I just
do? I just planted an...a seed which must come back to me." You know, I mean,
if you really understood Buddhist psychology well, you would be terrorized at
your own mind. And every time...I mean, you, you probably couldn't make it
through the day if you really believed in karma. If you really understood karma
clearly, it would be very hard to get through a day...with your, with your...with
our minds in our present condition. So {pongdun}... Why does it say only
seven? Vinaya mostly relates to the first seven. Okay? Vinaya mostly focuses
upon...most of the vows in vinaya are focusing on your...what you do with your
body and what you say with your mouth. They are not focusing so much on
what you do with your mind, okay? That's left mostly to the bodhisattva vows
and to the secret vows, which we're not covering in this course, okay? We're
working on vinaya. So the main subject matter of the vinaya is keeping those
seven {korche}. {Korche} means along with their friends. {Kor} means retinue,
okay? The retinue...like the Dalai Lama's {kor} is all his bodyguards and all the
people...his managers and all the people who take care of him, and cooks and
people who carry his robes for him, and all those people are {kor}. So {korche}
means along with your great circle of supporters, and that's where you get the
other 83,999, you know? They're all in there, okay? {Korche} is very tricky here.
{Korche} means and all the other bad things you could do, okay?                  {Kyi
nyomongba}. Say {nyomong} [repeat] {nyomong} [repeat]. {Nyomong} in
Sanskrit is [klesha]. It comes from the root [klish], and [klish] means to bug
somebody, to bother someone, to afflict someone, to interrupt someone, to
upset somebody...they're all...[klish] is that meaning.             So [klesha] or
{nyomongba} means mental affliction, okay? Mental affliction, defined as:
{semme shiwa chepe semchen}, which means any thought that disturbs your
peace of mind, okay? There's tiny [kleshas], tiny bad thoughts, like a moment of
irritation and for as long as that stays with you, you can't really be happy.
You're...it's like throwing a...a rock in a pool of water, and there's those
ripples...that go out. And then you really get angry, it's like throwing a boulder
in a pool of water, and there's this huge splash, and the mind is like this for about
three hours or something, you know, and then it slowly comes down like that.
That's the function of a [klesha]. That's the function of a mental affliction. It's
function is to ruin your peace of mind commensurate to the strength of the
[klesha]. And it can ruin your peace of mind for ten years. I mean, I've met
people like that who are obsessed by something that someone said to them, or
some incident that happened in their life, and, and they're holding that [klesha]
for that long. That's a mental affliction. When you get rid of that...permanently
by seeing emptiness directly, you've reached nirvana. That's the definition of
nirvana. I mean, you can reach nirvana tonight, and you won't look different to
us, you know? You wouldn't have the frowns or the grimaces that we have...no,
you just wouldn't be capable of it. There would be no thought behind the skin to
express itself that way. It's very interesting. You just...you would never go
like...you know, or...you know, you just couldn't do it because you just don't
have those thoughts that would drive your mouth to do that, or your forehead
to do that. I mean, so your face might change slightly, but otherwise the rest
would be the same. You're stuck with a body until it wears out...until it dies. In
extraordinary circumstances, with extraordinary teachings, which are secret,
even that can change. But that's a long story. And it's secret. {Dulwa}. {Dulwa}
means to, what? Tame. So here Dharma Bhadra, who lived about two hundred
years ago, is explaining the word {dulwa}. He says, the vinaya is called the
vinaya, {dulwa} is called {dulwa} because if you take the subject of the vinaya
scriptures and apply it to your own mind, and if you're able to keep the morality
of avoiding those seven bad deeds and their nasty friends, well then you can
{dulwa} your bad thoughts. If you {dulwa} your bad thoughts, then you've
reached nirvana. So that's the first reason why vinaya's called vinaya. {Dulwa} is
called {dulwa} because it can...you can {dulwa} your bad thoughts, meaning
control, tame, discipline, stop, like a wild horse, okay? And...{dang}, {wangbo}.
{Wangbo} means the sense organs, okay? [cut]
{Wangbo} means the sense organs, okay? {Mikme nawame namme chenme
lume sume}. Those are the...in the [b: Heart Sutra], these are the sense organs:
the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, and the sense of touch. As long as you are
closely obsessed with those organs, you know, as long as they are a large part of
your life...that you're struggling to see the things you want to see...you know,
you wanna live in a part of New York where you don't see certain things, you
know, and you turn on the best CDs, and you wear only the best perfume, and
you only go to the best restaurant, and you only wear very pleasant clothes, and
you exercise just right, then you're living in the world of the senses. And it...and
it will cause you to suffer. You cannot satisfy those demands, and the more you
try, the worst it gets...the more you need them and the more you want them.
It's a trap. If you study vinaya, you can {dulwa chepa} those sense powers: you
can bring them under control. You can start to move out of that sphere of
activity...of the sense organs, and move more into a spiritual sphere, okay? It
doesn't mean you can't eat. You have to eat. It doesn't mean you can't listen to
nice music. If it comes, listen to it. But don't get caught up in it. And the better
you keep your vows, the less you will need that gratification...and the happier
you'll be, because you can't gratify yourself on will. It comes to you; you can't
control it. You can't demand that music sound good tonight. Sooner or later it
won't sound good. Sooner or later you'll die, you won't be able to hear it
anyway. You know, you can't control those things. You cannot control sense
objects, period. And you get very frustrated trying. As you may have noticed.
So [laughs] okay? So the...the second benefit of {dulwa}, of vinaya, the second
function of {dulwa} is to {dulwa} your sense organs...to bring them under some
kind of restraint and push you into a...a different sphere, a...a higher sphere,
spiritual sphere of life. {Chyur} means because of that, we call the vinaya
{dulwa}...and there he has the word {dulwa} again. So Dharma Bhadra's telling
you why vinaya's called vinaya. {Dulwa}, meaning discipline, is called {dulwa}
because you discipline or you turn off the mental afflictions, and you discipline
your sense powers, okay? And that's why vinaya is called vinaya. One more
point and then we'll take a break.

