ACI 9 «Этическая жизнь», занятие 6

CLASS SIX -TAKING AND KEEPING THE VOWS
AUGUST 16, 1996
119A.TXT
transcribed by: Fran Dayan
Proofread by: Summer Moore

I wanted to go on to the ten non virtues, you know. You hear about them all the
time. They are the basis of vinaya practice. Avoiding the ten non virtues is the
basis of all ethical living. So I thought it would be worth it to go over it one
more time. You think you know them but then you read Tsongkapa and you
find out you didn't quite know them. So I'm especially going to cover the points
that might not be so obvious in each one. Then second part of the class we'll
discuss the actual effects of the ten. Like what are karmic consequences of the
ten, you know. Supposedly if you lead an ethical life you can reach nirvana.
What's the opposite? You know, if you don't lead an ethical life why does it
cause samsara and how does it cause samsara. And especially what connections
are there between certain bad deeds and certain experiences in your life. So, you
know, I don't like to teach it from the point of view of ... Oh if you do this, this is
going to happen. I like to teach it from the point of view of ... if you have
something in your life you don't like, maybe you should figure out karmically
what you did to cause it. And then you can try to purify that karma. And then
that boss would go away. [laughs] [laughter] Or you know, that problem would
actually go away in your life. So I think that's more fun than you know, this
treatening thing ... of if you do that you're going to get that, you know. I think
it's more fun to go backwards and say ... I don't like having my boss scream at
me ... so I'd like to find out what causes ... what's the karmic cause of screaming
bosses and then try to remove it. So an ethical life for me is as much removing
the past as it is preventing the future, you know. I would like to know how to
remove the problems that I have now. So we're going to cover that. So first we
have to talk about the ten and then we have to talk about the karma of the ten.
First one is ... there are three invol ... that you do with your body, right? And
what's number one? Killing, okay. I'm not going to do the Tibetan because I
think we'll run out of time at the end, so, all right? So Tibetan is {solchur} Say
{solchur} [repeat] {solc} means life. {chur} means to cut. Cutting life. What's the
diamond cutter? {dorje chupa} [laughs] {dorje chupa}, okay. So killing is number
one. Killing any living thing. For a full karmic path, we have to have a lot of
other things. For example, you have to have pre-meditation. This is talking for
a full karma. You can still get a partial karma. But to get a really powerful karma
and this is going to apply to all the other ones as well, there has to be pre-
meditation. You have to understand that the object is alive, okay. If you don't
believe the object is alive, than the karma is a lot less. Like some people don't
think a fetus is is a living being. It is, but if you truly don't think it is ... like I grew
up being told it wasn't. And and if then ... if you have an abortion or something
you so collect the karma of killing, but not the full karma, not the complete
karma. So there is there is an element of recognition involved. Normally there
should be some kind of mental affliction going ... like you hate somebody ... or
you desire something ... or you don't understand karma ... something like that.
Pearl, don’t start yawning yet. Just kidding. What else? Should be undertaking
the deed. Like you're actually undertake to do it. Like if you're contemplating it
but you never do it ... if you never stab somebody ... you don't collect the full
karma. If they don't die, you collect ... you don't collect the full karma. So there
has to be this completion. That completion normally has to happen during your
own lifetime. If you stab somebody and they stab you and you die first ... and
then they die later ... you don't collect a full karma, okay. There's nobody
around to ... to collect the karma ... full karma. You do collect the karma of
attempted killing, something like that, okay. That's killing. I think a few kinds of
killings that you might wonder about ... and by the way, everything I say
tonight is not Michael Roach, it's all Je Tsongkapa. I can show you the scripture.
If anybody ... there's gonna to be some things that you wish were not in the ten.
[laughs] And I'm just quoting, okay. I didn't make this up and I can show you
the scripture. It mostly comes from sutra. He quotes sutra a lot and he quotes
Atisha a lot , he quotes other ... Asanga. This is the real Buddhist viewpoint. It's
not ... I'm not making it up. It's not Tibetan. It's it's Indian Buddhism. It's what
the Buddha said, okay. Abortion is one kind of killing. We mentioned it already.
Suicide is a kind of killing, okay. Inducing someone else to kill for you is a kind
of killing, okay. And actually as you know in the [b: Abhidarma] if you are ...
like if you join an army and even if you're in the back ... in the back cooking food
for the army ... you collect the army ... you collect the karma that the army
collects when they shoot somebody ... when they kill somebody. Yeah you
collect that. You are involved in that karma ... according to the [b: Abhidarma].
If you're contributing to a war effort, you have killed someone as much as the
person who who pulls the trigger, okay. Lot of implications I guess [laughs]

