ACI 9 «Этическая жизнь», занятие 5

Class five – General Description of the Vows, Part Two
Geshe Michael Roach

Transcriber: Joseph Schuster
Proof: Su Foo

Okay welcome back. Ahh. Let’s review where we were, okay. ‘cause I hardly
remember myself. I had somebody run here and get the notes this afternoon.
Let’s say you’re a lady and you wanna reach nirvana then what are the steps you
have to go through, cause that’s where we’re going to pick up tonight. So I think
… which of the {pratimoksha} vows would you take first. Talking about a lady.
If you’re going to do it … in Tibetan its called. I’ll show you.
Say {nye me}[repeat]
{pun sok} [repeat]
Okay {nye} means problem, ‘bad thing’, {me} ‘no problem’. {nye me} means like
faultless or perfect, okay. nye me}. {Nye me} means without a problem. Yeah
in the bodhisattva vows a {nye me} is our dear friend which is exceptions to the
bodhisattva vows, like in general you committed if you do that, but you can do
that or you can do this and still get away with it. Okay [laughter] but in {vinaya
pratimoksha} vows it has a different meaning. So {nye me} means ‘no problem’
and {pun sok} means like ‘excellent, perfect’. And {nye me pun sok} is a special
expression in the vinaya and it refers to getting to your full ordination vows the
right way, like just the right way. Okay like you can do it. Like you can do it not
the right way, or just the right way. Okay and just the right way in vinaya means
going through the vow in order. Taking them in order. Technically you can skip
to a higher vow, or you take them in the same day. I did. You know you can
take your novice vows and your full ordination vow in the same day for
example. That is recognized as a way to take the vows. It’s not considered
perfect. It’s like if you could go through them one by one and hang out in the
vows for a while and take them gradually, that’s the ideal situation. So this really
means ideal. This is the ideal way to take the vows. And we were talking about
a woman, okay who wants to take,let’s say the woman wants to take full
ordination if it existed okay, in the Tibetan tradition. So lets say they want to
take full ordination where would they start?
[student:[unclear]]
Even before that. Okay. Ideally this means ideal, you should take your {genyen
ma} vows first. Okay so I’ll write it up here. {Genyen ma} is which vow do you
remember? Life lay woman’s vows. Agreeing to keep for the whole length of
your life lay woman’s vows, okay. How many vows are there?
[student:[unclear]]
Y. Okay which are… do you remember?
[student:[unclear]]
Okay. No alcohol and no [student:[[unclear]] Yeah, yeah okay. Those are the
five so really it’s the … it’s more or less four basic ones. Well I wouldn’t even say
that its those five. So five vows. Although there are other versions of that vow
but that’s the main one. Also to keep what? Something else. Yeah, to keep the
advices on going for refuge. Okay I mean that’s an integral part. People don’t
count that when they count the vows but its really like half the vow is, is are you
going to take refuge properly. Does that mean swearing, I mean when I was
growing up, frankly as a Christian, and they said ‘thou shan’t not have no other
gods than me’ and ‘thou shall not bow down to any graven image’. Or things
like that and I carried that over into Buddhism and I thought if I’m being a good
… if I’m taking refuge properly, I have to believe in a new statue, you know, like
I have to … when I take refuge I have to think of this statue instead of a crucifix,
you know like I was thinking I have to change statues, you know and I mean
when you say take refuge in the Buddha I’m afraid that’s what comes up
naturally in a person who grew up in the west. Its, its I have to do what I had to
do when I was a kid which is I have to go to this place and I have to look at the
thing on the alter and I have to put all my faith and trust in that statue. And I
don’t get anything out that. That’s always been a problem for me. You know?
I mean I could pray to the statue or not pray to this statue and my life pretty
much went the same. So that’s not what refuge is. And I mean that’s the advices
on refuge. Refuge is a state of mind where you’re putting all your hope and
trust in what that being represents and in the case of two of the three refuge
objects it is what? It involves seeing emptiness directly. You become sangha
refuge when you see emptiness directly. The ultimate dharma refuge is to see
emptiness directly. So the minute you see emptiness directly you already two of
the three…objects. You become what we … we’d think was god or something.
You know what I mean? You become the thing which every one else is bowing
to. And the thing that everyone else is taking refuge to. And you actually
become that thing. Later on when you reach Buddhahood you become the first
refuge object. So I mean when you think about a person who is committing
themselves to a lifetime vow, think about that. Don’t think … on’t get fooled
that. Don’t bring that thing over from your childhood where you’re taking
refuge in a picture. I mean Buddha doesn’t’ have to look like that at all. We
studied that in California. That’s the {chok ke trulku} the ultimate {nimanakaya}
that’s the ultimate way that they show themselves in the world but they don’t
have to look like that at all. they could be anybody. Don’t, don’t, don’t put the
buddhas down. Don’t think they can’t look like anything, they could look like
anybody around me. That’s not the point. The point is not how they look. The
point is how they think and what they do. And that’s what you’re taking refuge
in. It’s not … so I think that its really important that when you talk about taking
{gen yen} vows, lifetime laymen vows, that you’re taking the state of refuge in
your mind and you’re putting your hopes in something spiritual, you’re putting
your hopes for example in an ethical way of living. And that’s your refuge.
You’re not taking refuge so much in some divine being or something like that. I
mean its part of it but its not the main thing. The main thing is to understand
emptiness. Understand why you need to live and ethical way of living. And
that’s refuge. And that lead. Why? I almost said it for you. Why? Why is that
refuge? It protects you. If you don’t like the way life is going then take refuge,
because it protects you. Simply bowing before a picture of an Asian looking
person instead of a middle eastern looking person, who’s come to look like an
English person [laugher] it is not going to protect you. It won’t protect you. I
mean maybe there’s some small virtue. But it won’t protect you like keeping
your vows. Keeping your vows really protects you. Keeping that way of life
really protects you. That’s protection. And when you think about {gen yen}
when you think about lifetime vows really the whole point is that you have both
halves. You got, you’re taking refuge and you’re committing yourself to the
actions which are protection. And they go together. That’s why they go
together. And that’s taking {gen yen} vow. So it you’re going to do it ideally, in
the fully ideal way, if you’re going to become a fully ordained nun in the ideal
way you would first take {gey yen ma} . What would you take after that? Very
Close, but no cigar! This is a trick question. That’s a novice nun. But we’re
missing something. You have to take something between them. Do you
remember? Yeah to vow. .. Its not really a vow and it doesn’t count as a
{pratimoksha} vow but it’s a commitment to lead the home life. Its called {barma
rabjung}. Say {barma}[repeat]
{rabchum} [repeat]
{barma rabjung}.[repeat]
Its not one of the … how many {pratimoksha} vows?