[silence]

In the monastery when you're about...I mean classically you enter it at seven
years old or something, and the first thing they do is sit you down and make
you memorize the [b: Abhisamankara]. It's about fifty pages long. And you
have no idea what it means. Not one word. But your teacher says, okay you
gotta memorize the [b: Abhisamankara]. This is a work by Maitreya, the future
Buddha. So it's this blessing, even at seven years old, of having the words of
Maitreya in your mind and in your heart. And it starts to echo through your
mind all the time and then it starts to have an effect on your mind stream. And
then when you reach about thirteen, fourteen, you start to study what it means,
okay? So I...I encourage you, if you're gonna take this class, you know, write
down this pronunciation, and memorize it. And it's a little piece of sutra, okay?
It's a little piece of the Buddha. As you'll soon see, alright? Memorize it. It
doesn't...it doesn't hurt, you know? It might bounce around in your head and do
something. Say {dulwa} [repeat] {mi} [repeat] {tendan} [repeat] {dunba} [repeat]
{luh} [repeat] {yin} {repeat]. {Dulwa ni} [repeat] {tendan} [repeat] [dunba}
[repeat] {luh} [repeat] {yin} {repeat]. Okay. {Dulwa} means what?

[student: Vinaya.]

Vinaya, okay? Discipline. I call it Buddhist discipline. You can call it vowed
morality if you want. It does not have to be monks and nuns, okay? As you're
going to see, just about half of the vows relate to lay people, okay? By the way,
I'm not allowed to teach you the vinaya which relates to monk's and nun's vows.
Those are secret, and I cannot teach them to you unless you take ordination. So
if someone says what are you studying over there at Sixth Street, you have to
say vinaya, but he's only teaching us the part that doesn't relate to monk's and
nun's vows. Otherwise I get in trouble, okay? And I'm not gonna teach you the
monk's and...I can't...until you become ordained, and then I will, okay? And then
we have to. So {dulwa ni}, vinaya is...{ni} means is...{ten}. {Ten} means the
teachings of the Buddha, okay? This quotation is by the Buddha, and in this
quotation the Buddha himself says, if all you had in your house was the [b:
Vinaya Scriptures]...not the whole teachings, but just the [b: Vinaya
Scriptures]...that's enough to say in my house I have the whole Buddhist
teachings. He says the vinaya teachings themselves, just the teachings on
leading an ethical life, represent the entire teachings of the Buddha. I mean, we
have a project going in Russia. We're cataloging the scriptures that are in that
particular library. It's gonna take ten years. There's two hundred thousand titles
there. Probably there's more. I mean, definitely there's more, but if you took
those whole hundreds of thousands of scriptures and you put them all into one,
it would be the vinaya. 'Cause if the Buddha himself said, if you've got the
vinaya you've got the Buddhist teachings, okay?             {Ten}.   {Dang} means
"and." {Dunba}. {Dunba} means the Teacher, capital "T," which means what?
Lord Buddha, okay? And this is another thing that he's saying. He's saying, if
you've got the vinaya scriptures and if you study them, then you can say that I'm
alive in the world. If there's anyone in the world studying vinaya, you can say
that I'm in that room. And he doesn't say it metaphorically. He says {luh}. {Luh}
means the actual, the real thing, you know? Very interesting, you know?
Buddha is saying that if there's a person in 1996 in the East Village, studying
vinaya there, properly, I am there, and that is my teachings. Those, those are the
total teachings of the Buddha, you know? That's...he was very adamant about it,
you know. And he said to the monks many times, you know, if you're wearing
those robes, you're representing me. So be careful. As long as there's one
decent monk walking around on the planet Earth, I'm there, you know? That
represents me. I am that. And when you study the [kayas] of the Buddha, the
bodies of the Buddha, you'll see why it's true more. But basically {yin} means is.
So what the Buddha is saying in this quotation is that in...so long as anyone in the
world is truly studying vinaya, and that vinaya is teaching that person how to
behave ethically, I'm there. That's me. That is the Buddha. The Buddha exists in
the world. Buddha is walking on planet Earth as long as somebody on Sixth
Street is studying vinaya, okay? We'll take a ten minute break and then come
back when you hear the...there's a little gong, okay? So...[cut]
[silence]