[student: Even if you’re not stationed?]

Right, if you're contributing, you know. Like ... right ... right, if you're in the
back. What do they call it? Then it's less. Then you're being forced to do it. But
you still get some karma, okay. Yeah?
[student: What if you’re paying taxes to [unclear]]

It's partially the karma and you have to ... I mean, I've always thought it was my
responsibility to at least write my congressman and say, "I don't agree that my
taxes are being used for that. I understand that I have to pay them. I’m not
willing to go to jail because I'm involved in some useful stuff, but I hereby object
to it, you know. I think that's important to do. Yeah?

[student: Right now conscientious objective is forced to do...?]

Yeah, I know. But, I think, that if it's if it's as a conscientious objector, I don't
think it's the same karma. Because you expressed that you don't want to do it.
There's a thing in the [b: Bodhisattva vows] about wrong livelihood ... where it
said that if you were forced into it ... and your full intention is not to do it any
more. But you can't ... like you can't get out of it right now ... but all day long
you're `thinking how you would like to get out of it ... you don't break your
Bodhisattva vows, for example.

[student: Is there any correlation between karma and dreams?]

Karma and dreams? And dreams, right? You mean dreams at night, like that.
Oh yeah, ultimately those dreams ... those visions that you see ... although they
are not real ... the reason that you have those particular visions is absolutely
because of karma. Anything's because of karma. Everything in your life is
because of karma, you know. The freckles on your arm are because of karma,
you know. The hot, the room, the heat is the room is because of karma. Do you
want to open a window? Do you want to? [laughs]

[student: [unclear] because of my past karma or my present [unclear]]

It's always past. Even if it's only one minute past, okay. Karma can ripen in
three stages. In this life, in the next life, or in any life after that. So there is
karma that ripens in this life, okay. Yeah?

[student: What if it... [unclear] say you’re fighting something like Hitler or
[unclear] ]

The Bodhisattva vows ... where it comes in the Bodhisattva vows is ...it says,
you're allowed, for example, to kill if you have been on the path and you have
mastered the path for millions of years. And in that instance it's not only not a
non virtue, it's a tremendous virtue.

[student: But if you haven’t mastered the path and something that is suicidal?]

You also required to resist violence and you are required to help other people
who who are having violence done to them. And I think you have to judge your
motivation. If your motivation is truly to protect someone's life ... normally I
think Buddhism would say ... find another way. You know when someone asks
the Dalai Lama, "Suppose somebody's but ... hand was on the atomic weapon
button and you were twenty feet away and you had a gun and you knew he was
going to push the button ... what would you do?" you know. This was in the
Santa Monica, when he gave the Kalachakra initiation. And he said, "I'll let you
know when it happens." [laughs] [laughter] You know. What it means is that, I
mean, a Buddhist has to think of other ... I mean ... I think in America one of our
greatest faults ... we have many great virtues as a country ... but one of the
greatest faults is resorting to violence when you don't have to, you know. I
mean, we see violence as a ... national violence as a very acceptable means of of
resolving problems. And and I think it's an illness. It's a sickness that we have.
And we don't recognize it, you know. Like we're very good in democracy and
things like that. That's our virtue. But but about violence ... we resort to violence
too, easily. I think often times there's another choice. Some kind of restraint.
There's a part in the Bodhisattva vows where Je Tsongkapa says, "Imagine it was
your mother who had gone crazy and gone at you with a knife, you know.
Would you kill her? Would you just stab her that easily or would you try to
restrain her even if your arm was cut or something." I mean, he says that, he
goes into that. He says you would probably figure out a way to stop her
without killing her. And he says that. I don't mind, okay [laughs] what's going
on? okay.