[student:[unclear]]
Sets of vows I should say. eight. There’s eight sets of vows. Right? This doesn’t’
count as one of the eight. But it is a commitment that you have to make before
you make the next step up. Okay. If you’re going to be ordained you first have
to take{parma rabjung}. {parmarabchun} means ‘I agree to lead the home life.
I’m not going to try to do the family life anymore.’ Then you take {ge tsul ma}.
And {ge tsul} and {ge tsul ma} in its most basic form has how many vows? Do
you remember? You can say thirteen. Sometime they say ten and they leave
out the last three. That would be five and five or three and seven or what? Four
and six. alright. You guys are cool. Okay . Four plus six in its most basic form. I
mean you can divide into to… there’s also division into thirty-six, and there’s
another division into forty and there’s a division in thirteen. But we’re going to
talk ten. What are the four? Where do these four come from? Yeah they
actually come from the one day vows, the match the one day vows. Yeah
because you’re pledging to be celibate, right. So, this is the root four as expressed
in the one day vows. No killing anything really. No stealing over a certain
amount. No sexual misconduct. No lying. Okay. And then six which is what?
Where do these six come from?
[student:[unclear]]
Of the…? Of the one day vow. These come from the one day vow. But you split
one of the one day vows into two which is what?
[student:[unclear]]
Yeah. Dancing, etc. and ornaments etc. split into two. Which are… And then
dealing with mulah. Okay… all right and that makes ten. Which brings us up to
this class which we’re in tonight. Okay. The reason that we talked about a
woman in particular is that there’s an intermediate ordained vow that only
women take, men don’t have to take. And its called a {ge lob ma}. So its going
something like this; {ge lob ma} is a {ge tsul ma} with 1two more vows. So it the
ten, those ten, basically, okay plus twelve. To be {ge lob ma} means intermediate
nun. It’s before you reach your full nun’s vows. Those 1two are divide into two
sets of six. Okay? Say it {tsaway} [repeat]
{chu druk}[repeat] [repeat]
{tsawa} means: ‘root’ or ‘primary’.      {tsawa} means ‘primary’. {chu } means
‘things’. It means Dharma, right? Here it means things. It means things that
you agree to stop doing right? I mean that’s what it means here. And then
{druk} means six, number six. And this is five activities that are, that an
intermediate nun agrees to stop, to give up. Okay. I can’t tell you what they are.
You can’t learn them until you become ordained. They are in the root text and
they are in the commentary. And you’re going to get the reading tonight. But
when you get to that part it will have ‘dot, dot, dot’. Okay. I don’t think that we
can publish it. So I can’t tell you much more about it. They have to do with…a
lot of a … like getting into situations where you’d be in intimate contact with a
man, for example. That’s the kind of vows that are there. That’s {tsaway chu
druk}.
{jetun} {jetun} we’ve translated as ‘ancillary vows’ or ‘secondary vows, okay.
(Chu druk) is the same: six thing that you have to give up. I can’t again describe
them in detail but these mostly relate to activities that would be improper, for
example how you store food, whether or not you store food. Whether you can
eat food which has not been blessed properly, things like that. I can’t go into
much detail with it. So these are more serious, the first six, and the secondary
are less serious. Have to do with digging in the ground for example, which hurts
insects, stuff like that. Those are very roughly examples, I can’t go into much
detail but things that would be improper behavior for a person who’s about to
become a nun . A full nun. Okay. Excuse me?
[student:[unclear]]
I think that in most cases, a responsible Lama if he knew you that were about to
commit yourself to them he or she would, would describe them to you in detail
before you took them. I think that practically they do that. Somebody asked me
in the Tibetan class ‘so what’s the problem with knowing them’ and I promised
to ask Rimpoche and I haven’t done it yet. Okay. I don’t exactly know why. I
know that for example you can not give a {pratimoksha} vow to someone who
is just wants to check out … you know who is from another tradition. And who
more or less just wants to figure out what’s going on in Buddhism. And its not
because they have renunciation. It’s because they’re some kind of curious or
they want to incorporates some of it into their spiritual path or something like
that. And you’re not allowed to give {pratimoksha} vows to somebody who is
not committed to getting out of samsara, and who doesn’t understand what
samsara is to get out of. What is samsara? I mean in its most basic form the
reason that you’re taking these vows is to get to Nirvana, Nirvana is the
permanent cessation of your mental afflictions. So I mean mainly you have to be
tired of being unhappy. That’s very interesting. I mean, the reason to take
{pratimoksha} vows mainly is that you’re tired of your own mind being bad. It’s
interesting, because if you say…if you define {pratimoksha} vows as something
you take in order to get to Nirvana, nirvana is the absence of those bad
thoughts. So really what you’re committing yourself to is to keeping a code of
behavior in order not to be unhappy anymore. Okay. And if you take them for
any other reason, like, lets see what these guys do so we can incorporate it into
our new … into our latest book about something, something, you know. Then
that’s and improper motivation and we’re not allowed to give {pratimoksha}
vows to such a person. And they don’t, they don’t actually form. They can sit
through the ceremony, they can be listening, they can be repeating all of the
words properly, but if they don’t really, if they’re not fed up with being
unhappy, if they don’t want to get rid of the mental afflictions, then they can’t
take vows, there’s no reason to take vows. The purpose to take vows is to get
rid of your mental afflictions primarily. Secondarily, you’ll get rid of your other
kinds of suffering, like your physical suffering, the fact of getting aging … old,
like that. Yeah
[student:[unclear]]
I can’t hear you
[student:[unclear]]
Oh, they are. They are. No I didn’t mean it only women but … I’m just doing a
woman’s case today at the beginning because they’re required to take a special
pre-ordination vow. They’re … I’ve heard a dharma rumor which I, which I
don’t want to repeat because I have not seen it confirmed in a scripture. So I
actually won’t repeat it ‘cos then people will think of it that way. I believe that …
I’ll repeat the dharma rumor. [laughs] [laughter] I’ve not seen it in a scripture
and I’ve not had it explained to me but I’ve heard this from some people. By the
way this vow is kept for two years only. Okay. It’s a commitment for … it’s a
two year commitment. You pledge to keep those twelve for two years. I’ve
heard, I don’t know if its true, that it might apply to women who are pregnant
and don’t know it when they take this vow. And then if they had taken full nuns
vows it would look very strange after nine months or something. So they
pledge to keep this vow for…you can take a {ge tsul ma} and a {ge lob ma} very
quickly after each other. So if you were already pregnant and you didn’t know
it, and then you took your full nun’s vows, and after a certain time they saw
nuns walking around with big tummies, people might think badly. So I’ve heard
that. It makes sense knowing that the vow lasts for two years only. That you
only commit yourself for two years. But I haven’t confirmed that okay. I’ll try
to confirm that before the end of the course. I have not seen that mentioned in
the text I’ve studied, but I have not studied it deeply. Yeah.