Now we go through the boring part...the more boring part. Okay. In the
monastery, you know, they just throw you in the vinaya class and they hit you
with all these things right away, and they don't tell you the history of vinaya,
and you don't hear much about, you know, where did it all come from. I
thought you might like to see the lineage, you know? So we're gonna do, very
briefly, you know, where did it all come from. Say {gelog payi} [repeat] {sortar
gyi} [repeat] {do} [repeat]. {Gelong pay} [repeat] {sotar gyi} [repeat] {do}
[repeat]. Okay. {Gelogpa} means a fully-ordained monk, okay? A full monk.
And later we'll get into all the kinds of monks and things like, okay? But that's a
fully ordained monk. {Sotar} means vowed morality, okay? And we'll talk more
about it. Literally it means a vow of individual liberation, vow of freedom. Vow
of freedom: {sotar}, okay? Freedom vows. And we'll talk about why they're
called freedom vows. You can probably guess. [Drops something.] Woo! {Do}
means sutra, sutra. So, this is the ultimate source of the vinaya. These two are
the two root texts. {Gelong may sotar gyi do}--you can see there's only one
difference here: {mayi}. {Mayi} means what? It's...it's feminine. It's the feminine
ending. So {gelong may sotar gyi do} means the sutra on the vows of individual
freedom for a fully-ordained nun, and that's a {gelogma}, okay? These are the
two root sutras. They're called the root sutras. These two. All the vinaya
teachings in this world trace back to these two sutras, spoken by...the Buddha,
okay? There are also four different explanatory sutras, okay? They're called the
four explanatory sutras. And I'm not gonna go through they're names with you
here, but there's a set of four sutras which explain the two root sutras, and
they're called the four explanatory sutras. So if you look at what's in the canon
about vinaya, these are the two root sutras, then there's four explanatory sutras,
and then there's a whole bunch of what we call relevant sutras, okay? They're
like vinaya-related sutras, which are not included here. So there's huge...the
materials are huge. I mean, we've put a lot of them in on the computers. It's
thousands and thousands of pages. Yeah, this one means the Sutra {do}, {kyi} of,
{sotar} individual freedom vows...of a fully-ordained monk, and this is the sutra
of individual freedom vows for a fully-ordained nun. And those are the two root
sutras. I'm only gonna ask you on the homework about the two root sutras,
so...don't worry. Then in the [Tengyur], which is the classical commentaries on
the sutras...the [Tengyur] and the [Kangyur] are two divisions of what in Tibet
are called the Buddhist canon...and the [Kangyur] is spoken...has to spoken by an
enlightened being. Those are the teachings of an enlightened being, either this
Buddha or another Buddha. There are a thousand books. There are like thirty-
five hundred books in the [Tengyur].              [Tengyur] is the early Indian
commentaries, okay? And the most famous one is called {dulway do}. Say
{dulway} [repeat], {do} [repeat]. {Dulway} [repeat], {do} [repeat]. Okay? In
Sanskrit, just for your information, it's the [b: Vinaya Sutra]...very famous. It was
written by say {lopen} [repeat] {yenden} [repeat] {wuh} [repeat]. {Lopen}
[repeat] {yenden} [repeat] {wuh} [repeat]. [laughs] Okay. {Lopen} means
[acharya]. It means a master...the master. We're not supposed to, in Buddhism,