[student: Even in Vitenam during the war, Indian monks...themselves, now
that’s suicide, how does that compare?]

I think there's a lot of different things, I mean. It depends greatly on the
motivation. In general suicide is a bad deed. On top of that ruining a body which
could have reached enlightenment in this life, it's a very bad deed. On the other
hand if their motivation was truly and if they believed that by doing so the other
people would stop fighting, I think it's a great virtue. The Buddha himself fed his
body to a hungry tiger who later became his first diciple, you know. Fed him...
himself alive to a hungry tiger in the [b: Golden light sutra] {tibetan -unclear
sutra} so there's a precedence [laughs] Yeah?

[student: [unclear]]

There's always a different way. If you really want ... if you felt it was your
mother ... you would find ... if you thought Sadam Hussein was your mother
you would find a different way to restrain him then shooting things at him, you
know. Okay. Let's see if there's anything else here. Stealing anything of value.
The only thing I have to add here ... I mean, I went through Je Tsongkapa's
description in the great [b: Lam Rim] and I just tried to pick out things that you
might wonder about. The rest is obvious, you know. But he does include in his
description shady business deals and cheating on your taxes or your rent or
anything else or your phone bill.          He didnt't say phone bill. But he said
[laughter] ... he did mention things like that. He does mention things like that.
Like as a as part of your business, you know, cheating people or underpaying
things or underpaying what is due to your local government. He includes that.
He mentions that. This is a long story. It's not very popular when I teach it
[laughs] but I'll tell exactly what the scriptures say, okay. This mainly refers to
adultery with another person's spouse. But it also includes the following...and
they they classify them in sections. So one would be sex with the wrong part of
the body and that include oral sex or anal sex or any kind of sex other than in the
vagina of the woman, okay.              It includes homosexuality.      It includes
masturbation. It includes sex with someone to whom you are related and I think
it like six cousins or something like that, okay. I'm not sure but with whom your
your related more than cousin or something ... more than distant cousin. Sex
with someone who's too young and a lot of that depends on the custom of the
country you're in. So the laws for the mores of the society in which you're in
also play a role as deciding who's too young ... who's improper. With someone
who's ordained, obviously. Sex with a woman who's menstruating. Or with
someone who's been pregnant more than a month. Sex with a woman who is
caring for a very young infant and for example breastfeeding that infant. Sex
with someone for whom it would hurt them ... cause them some physical pain.
Sex with someone who has a an illness ... you know, a sexually transmitted
disease. Excessive sex, which is defined as more than five times, okay. Sex in an
improper place which means, you know, on a temple ground, in a room where
there are images, in your altar room, in the presence or in the near environment
of a great lama, like that. And finally, Tsongkapa says Lord Atisha also mentions
sex in the daytime, okay ... during the day. You know, you may or might not
know ... I mean, in our society not all of those are sexual misconduct, but I think
it's really my serious duty to tell you all of them because they are and not
everything that's a bad deed looks like a bad deed or feels like a bad deed and
that's the whole point of vinaya. It's having an omniscience being saying, "This
particular thing is harmful and will get and will cause you bad karmic results."
It's not like saying, "God gonna get mad at you" or anything else. He's just
saying certain actions are going to cause you pain ... karmically. So don't do
them. I mean, someone who is omniscient is saying that these actions lead to
trouble ... for you and there's no other reason not to do them. I mean, that's the
main reason. Is renunciation. That's the reason to do vinaya. Renunciation
means I'm tired of living in a world where everything goes wrong and I can't
explain why it's going wrong. So now you have some clues as to why it's going
wrong. That you might have not guessed, okay. And that's the whole point of
vinaya. That's why there are so many [b: Jataka] tales, for example, in the vinaya
scriptures. There're not just stories. They are the Buddha saying, "I know that
these hurt you karmically because I did it and that's what happened to me.",
okay. So, at least don't reject it. At least consider it, you know. Put it on a shelf.
If you can't do it right now or accept it right now, at least put it in a shelf of
things you would like to learn more about, you know. This is one of those
things that Buddhism says that maybe I don't believe it or I don't want to believe
it but I won't reject it. I'll just let it wait for right now,okay ... put it like that.
Yeah?