[student:[unclear]]
Oh, you can. Absolutely. Absolutely. Mental. Mental suffering.
[student:[unclear]]
No you can go through … I mean the Dalai Lama was the single wealthiest
person in Tibet. And had pretty much total authority over every part of Tibet.
And to be a king is not like to be a president. A president has to follow the laws.
A king in the old sense of the way, owns everything in the country. They can
come to your house and say ‘that I want your car’ and you have to give them
your car. You know? I mean that’s a king! And they say that the Dalai Lama
while he was overseeing this country of 6 million people, five000 monasteries,
you know obviously extremely busy, and all they cared … the only possessions
they thought they owned … there’s a famous quotation by one of the Dalai
Lamas ‘the only thing in my mind that I own is my bell and my {dorje}’, you
know? Those are the only two things that I own, those are the only two things
that I care about to own. I don’t feel that the rest is mine. They had the Potala
Palace, it has … I don’t know like five hundred rooms or something, and they
didn’t feel … I mean, its possible, the goal is to reach a state where your mind is
totally clean. And totally … it’s a very interesting concept. It would be like,
some kind of a golden window or something and if you got there, if your mind
got there, you would never again be upset at work. You would never again be
unhappy. You would never again be nervous or irritated; you would just be
totally … your mind would be totally clean throughout. That can only be done
by seeing emptiness directly. There is no other way, and it’s not like an instant
result of seeing emptiness directly, it is the result of a long period of practice, in
the world after you see emptiness directly. And we studied that a lot, that’s a
long story. But you must see emptiness directly and then you must apply that
understanding for a long period of time, and then you can reach that place. But,
but you would be…and at that point your body has not changed. It comes later,
that comes later, so really you have a piece of samsara left over. They call {tack-
che}. Its a piece left over. There are still parts of you that are suffering, but your
mind is not suffering. And you can do that and that would be a really wonderful
thing to take to work you know. I mean it would be very unusual to have a
person at work, under the pressure of a normal office, under the normal stresses
and screaming people and demands on your morality, you know.. “could you
just lie a little bit today? We need this deal closed” you know? To keep it in
those conditions is … really you haven’t reached nirvana if you cant keep it in
those conditions. So it would be good to be in those conditions. Because then
you’d know if you’d got there or not. I mean, if your going to sit in a cave and
not get angry at anybody, so big deal. You know?
[student:[unclear]]
Well there’s a point at which you should be in a cave, okay. [laughs] And then
you should come out and go to the office. And probably you have to go back a
few times. Like many times. You need both. You really do need both. And
people should do both. At least a couple of times a year you should go work on
it in meditation and then bring it back. Okay? That’s {ge lob ma}. Those two
sets of vows. Yeah?
[student:[unclear]]
We’re going to talk about it right now Sabhuti [laughter]. She asked ‘who can
give you these vows’. There’s a thing like this…I’ve got to make sure I spell it
right. {Ulu}[repeat] and {ta kob}[repeat] . There’s a lot of unique vinaya
expressions. And I… we’ll go through a few of them. {Ulu} means a central
land, okay. Middle Kingdom. A civilized country. {Ul} means ‘country’. {u}
means ‘central’. A central land. What’s called a civilized country from a Buddhist
point of view, okay. And {takob} refers to an uncivilized country. A barbarian
land. From a Buddhist point of view. {Takob} means ‘out lying land’. An
outlying land . {ulu} means a place where the Buddhism is firmly established.
And {takob} means a place where its not established firmly. And there’s all the
arguments about what means firmly and you know. As you can imagine. The
vinaya, has hundreds of pages about what is…what makes a {ul} a {ulu}.
Roughly, very roughly, you can in general consider a country a Buddhist
country once the sangha are performing {sojong} on a regular basis. I mean, A
country is considered a Buddhist country once a sangha are, are performing
sojong on a regular basis. Okay, I mean a country is considered a Buddhist
country once there’s a sangha, meaning four or five fully ordained people
holding {sojong}, holding the confession ceremony, on a regular basis twice a
month. Then you can say that Buddhism has reached that country. So as far as I
know its being done only definitely in New Jersey. And I believe that there’s
now a group in Maryland that’s doing it. So you can call maybe the eastern
seaboard a Buddhist country. {ulu} means firmly established though. And
{takob} means Buddhist country but not firmly established. In a {ulu} to make a
{ge lob ma} you must have a quorum of twelve {ge long ma), twelve fully
ordained monks … nuns must be present for that ceremony. Okay, twelve.
No no to make a {ge lob ma} to make an intermediate nun it takes twelve {ge
long ma} fully ordained nuns. The requirements for the abbess are especially
stringent. And it would probably be difficult to find someone who had perfect
all the requirements, they’re very difficult to have. I mean they require keeping
your vows for a very long time. Not having broken major ones. Its very strict
to be a real abbess. Meaning the mistress of the ceremony, right. Matress of the
ceremony? I mean to be the one who directs the ceremony, the nun, its very
difficult. In an outlying land six {ge lo mas} is enough. Six {ge lo mas}. So
normally the ceremony is presided over by a nun. A fully ordained nun.
Normally. There are certain requirements as far as the woman’s dress. She has
to have two of the three standard robes. There are three standard robes that
you have to have. Before she actually takes the vows she has to possess, she has
to have those three robes ready. She has to have a begging bowl. Okay. She
has to have all the requirements of a fully ordained person except for one of the
outer robes. She has to have two of the robes. And she has to have taken {ge
tsul ma} before. Okay. She has to have taken this vow before. Now whether it
was done in the extended way of going through each and keeping each for a
while, which is the ideal way to do it, it’s not, it’s not … that’s the best way to do
it, but in either case even if she takes her {ge lo ma} vow the same day that she
takes her novice nun vow, she must take the novice nun’s vow first. She must
take this first. And then she has to do a certain ceremony, of requesting her
vows from the, from the full nun who gives them. And that’s called a ceremony
of a double request. When you do the higher vows it’s a different ceremony. So
its called a double request. And then she can become a {ge lo ma}. Can she then
become a {ge lo ma bikshuni}? {bikshuni} A fully ordained nun. Alright. And
we’re going to talk about that after the break. But there’s one step that this lady,
this intermediate nun has to go through before she can take a {ge long ma}. And
that’s … it’s that another vow? Is that another {pratimoksha} vow? No. There
ain’t no more female vows than these and the one day lady’s vows, right. So its
not another {pratimoksha} vow. Its another commitment that she has to make.