ever refer to our teachers lightly. So we always say "Master" before that.
Master: [acarya]. {Yenden} in Sanskrit is [guna], and {wuh} is [prabha]. So his
name was Guna Prabha. You can say Master Guna Prabha. We're not sure
when he lived. We take a guess that it was around 500 A.D., okay? And he
wrote the [b: Vinaya Sutra]. But didn't I say at the beginning of the class that a
sutra is a book wri-...written by...spoken by a...a Buddha? So what happened?
Did {Yenden} become a Buddha? This is a trick, and it messed me up for years,
but I finally figured it out, okay? This "sutra" means short book. It doesn't mean
a sutra, okay? This...in this case, the word sutra means a short book. And in this
book he has managed to stuff in the entire contents of the four explanatory
sutras...those four sutras on vinaya. Those are hundreds and hundreds of pages
long. {Yenden Wuh} took the whole thing and squished it into a sutra, meaning
a short book; and he named that [b: Vinaya Sutra]. In the next class we're gonna
through an outline of the whole thing. So in a nutshell you'll be able to see the
structure of the entire vinaya. It's very exciting. It's very rarely been done. He
took the entire, huge teachings on vinaya, squished them into this little book
called the su-...[b: Vinaya Sutra], and we're gonna go through the whole thing...I
mean, just the whole topics next class, okay? Last thing tonight is I wanted you
to know the names of the three books we're gonna be studying. There's this
famous story of this American, young hippie who went to India to learn
Buddhism, and was in a Tibetan class in 1973 or something four, and went to the
train station to go to Delhi for some visa thing, and there was this big hussle and
bustle and there were all these attendents coming in and out of this room in the
railway station, and so we asked, you know, "Who's in there?" And they said,
"The senior tutor of His Holiness." So we ran and bought these lousy, little
Indian cakes. And, you know, the train is coming, right? And we ran into the
room and we wanted to offer them to him. And the head of the Tibetan library
was standing behind him. And we prostrated and, you know, like we knew, like
twenty words of Tibetan, and he says, "What are you studying nowadays?" And
we were studying Shantideva's [b: Bodhicharyavatara], but we didn't know how
to say it. And we didn't know the name of the book we were studying. And the
library director was standing behind him going, "Bodhi-...Bodhicharya-"...
[laughs] [laughter] 'cause he was getting embarrassed, you know. The moral of
the story is you should know the name of the book you're studying, okay? I'm
gonna give them to you in order...and then that's the last thing tonight.

[silence]

You don't have to put this on your homework, but I thought...you know, it's
good to have that seed in your mind, okay? Say...well, I'll write it first.

[silence]

Say {dulwa} [repeat] {gyatsu} [repeat] {nyingpo} [repeat].       {Dulwa} [repeat]
{gyatsu} [repeat] {nyingbo} [repeat]. {Dulwa} means...

[student: Discipline.]

Vinaya, yah, Buddhist discipline. That you gotta know, okay? I mean, if the
Dalai Lama's friend shows up or something and says, "What are you studying?"
You say, "Dulwa." "Ooh..." [laughs] [laughter] Okay? {Gyatsoy} means, what?
Tendzin Gyatso is His Holiness' name. Ocean. Okay? In Mongolian?

[student: {Gyatso}.]