[student: This is sexual misconduct, how does this relate to the adultery of the
life-time lay mans vows? Is this broader?]

Yeah, much broader.

[student: [unclear]]

I don't remember that specifically. [laughter] Okay, I think it would probably
count as sexual misconduct. I believe so but I don't remember him mentioning it
specifically.

[student: At some point you mentioned, you referred I guess to the youth
secition of the social mores, how do you know what’s dictated by social mores
and which is cut and dry?]

Yeah, I know I mean in some countries maybe the age will be different but he
does say that the mores of your society do play a part you know, especially in
the ... if the idea of a of a young woman being still under the protection of the
government, you know ... still being considered a ward of the law ... you
know ... too young to be considered legally an adult. You know...That's what he
is trying to say in that country.

[student: You know with adultery, is that only if you’re married...like in our
society [unclear]]

Someone asked Rinpoche that ... he's very hesitant to talk about all these things
but somebody had asked him, "If I’m still legally married to someone but she
and I both feel that we're not leg ... you know ... we both feel that we're not
married any more and I take another girlfriend am I committing adultery?" And
he said, "No", he said, "It's a matter of attitude." So the converse of that would
be, I guess, if two people feel that they're committed to each other and even
though they're not married and you're cheating on the other one, I think that
would count, you know. I mean, logically ... something like that. Yeah

[student: attitude toward the other one [unclear]]

In what sense?

[student: In the sense of recreational sex.]

Oh no, they wouldn't say that. No problem with that. No problem with that.
[laughter] Honestly, no, honestly. It doesn’t have this thing that sex can only be
done for procreation or something like that ... it's not mentioned. [laughter]
There is a thing, I mean, about the benefits of celibacy and and what is does for
your spiritual health and your and your mental health and your bodily health,
but that's another story. I mean, so it's not wrong but it may but it may be
draining your energies that you could use for other things. But it's not a bad
karma.

[student: [unclear]]

Doesn't mention anything like that ... doesn't mention that you, you know, have
to do it thinking that you're making children or don't make children or you're
just having fun or something like that. In Buddhism, consenting adults who
don't fall into any of those ... that's fine ... no bad deed.

[student: I was thinking that the menstruating thing would be the procreation
aspect but you’re saying that’s not so...]
It means while while she's actually menstruating

[student: It’s not procreation [unclear]]