It’s a little bit similar to this number two here. Which is not a vow but is a
commitment. She has to make another commitment at the end of the two years.
And its called {nerne kyi tsultrim}[repeat]
{tsang chu nerne kyi tsulrim{ [repeat]
{tsang} means pure, bhrama in sanskrit.        {tsang} means pure. {chu} means
activity. Generally speaking {tsang chu pa} means to observe celibacy. To
observe celibacy. {tsangchu}. {Nerne} means to keep it especially well. Okay.
{nerne}and {tsulrim} means morality. Sometimes they call it a {domba} which is
a vow, but then other texts say its not a real vow. So you’re going to confuse
people if you call it a vow, so let’s call it a way of living where you commit
yourself to a level of pure activity. Now I’ve never seen yet a good explanation
of what this entails. And in Tibet you can’t take this vow anymore anyway. You
can’t take a {ge lob ma} and you can’t take a {sangchu} vow. The lineage has
been broken. In Tibet. So they don’t cover it a whole lot except in theory.
[student:[unclear]]
What’s that? {sheshin}[unclear]] There’s dharma rumor… I mean apparently
there may be a. … a … a still authentic transmission of the full nuns vows in, in
other countries, like some people have said Taiwan, Singapor, Hong Kong,
China, Vietnam. But we haven’t been able to confirm it yet. I mean, His
Holiness is studying it. Okay we haven’t been able to confirm it yet. I had a
very aggressive California nun as me ‘well how would you confirm it’. And I
said that’s His Holiness’ job not my job. And then they said ‘well you’re teaching
Buddhism you’d better figure it out’ you know and I said, well if it were me,
which its not, I would go observe the ceremony and see if its authentic. You
know are there twelve fully ordained nuns there and the central nun. If its not,
are there six fully ordained nuns there. Does the current abbess have all of the
qualifications of an abbess. Even if the tradition had been authentic up to the
present time, if they weren’t doing it that way now, it’s broken. As far as I
understand it. Rinpoche always says that’s not very far [laughs] that would be
my first. Then I would try to establish whether or not that had always been
done that way. Because if it had not …if there’s ever been a twenty year period
where it had not been done that way I believe that you would say that the
transmission had been broken. Now how do you prove that. I mean, you’d go
back and try to study records of ordinations and things like that. That’s all I can
think of. I don’t know of any other. I guess you’d want to look at the vows and
see if …. we see that there are certain kinds of customs that have sprung up in
countries such as Thailand of taking a lifetime vow for three months and we
don’t recognize that. That’s not in the eight {pratimoksha} vows. Is it useful? I
think that it may be very useful. Is it a {pratimokaysha} vow? I don’t believe so.
I’ve never seen that in the {pratimoksha} vows. I don’t believe that its in the
{vinaya}, but … so you have to check it out. Things have to be pure. Yeah?
[student:[unclear]]
No you need twelve of these to make this. That’s a problem
[student:[unclear]]
No it takes twelve of number six to make one of number four. You see what I
mean? If there’s not twelve of number six around in the world you can’t … in a
central land you can’t make any more new nuns.
[student:[unclear]]
Right. yeah. A monk, for example, can give these vows and a {ge tsul ma} can
give these vows. I believe in extra ordinary circumstances a monk may be able
to give these vows, but I won’t to …. don’t quote me okay. But I don’t believe
that you can get these vows except through a very difficult ceremony with a
very stringent number of nuns and things like that. Yeah?
[student:[unclear]]
Yeah
[student:[unclear]]
.Right. There’s a thing called a {ngun chok} and a {dak chok} okay. {[unclear] }
and {[unclear] }. {[unclear] } means …I mean there’s a big. There’s a debate that
comes up in the vinaya at this very point in the scripture and it says, could you
become a... you know that’s interesting. Anyway. Could you become a full…let
me think how it goes. Actually I wrote it down. Let me make sure I get it
straight. {nga chok} means… Did we go over that? In the first five years of the
Buddha’s teaching monks and nuns were made by about twelve different
methods, ncluding the Buddha saying Wilma come, come to me. And then your
hair would fall off and your clothes would change into a nun’s clothes and Ken
would be upset at me. [laughter] No [laughs] That’s .. that’s one way. And
then it’s like there’s by letter. The Buddha sent a letter to someone and said
you’re a nun now. You know? That was the ordination. And like that. And
that’s recognized as a real ordination. And after that first five years of the
Buddha’s teaching he changed and he said from now on it has to be like this. It
has to be twelve nuns in a central land. It has to be six nuns in an outlying land
and he made rules that if it weren’t that it would not be a transmission of the
blessing of the vows. And that’s all I’ve… I don’t know much more than that.
We’re going to be studying it. We’ll get back to you in about six years. There’s
things called {le} there’s things called {le gi cho ga}. {le gi cho ga} means a real
vinaya activity. And there’s a hundred or a hundred and something for monks
for example. In many of those activities there has to be a quorum present. You
know. Why was it that way? I, I don’t…you know I could go check in a
scripture, but I think mainly its that you’re making a very serious commitment
and perhaps that there should be enough people present to witness that
commitment. You know. I’ve heard that some kinds of weddings are like that.
You know. They make it a big deal in some traditions because you’ll be afraid to
get divorced after that, because there’s like four hundred people were invited.
And you would be embarrassed. I think that that’s part of the point is that there
would be enough people around you in your immediate life, twelve people were
present when you took those vows. Like I remember the people who were
present when I took my vows. And when I’m around them I feel especially
responsible to keep them. So it may be like that thing in the Boddhisattva vows,
where being embarrassed to break them in front of the people you took them
plays a large goal … plays a large role in keeping them well. But I, I haven’t
seen exactly it stated directly. There are scriptures that state it but I haven’t
studied them yet. Is there any other way to become a full nun in the present day
according to….okay let’s skip those first five years of the Buddha’s teaching. Is
there any other way to become a full nun in the present day aside from going
through these either as a slow process which is ideal or going through then in a,
you know, doing the two of them in one day and stuff like that. Which is okay.
Which is allowed you do get your vows. Is there any other way to become a
full nun. And that just gave me an idea about restoring the nun’s vows. If a full
monk changes sexes, he becomes a full nun. She becomes a full nun.
they’d become a full nun. [laughs] Okay. So maybe she’d find twelve guys
willing to…
[student:[unclear]]
Yeah, oh yeah. There are cases in the ancient history when…
[student:[unclear]]
I mean …
[student:[unclear]] [laughter]
I know, I know. Apparently in the .. . apparently in the old days there’d be some
thing that could happen half way through your life or your sex actually changes
naturally. I don’t believe that it refer to an artificial sex change, but I’m not sure
about that But it was where actually what we call the sexual energy which is
called {mo wang mo} or {po wang mo}it actually changes into … you become a
woman. And I don’t want to …I can’t say much more about that. It’s
recognized in scripture. And in ancient times apparently it was not uncommon
because it’s mentioned a lot, that it’s possible for the sex to change half way
through you life. And in fact it can happen more than once. And as we’re going
to study in the next class, if it happens more than three times you lose your
vows. [laughs] [laughter] or if it happens three times. {[unclear]} it happens.