No, what...{gyatsoy} is Tibetan. What about in Mongolian?

[student: [unclear].]

Nope. What's the Mongolian? [Dalai]. That's the [dala] in Dalai Lama. Okay?
Dalai lama means {gyatsoy lama}. So {gyatsoy} is...Tibetan for ocean. {Nyingpo}
is the very essence, okay? The very essence. So this is a book called the...the
essence of the ocean of vinaya. And the story is that the author of this book
took those huge four commentaries--the explanatory sutras--and took the very
essence out of them. He's giving you the very essence in a few pages, okay?
Who would do something like that?

[silence]

He's always doing things like that, okay? First he writes the thousand page
commentary and then for normal people he writes the three, four page one,
okay? And that was by Je Tsongkapa. And his, his...I like you to know his years.

[silence]
This is a summary of the entire contents of the vinaya in about three pages...four
pages, okay? It's extraordinary, and it's wonderful, and...etcetera. And you're
gonna study the whole thing. We have located a commentary on it, you know.
We're in different countries looking for what's left of the Tibetan Buddhist
scriptures and in many countries we're searching to find the ones that were
destroyed in Tibet. And we found this one. And it's very beautiful. Short name.
Say {nyingje} [repeat] {nyingje} [repeat]. {Nying} means "day" and {je} means "to
make." So what is {nyin je}? {Nyin} means daytime and {je} means make. So
{nyin je} is...it, it's called daymaker. And it means the sun. It's a...it's a poetic
word for sun. And it means that if you open this book and study it, you'll be like
shedding sunlight on the true meaning of this book, okay? I mean, it'll be bright
as day. If you open this book and study it, then you'll...it'll be like turning on a
huge torch, you know, spotlight on this book, and you'll understand what it
means. It expands on Tsongkapa's text. That's by...

[silence]

And it...it's just good to know and to appreciate all the trouble these lamas went
through. So you should learn his name: Master Ngulchu Dharma Bhadra.
His...his name was Sanskrit, but he's a Tibetan. He was one of the few Tibetan
lamas who was given a Sanskrit name. Ngulchu means quicksilver and it's
significant in Tibetan because it's...traditionally in alchemy this was the main
ingredient.        This lama has the ability to turn iron into gold...I mean,
philosophically speaking...or maybe really, I don't know. But he wrote this
commentary. His dates are...

[silence]

He is one of the most important lamas of the Vajrayogini lineage.         His
commentary was the basis of Pabongka's commentary which is the basis of most
study of this lineage in this world right now, and very incredible lama. And
there's one more commentary we'll be using, and that's the end of the
class...almost on time.

[silence]

Say {yishin} [repeat] {norbu} [repeat] {yishin} [repeat] {norbu} [repeat]. {Yishin
norbu}...{norbu} means a jewel.            {Norbu} means a jewel.          {Yishin}
means...wishfulfilling, wish-fulfilling jewel. This is the Aladin's Lamp of Asia,
okay? There's supposed to be this jewel that if you find it in a swamp, and dig it
out, and wash it with these special perfumes, and treat it with a special cloth, and
then you put it up on the top of a victory banner, and then you make offerings
to it, there comes this transformation of this jewel. And then you can...anything
you can wish for you get, you know? Any-...you just think about the jewel, and
you make a wish and then you have it. And that's called a {yishin norbu}. This is
the name of an important commentary on the vinaya. It's also the name of...it's
the Tibetan name for His Holiness, okay? The Tibetans don't call the Dalai Lama
"Dalai Lama." They call him {Yishin Norbu}. And it's sort of an affectionate name.
I mean all over India and Tibet, people refer to His Holiness as {Yishin Norbu}.
They don't...they don't say Dalai Lama. It's a beautiful word. The author... Say
{Chone Lama} [repeat] {Drakpa Shedrup} [repeat]. {Chone Lama} [repeat]
{Drakpa Shedrup} [repeat]. His dates are...