[student:[unclear]]
I mean more than twice, how’s that? Three times or more. {nam som gyor} So I
guess in theory if you had twelve monks, fully ordained monks who that, that
happened to they could restore the… I didn’t think about that. But that’s
another way to get to {ge-long-ma} without going through this, so there’s only
two ways. And that’s why I brought it up. You can either live in the first five
years of the Buddha’s teaching or you can be a fully ordained monk who
becomes a fully ordained nun by changing sex. And sex has a lot to do with the
vows. And the sexual energy has a lot to do with the vows. And we’ll talk a
little bit about it next time. What happens to a {ge-lob-ma} if she changes sexes?
See there’s no {ge-lob-pa} there’s no male version of this. So she becomes a {ge
tsul}. She becomes a {ge tsul}, okay. And for that reason when they group the
vows by type, its called {ze}. this {ge lobma} is included into the {ge tsul} and the
{ge tsul ma} vows. So although there are eight separate groups of {pratimoksha}
vows, by type, there’s a thing called essence or essential nature and when you
divide this by {ze}, that {ge lob ma} vow would be grouped with the {ge tsul} and
the {ge tsul ma}. So those two would be grouped together as being of the same
general type. Okay Prolo, don’t worry about it. [laught] It must happen a lot
because it comes in the scripture.. Apparently in ancient India for some reason
or another it must have happened a lot because … even physically the change
happening. Because it’s been described in the scriptures. There are also like, if
you want to get into it, five kinds of male-ness, five kinds of female-ness,
hermaphrodites…anyway, we’re going to get into that next week. In other
words there is something about the pure sexual energy of a male or a female
which helps the vows to grow. That we don’t believe for example that a person
who doesn’t have that energy can keep vows. Because according to the scripture
it affects the stability of their mind. Apparently if you have all your hormones
in tact actually literally makes you… it has an effect on you mind. And people
who don’t, like people who have been neuterized or something like that, they,
they can’t take vows. There’s something that happens about their… the lack of a
sexual energy means that their minds are not as stable. Or as strong minded.
Strong willed. Their willpower is somehow affected and they can’t keep …
they’re not an appropriate physical body to take vows. And that also applies to
higher teachings. You have to have that …that has a real downside in that
it’s….it’s…it’s so, it can be abused so much, the sexual energy. But it has a upside
that it gives you a tremendous strength and you can use it for very good things
if you use it properly. And you’d need it for certain kinds of teachings. Okay
we’ll take a break. And then we’ll cover full nun’s and full monks vows in
absolutely no detail. [laughs]
But I wanted you to get a taste of how those vows build on one another. I think
you got some taste of that, and how they’re building on each other. Okay {ge
long ma}. Or a {ge long} you just cut this out okay. But we’re going to start with
the {ge long ma}. And I can’t tell you much about these vows because I’m not
supposed to. And I was even hesitant to have a course called Vinaya because it
would get around to the monks in the world and the nuns that I was teaching
vinaya to non-ordained people and I would get in trouble. [laugh] but I can tell
you some general things. And that’s what I’m going to do.
Say it: {tung wa de nga}[repeat].
{tung wa} means, and {tung wa} is the same as {sung wa} and they both mean ‘to
trip’ or ‘fall down’ you can call them falls. {tungwa}.
{de} means ‘a group’ and {na} means five. The five groups of falls. Fall means
here breaking a vow. Okay and there are five groups into which the nun’s vows
and the monk’s vows fall. And I’m going to give you the names of the five
groups and describe them very briefly but nothing precise. Okay.
Say it: {pamba}[repeat]
 {pam} means ‘to lose’ like if you have a football game and you lose that’s
{pamba} okay. {pamba} means to be defeated. This is the most serious group of
vows. The most serious groups of falls. And {pamba ge da} a nun, a full nun, has
eight of these. There’s a nice section of the reading that you see that I left in there
that explains why they are called defeats. I translate them as defeats. There are
eight defeats. And in all the vinaya scriptures I’ve seen they’re called defeats
because you mental afflictions defeat you. If you commit one of these its
normally because your mental afflictions have defeated you. And then
obviously they’re going to promote your mental afflictions very badly. These
vows damage …these falls damage the vows very, very seriously. And in fact
some groups of Buddhists, although not the one that we follow, some groups of
… some schools of ancient India believed that if you committed one of these that
you lose your vows completely. That you lose all you vows. Okay. So these
were very serious. We’re going to talk about that next time. Our particular
school that we belong to in vinaya does not believe that. But these are so
serious that there have been groups of Buddhist’s schools, Buddhist’s schools of
ancient India that have said that if you commit one of these eight you lose all you
vows altogether. Even in our school they are damaged very, very badly, Like
irreparably damaged. I’ll tell you that for a full monk they pretty much
correspond to the root four. Make sense? I mean the most serious forms of
those four. The four of the {ge tsul} . The root four of the {ge tsul}. Roughly.
Pretty much correspond to that. I don’t know for a fact in the case of these eight.
I assume that they include those four and maybe four others. Okay. But I
couldn’t tell you if I knew.
{hlakma}. {hlak-ma} means remainder. Literally means remainder. What’s the
favorite Tibetan soup of all time? Tibetan soup in Tibetan. {tupa} and leftover
soup is called {tup-hlak} so you get a sense of what {hlak} means. {hlak-che}
Nirvana is what? {hlak-che} where you still have {hla-ma}. That’s that point
where your mind is totally pure, but you still have this suffering body. And
when you get rid of this suffering body that’s {hlak me} no more {hlak-ma}. So
you get a sense of what {hlak-ma} means. {hlak ma} means a ‘left over’. How
come there’s no such thing as a {mo-hlak}. What’s a {mo}? And slurred in
modern Tibetan is {mo-mo}. Tibetan dumplings, right. Like you never hear that
there’s {mo-hlak} for dinner because they always eat all of them. “Cos they love
them. This is a national food. There’s no such word as I’ve ever heard anyone
say {mo-hlak, which is leftover {mo-mos}. There’s always leftover {tu hlak}. Left
over {tu pa} Like ‘what are you having for dinner?’ and they always say {tu-
hlak} and they say ‘not {tu-hlak} again, you know? Leftover tupa. So {hlak-ma}
means remainder.
{{Tibetan]} Twenty. What’s the difference between a {hlak-ma} and a {pamba} ?
A {hlak-ma} is less serious than a {pamba} and more serious than the next one.
And that’s it. That’s all it says. The literal meaning of {hlak-ma, {pak pa}…{hlak
ma} is that you still have something left over that you could repair, and get the
vow back to just about normal. Which implies with a {pamba} its got some
irreparable damage. But then the text always says, don’t take these words too
literally. Okay. I mean they have their own flavors of what they mean in
general but you’re going to see that they are not … these literal explanations are
not airtight. They’re not like … what’s the Tibetan word for nirvana?
{nyang de me depa} {ngyang-de} transcending all grief. Now do you transcend
all grief if you reach {nyang}….well you do but … is it just the kind of grief of
losing your mother or something like that? No. So in some cases the words
used in Buddhism are not totally descriptive. They’re just a general word that
sounds like that thing. So these are generally descriptive words but they’re not
airtight definitions or anything like that. The definition of a {hlak-ma} is that
member in the five groups which is less serious than the one before and more
serious than the next one. And that’s all. You could have called it serious level
number one, serious level number two , and serious level number three. Say it
{tung-je}[repeat]
{tung} means what? To fall. Okay. {je} means makes you fall. We translate it as
downfall which is not the same as the general name for all of these things which
is called {tung wa}. So don’t confuse them. {tung wa} means a fall. {tung-je}
means a downfall. We’re trying to distinguish between the two. And its called a
downfall because if you commit one of these it takes you to the lower realms. It
makes you fall down to the lower realm. Well is it not the case that these two
makes you do the same thing? Sure. So again the word is not exclusive its just
meant … they’re trying to give you a flavor of what it means. Okay {tung-jey} .
There’s two types of {tung jes}. They are normally split into two groups. Okay.
Two kinds of {tung jes}. Two kinds of downfall. Say it {pang tung}. {Pang}
means to give up something. {Pang} means to give up something. {tung} stands
for {tung- je} meaning a downfall. So {pang tung} means a downfall where you
have to … its called release something. You have to give up something. And
these are a certain group of vows where in order to fix what you did, you have
to give up something for a certain period of time. Okay. For example if you
kept a possession longer than the period allowed by the vinaya, in the vinaya,
the strict vinaya, which would be very cool to live that way, you don’t have any
possessions basically. You own your robes. You own your bowl. You own
your strainer that you strain your water with so you don’t kill bugs. And you
might own a parasol so you don’t burn your bald head. But you’re not even
allowed to own much more than that. If you do happen to, let’s say get some
cloth, with the intention of making them into robes because your old robes have
all worn out or something. and you’re going to throw them away or something,
and you keep the cloth too long without making it into a robe, which means
now you’re getting possessive about the cloth, right? It was kind of pretty and
you wanted to have it and … to purify yourself you have to separate yourself
from that cloth, you have to give up that cloth before you … as you do the act
of confession. So there’s, I think its thirty-three … a nun has thirty-three of
these. A full nun. Where she has to give up something in order to fix them.
Okay. {dung je bashig}[repeat] . {dung-je} means a downfall. And {bashig}
means a simple downfall, implying that you don’t have to go through giving up
something to fix it. So there’s two kinds of downfalls. {pan-tung} means fixing
this breaking of the vow requires giving up something. These don’t, but they’re
both types of downfalls. They both belong to group number three. On your
homework its going to say give the six groups, so what are you going to do?
You’re going to split this into two groups. This is going to be three ‘a’ and three
‘b’ and you’re going to come out with six. Although generally there’s only five
groups.
[student:[unclear]]
Oh {bashig} means simple. {bashig} means that you don’t have to give up
anything. You don’t have to take back anything or give back anything or leave
something. {bashig} means a simple downfall, which implies that you don’t have
to give up anything. For example the cloth that you kept too long because
actually you liked it and you’re attached to the cloth. I mean pure vinaya you
don’t own anything, and you need anything and you have no desires for
anything. And that’s the bottom line on a monk’s life. Ideally. There are lots of
{mig sel}. So in a special situation you’re allowed to keep the cloth. If you take
Bodhisattva vows you are required if offered twenty-five warehouses of cloth, to
keep them, get a hold of them acquire them, negotiate them, protect them, get
them into shipping containers and ship them somewhere where they’ll be of use
to somebody. You are required and that over-rides this. If you’re a monk and
you have Bodhisattva vows, the whole scene changes a lot. You’re required to
store cloth, and you’re required to have possessions if they’re of use to other
people. If by having possessions you can serve other people, you’re required to
have them. Okay. I mean it would be easier not to have them. But as a
bodhisattva monk, you’re required to have them in order to serve other people.
The flavor changes a lot. {dung je bashig} how many do they have? Ninety.
What differentiates a {tung-je} from a {hlak-ma}? What makes a bad deed in
group number three different from the bad deed in group number two? Just
less serious, okay. [laugh]. Its less serious than two but more serious than four.
Okay.
[student:[unclear]]
I haven’t seen anything that said that. That doesn’t mean that its not there. It’s a
good question. I don’t think so. I think that the distinction between these two is
whether or not you have to give up something as part of it.
[student:[unclear]]
I don’t think that it does. Not that I’m aware of. Could be wrong. This is not
ninety it’s one hundred and eighty. Say it {sor shak}[repeat] . Okay {Sor shak}
we have eleven. Why is it … why are these eleven put into a separate group?
No brainier please. [laugh] They’re less serious than number three. They’re
more serious than number five. Okay. And that’s the only thing that makes
them different.        Literally {sor-shak} means {sor-so-shakpa} {sor} means
individually. {shak} means to confess. You can say bad deeds or breaking a vow
that you have to confess individually. And they say a monk or a nun, a full
monk especially, during the {sojong} ceremony has to confess these one by one.
But that’s not … but that’s also true of the whole thing anyway so … it’s really
just another word for breaking a vow. And it’s just to indicate that these are
more serious than these. By the way once you get down to these number four
and five they get pretty minor. And when you study them you’ll see that. I
mean is not like these are big big major breakings of vows, okay. They’re all
physical and verbal don’t forget. Mostly. Okay. Almost always they are… they
are like … we’ll I can’t …I don’t want to get into it. But for example taking food
from certain improper people would be a {so-sor shak ….}. Okay? [laughs]
Number five. {nye} means bad. Say {nye-je}[repeat]. I’m putting a mental seed
in your mind so when you become ordained, in this life or the next , it’ll be easier
to memorize the {sor-jo} ceremony. Right? [laughter]. Say {nie-jey} there seems
to be some sort of obstacle to the {sojong} ceremony. Right? [lauhgs] Say {nie
je} [repeat]. Seems to some kind of kind of obstacle with the {sojong} ceremony.