[silence]

Most of the major monasteries in Tibet--the Gelukpa monasteries--there are six
major colleges, two each of the three major monasteries. Each college had its
own textbook series. In Sera Mey, which is the greatest monastery of Tibet
[laughs], we had two sets of textbooks, and the second set was written by Chone
Drakpa Shedrup. He's from Amdo. Chone Lama means the lama from Chone,
which is a section in Amdo, which is east Tibet. And the Amdo writers had this
extraordinary ability to explain things much as a Westerner...like a Western
scientist would. They were very precise...very...they went through the subject
very methodically. And they asked all the questions that you or I would ask. So
his works are especially wonderful to study. They have been missing for forty
years. All the copies were contained in the library of Sera Mey, which was
bombarded by Chinese artillery in March of '59, and totally burned. So we've
been looking for over thirty-five years for a copy--it's twelve volumes--and we
found one in St. Petersburg...in the collection there. So you'll be the first people
ever to study this commentary...in modern times. And we...that's a hundred and
forty pages long, and it's extraordinary. It's a beautiful commentary. So we're
gonna study parts of that commentary as well. The...the...Sera Mey is trying to
reprint it right now. But we have copies here, so...so you guys will be studying
it. That's about it. I think just try to keep in mind the motivation, you know?
It's...sometimes easy to collect Buddhist knowledge without collecting Buddhist
realizations. And, you know, try to think of vinaya in the way that Tsongkapa
mentions it. When you read the reading, it's a very, very beautiful letter that Je
Tsongkapa wrote. He had two famous disciples who are up there: Gyaltsab Je
and Kedrup Je. Gyaltsab Je, on his right hand man and Kedrup Je. And you
never hear about his other great disciples. One was the first Dalai Lama, Gendun
Drup, and one was Ngawang Drakpa. Ngawang Drakpa trained with Je
Tsongkapa. Je Tsongkapa trained him thoroughly, then he took him in a room
and said I'm sending you to East Tibet, and I want you to make a hundred
monasteries and ordain a bunch of monks, and then you can come back. So...so
he's sending to like nowhere. He's sending to Gyalrong. Gyalrong...we have a
deep connection with Gyalrong because our root lama Khen Rinpoche came
from Gyalrong House. Pabongka Rinpoche came from Gyalrong House. You
are all unofficially members of Gyalrong House. This is a small college inside of
Sera Mey. So he sent him out to Gyalrong, which is a very border of China, and
he said go found a hundred monasteries, and he actually did it. But he was very
lonely out there, he missed Tsongkapa a lot, and he kept sending Je Tsongkapa
love letters.      And they're very beautiful; they're very touching.        And Je
Tsongkapa kept sending him these wonderful letters full of advice. One of them
is the [b: Three Principle Paths] which is probably one of the most famous
Tibetan commentaries ever written. It's actually part of a letter that Tsongkapa
wrote to this guy that he banished out to east Tibet. One day Ngawang Drakpa
was able to ordain the first monks in that province. And he was very happy and
very proud, and he sent Je Tsongkapa a letter. And then Je Tsongkapa, out of
joy, wrote an explanation of why ethical way of life is necessary to reach nirvana.
Why you must have a pure conscience to get perfect meditation and then to see
emptiness directly. So he wrote this beautiful poem about it. And that poem is in
your reading. That's the first time it's ever been translated, I think. So, enjoy it.
And try to get the spirit of vinaya, you know? Get pumped up for your study
from that poem. It's very beautiful. And it comes from his heart. When you
read it, it's like, the...the end is very, very touching, you know? He's saying, if
you study vinaya perfectly and then see emptiness and reach nirvana, and then
later reach Buddhahood, then you and I can enter paradise on the same day, and
we'll share the cup of immortality together. It's very...really beautiful. So, you
know, try to read that and try to get pumped up for it. Okay, we'll do a short
meditation, like just for three or four minutes. I know it's hard at the end of class
because you'll invariably think of the bus you have to catch or something, but
try to think...try to be happy about the class. It's a great opportunity. I don't
think vinaya is taught at all in this country, that I'm aware of...very little. And
you're very select, you know? You're very special. It's a very special chance to
study something holy. So be happy about it, think about it, and then we'll do
some prayers. Who's the chanting master in this class? Anyway...you wanna try
Vil-...Vilma?

[student, Vilma: Yah.]
Okay. So, when I make this sign, you start the ending prayers. The ending
prayers are in your book, also. We'll do the mandala offering, and then we'll do
the {ngowa], which is a dedication, okay? So...but first we'll do a little meditation.

[End]
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