We’re not supposed to take a paper in there. Nobody. And it seems to hard for
us to memorize. We’re always sweating over it. Rimpoche is always tormenting
us. But anyway, {nye-je} means did a bad thing. {nye} means bad. {je} means
did. And it just means doing something wrong. The literal explanation is {leg pa
ma yin pa chepa} which means you did something that was not excellent.
[laughs] which was not good. And there’s one hundred and twelve of those. So
how many vows does fully ordained nun have, in this tradition?
[student:[unclear]]
Does it add up? Did you get 364. Really? I must have messed up someplace.
364? That’s good. {Tibetan}. That’s the {ge long-ma}. Yeah?
[student:[unclear]]
Yeap. Yeah, ‘cos a monk can teach, can teach the vinaya to the {ge long ma}.
Don’t get me into it okay. [laughs] I’m very good at sidestepping this issue.
Okay our class is just about done. I’m going to give you the number for the
monks. Okay? The monks groups are still five. Or six if you split number three
into two. And I’ll just give you the number of vows okay. I’ll circle the monk’s
ones. Four {pam pas}. Four defeats. {hlak ma} which means little bit left to fix.
Thirteen. Downfalls where you have to give up something. Thirty. Thirty of
those. Downfalls where you don’t have to give up something. Ninety. Its easier
to be a monk, right? I wonder why its exactly double. There’s probably
something going on there. {sor so shak pa} only four.
[student:[unclear]] [laughs]
Careful. And one hundred and twelve {sen}. So how many do you have for a
monk? Yeah. {Tibetan}, that’s the root text. Two hundred and fifty three. Okay.
Excuse me?
[student:[unclear]]
Four instead of eleven. Okay so you should come out with two fifty three. Did
you have a question? I’ll tell you frankly, because I feel kind of strongly about it.
The wording of the {sojong} ceremony makes you believe that originally the
monks sat around and actually said what they did. Because there’s a section near
the end where it says ‘are we done. Did everybody say everything that they
did?’ you know? ‘I’m asking you once, I’m asking you twice. Think about it.
I’m asking you three times. If you don’t speak up then you’re lying.’ And a
hidden … breaking a vow and hiding it is much more serious than breaking a
vow and not hiding it. There’s two kinds so the wording of the ceremony makes
me think that originally people actually sat down and, and you know said what
they did. In the current ceremony as its practiced in Tibetan Gelupa…. Sera-Mey
monastery. By the way, both monasteries do their confessions together. So its
one activity that the two Seras join to do together. You just go straight through
it. And you just recite it. And I believe that the serious monks there are
mentally reviewing the vows and mentally they are confessing what they did.
And I know that some of them actually go to other monks and tell them what
they did and you should. No matter what kind of vows you have its much
more powerful if you actually go to somebody and …. the only requirement of
the bodhisattva vows for example is that they understand how serious they are.
They don’t even have to have bodhisattva vows, I think.               You have to
understand the concept and know how serious it is. But you do … it’s much
more powerful if you go and confess it. And I encourage everybody to do it.
Its very very liberating and it’s very very cool. And I’ve had time when I
couldn’t stop a vow out of habit and I said if I do this one more time I’m going
to go tell Rinpoche to his face. Clearly. You know? And I did. And it was very
embarrassing. And it works. I mean its very embarrassing to admit it in front of
other people. I mean its good to find someone who is such a good person that it
would be very embarrassing to go and tell them. I’ve had monks say ‘Don’t tell
me. Don’t tell me.’ [laughts] You know. Because Rinpoche wasn’t around. But
there’s a time factor. The quicker you confess it, the better it is. If you let it go
on for a day or two, one thing you could die in there. And then secondly it’s just
the power of the bad deed supposedly doubles every twenty-four hours or
something. So it’s important to tell it to somebody quickly. And it’s very very
liberating. Even if you can’t stop yourself. And even if you know that you’re
going to be doing it over and over again, go tell somebody. Because just telling
purifies a lot of the bad deed. So it’s very cool. And is this some kind of thing,
like back in confirmation class, and stuff like that. I don’t know what you did in
church you know. But I mean is it some kind of guilt thing or are you supposed
to feel bad or are you supposed to feel dirty or guilty or something. No, it’s not
like that. If you really have a nice relationship with a lama, if you really find
your root lama, you know all they want is that you’re happy. And you can’t be
happy if you’re doing these things. You just never will be. ‘Forget reaching
Nirvana. You won’t even be happy in this life. You just won’t feel clean. And
you know that. You don’t have to be Einstein to know that when you do
something bad you feel dirty. You just feel dirty. If you do any one of those
main ones you don’t have to be a Buddhist to feel bad about it. I mean, normally
most people feel bad about it. And you won’t be able to go on spiritually. ‘I have
a lot of Americans come to me and say ‘My meditation is not going well. I’m
doing this Tantric stuff all day long . I do the whole ritual. I do everything they
told me to do. ‘And I’ve been doing it for ten years and nothing’s happening
much and I’m losing faith in it. You know. What should I do?’ You know. And I
believe that in a lot of cases it’s that they’re not keeping and ethical way of life.
And it’s very tricky. You know, like idyll gossip. You can be in Buddhist groups
and you can be driving in a car with a bunch of Buddhists and you never heard
so much idyll gossip. I mean it’s relentless, you can get a headache from that.
And then they go and do their prayers. They’re on their way to do a prayer.
And they’re dong this idyll gossip and its driving you …its giving you a
headache. And then when you get there, they do their prayers and they do their
meditations and they say ‘I can’t figure out why this is not working’ you know?
Like I’m doing the posture perfect. I can do a full lotus. You know I can hold it
for two hours. You know and I just can’t figure out why nothing happens. I
never saw any tantric deity. ‘And I’m not feeling different. And I’m not aware
of any special change in my body. Things aren’t happening to me. And I don’t
know, I’m not getting all these realizations about emptiness. I don’t know if this
is the best way to do it. I think that there must be a problem with this ritual.
You know? I think that this ritual must be too long or something. You know
this {dag kye} thing is just too long. Probably because its so long I’m not getting
any benefit from it. Nothing’s happening to me. You know. I don’t see things
… I don’t have extraordinary spiritual experiences happening in my life’ and
stuff like that. And I, I just encourage people to just go check their plain old
{pratimoksha} morality. That is where is all come… that’s the engine that
generates all those amazing things. If you want to have amazing spiritual things
happen to you, just go back to the {pratimoksha} and keep it. We’re going to
cover the basis which is the ten, you know the ten bad deeds. And we’re going
to talk about it in detail and that’s the seventh class. Because that really is the
basis. People ask me about the secret teachings. You know. And technically
speaking you have to have an initiation. The technical system of the teachings is
that you must be initiated in order to start practicing it. You must go through
that process of having initiation. Even if you’re mind is wandering, and nothing
is happening, and it’s a long hot day and you’re not even there half the time, or
whatever. You must have that process, you must go through that ritual. But on
the other hand. If you keep your {pratimoksha} nicely, not only does it stop you
mental afflictions, you will get to a place where things start happening to you.
Extraordinary things start happening to you. Special things start happening to
you. And if you don’t keep them it will never happen. You have to know them
and you have to keep them. And you have to take them if you … you really
have to take them. The energy of taking a vow not to do something and then
not doing it, is much much much more powerful than just being a good guy by
nature. The second one wears off. The second one doesn’t have much energy.
The second one is not your fault. Don’t credit yourself. It came from your past
life. Okay. If you generally don’t enjoy kill, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying
etcetera, if you consider yourself a good person, its not because of any
extraordinary effort that you’ve made in this life. You’ve always been that way.
You know. Its been part of your character. If you want to improve on it you
have to make conscious efforts. It’s very interesting. If you really want to get
better, it’s going to take work. Whatever you have in you now that’s good, you
can’t take credit for it. Okay. It’s almost certainly your past life. It wasn’t like
you had to work over and over, day to day, keeping track in you little
confession book, over and over the good things and bad things you did. You
just don’t like lying. Or you’re not attracted to stealing money out of people’s
pockets or stealing their cars, or like that. But that’s not uncaused phenomena.
That’s a caused phenomena. Somebody in the past was a moral person. And
that’s why you climbed up the ladder to where you are. It’s very easy to fall
down. You know in this life most people slide down from where they reach. As
they get older they start to lost it. You have to make a conscious effort to
progress from where you are now. Whatever morality or ethical feelings you
have now, whatever instincts you have, they come from somebody else’s work,
in the past. And you must build on it. You must go on. You can’t stay were you
are. Because to stay where you are is to drop, you know. The karma for doing
that wears out as you live your life. And you won’t be a ethical in the second
half of your life as you were in the first part unless you make conscious … unless
you really make it a project to be an ethical person. And definitely you won’t
have any amazing spiritual things happen to you if you don’t keep them. You
know If you don’t progress in your {pratimoksha} morality, in those ethical
codes, you won’t, you won’t have those things happen to you. And you’ll be
one of those very pitiful Western people who says ‘you know the Tibetan lamas
are flying, and I’ve read about Milerepa, and Naropa could take dead fish and
throw them in the water and they swim away, and I can’t do anything. In fact
my life’s quite boring. And I do this ritual every morning and I’m getting tired
of it and nothing’s going on. I can’t figure out what‘s the problem. I can’t even
figure out why I can’t meditate well. And it all comes down to {pratimoksha}.
So {sem jak chu}. In Tibetan they say{sem jak chu.}. Keep it in mind. This is the
way to have all those amazing things happen to you. If you’re not happy and
nothing’s happening to you, which is a real drag, then keep not examining you
ethical life.
[student:[unclear]]
Yeah. Does is mean that you cannot reach the higher schools of Buddhism
unless you take full ordination? No it doesn’t mean that. Your odds are much
better if you take full ordination. Does it mean that you cannot reach the highest
schools of Buddhism if you do not take full ordination? No. If you take full
ordination and keep it in a half arsed way, or if you take lifetime laymen’s vows
and keep it very strictly, then the second person would have much more
amazing realizations. They’d have a much more exciting life. Much more things
happening. Anybody can take the secret vows. If you, if you … minimum you
have to be keeping the ten non-virtues, you have to be keeping away from the
ten non-virtues. You don’t even have to be a lifetime laymen’s vows to take the
secret vows. To have them. That’s in the realm of possibilities. But I’d say its
like {powa}. This thing about {powa} where in the last five minutes of your life
you do what you didn’t do for the last forty-five years. And somehow its going
to work.       It’s unlikely. It’s very unlikely. ‘I mean, your odds of getting
somewhere if you take at least lifetime laymen’s vows, are infinitely better. If
you keep them and if you take them seriously. Infinitely better of having
wonderful things happen. And the higher you go the better. On the other hand
if you don’t really have the heart for it, and you don’t really understand it, which
probably means that you don’t have enough renunciation and you’re not fed up
enough with your bad thoughts, you shouldn’t take ordination vows. You
shouldn’t take them if you don’t think that you can keep them. You should wait
until you’re ready. You know. And that’s why Rinpoche is very reluctant to
give people vows. It’s very bad to break them. It’s very bad to give them up. So
better to examine yourself. When the time’s ready you’ll know it. But you
should always have it as a goal in the back of your mind. Because it is a goal.
Personally speaking, it’s a wonderful wonderful way to live. It’s fantastic. And
its liberating. You know, Mathew Richard a famous French monk, a good
French monk, in Tricycle they interview him and they say ‘doesn’t it feel very
constricting to be a monk’. And he said ‘Are you kidding? I feel the most free I
ever have.’ And he’s kept his vows very nice for like twenty years. So if you can
do it its very cool.
[student:[unclear]]
Yeah. It’s … there’s two things to say about that, because you see it a lot in the
world now a days. One is that we can’t judge that person. We don’t know why
they did what they did. Maybe it looks like they wanted to get married or
something like that.        But you can’t be sure.     There are famous stories.
{Gantapada luipa} from whom we have the main teachings on {Chakrasambara},
pretended to give up his vows in order to do some special things. You know
gave the appearance. You have to be very careful, you can’t judge the person
unless you can read their mind. {Tibetan} Buddha said: Unless you can read
another person’s mind, lay off judging them. You can judge the action. You can
say ‘I shouldn’t do that action myself’. And you shouldn’t. Technically speaking,
you just lose the vows from your mental stream, but don’t forget you have
vowed it’s a{gi se … pa du} its in the vow {gi se … pa du} ‘as long as I live in the
presence of the Buddhas’. You swear that as long as I live I will keep these vows.
I mean, we didn’t really mention that but don’t forget that all of the
{pratimoksha} vows except for the one day vow, you swear before the Buddhas
to keep it for your whole life, until you die. Then to go and give them back
would be like you’d be collecting this extraordinary bad deed of lying in front of
all the Buddhas. So it’s a very bad…it’s very bad for your mental state. You
can’t judge that, but we wouldn’t want to do it ourselves. Alright meditate for a
few minutes.
960816-a
COURSE IX-THE ETHICAL LIFE