Maybe because it would be ... I don't know. I mean, Tsongkapa, it has about the
most detailed description I've found and that's all it says. I mean, it doesn't go
into ... I mean, I can't claim that I've found scriptures that go into greater detail
than that. They don't. Atisha talks a lot about it and in fact Je Tsongkapa spends
more space on this than on anything else but he doesn't go into any more detail
than that. Mostly mostly ... most of these kinds of sexual misconduct are wrong
or bad karma because they increase in you a worldly desire which will lock you
in samsara. You know, which will which will prevent you from getting correct
renunciation. They hurt you. That's all. That's the main the main idea behind it.
Okay and we'll see...we'll see about the karmic consequences also. Okay. Four in
speech. You guys let me off easy. I usually get a lot of [laughs] ... okay, yeah.
the only to say about lying is that it is defined as giving someone else a
misimpression which is a little difficult ... like in business ... it's like ... half of
businesss is trying to trying to give someone else [laughs] a misimpression. Like
I don't need that diamond. I can't pay more than that. You know, actually
you're dying for it, you know ... like that. There's this thing about lying about
what you've seen, lying about what you've heard, lying about what you know,
giving someone a misimpression, giving someone an impression which does not
exxactly correspond to your own impression. If you define lying that way, it's
kinda strict. It's kinda tough, okay. And and of course there's all these
exceptions, you know. If it would .... there's this famous example of a guy comes
to the door and says someone is chasing me, about to kill me. You let him in,
hide him in the closet. They come to the door. They bang on the door. They say,
"Did you see the guy" and you suppose to say what? No, okay. So it's not like
crazy, you know what I mean. If you're protecting life or there’s an important
reason not to do it ... if it would hurt really hurt the other person's feelings or
crush them for life or cause them great agony or ... so there’s all these ... it's
pretty much all all the things you would expect but we lie a lot of the times when
there's no benefit and there's no purpose and there's no excuse at all ... we just
feel like lying ... or we believe that we would get some benefit from lying. The
trick about all of these is to try to get into the mood ... to try to understand that if
you lie and you get something, it's not because you lied. And you just have to
get that drilled into your mind, you know. It's the thing in Central Park ... spray
paint you know. We spray painted out, you know ... we proved that if you lie
on a diamond deal and make a profit it’s because you were generous in the past
and not because of the lie. The lie is going to create its own bad karma and and
we'll see the consequences of the lie. So they're unconnected. They seem to be
happening at the same time and then we get tricked. People ask me, "Is it okay
to kill roaches?" I say, you know, "If your own ribs broke as you smashed them,
then you wouldn't ask me and it's it's going to be worse than that. It's just a time
lapse causes problems.



[student: Would you eat food that fertilizers were sprayed on or [unclear]]

Yeah. You can't ... you have to be ... yeah, it's almost impossible to ... I mean, the
Jains believed ... the Jains whose religion began as Buddhism began, believed
that you could never reach enlightenment because it's just impossible not to kill
something as you move, you know and ... or that maybe one person in a trillion
years reaches enlightenment.          But we believe that if you're if you're not
intending to go out to kill ... like if you get in a car and you squash bugs ... you
don't get in the car and say, "I'm going to the store so I can kill a lot of bugs on
the way." You know, you say you're going to the store and you hit bugs on the
way and there's a difference in the karma. You do collect some karma but we
believe that you can overcome it if it's not intentional.

[student: I was camping and this bug kept trying to bite me and I said I’m not
going to kill this bug, and then finally after the third time it bit me, it was just
natural, it seemed natural.]

[laughs] It's it's not natural and you can over come it and it will seem unnatural
later. And you can just blow it off or brush it off, you know. Later you'll change.
Yeah

[student: Are there people that...[unclear]]

Oh yeah. I mean, there's this thing of the {shi}. {shi} is one quarter of the power
of the karma and and it goes like this ... lama ... mother, father ... human, animal,
you know ... it goes down like that ... someone who has helped you,
bodhisattvas up there ... arhats up there. There are very ... there are different
seriousnesses of the object. The object makes a big difference. Lying to your
lama is is a thousand times worst than lying to a normal person. Okay. (writes
on blackboard) People have translated it as slander. I don't think it ... slander
means to talk bad about somebody. It's not really that. This is saying things that
are meant to alienate two other parties, okay. You talk to one person about
another person in such a way that they will like a person less than they did when
you started talking, okay. You're you're saying things to somebody to make
them feel less close to someone they like. Or more far away from someone
they don't like, okay. And the thing you say can be either false or true. There's a
big debate about it in the scriptures. It could be something true but your
intention is not to enlighten that person, it's to make sure that they like each
other less than they did before. If it's in the top ten, which I already ... all I'm
doing tonight is the top ten ... out of ... eighty four thousand variations ... it must
be something that we're constantly doing.             The top ten are things we're
constantly doing. All day long we are hinting, implying with our tone of voice,
you know, that this person doesn't quite like you as much as you thought or this
guy didn't quite perform the way he was supposed to at work, and this guy isn't
quite as honest as everyone thinks or I'm a little bit better, you know...I
mean...This is ... our speech is sprinkled liberally with this thing, okay. And if
you get good at watching them, you'll will shut up a lot [laughs]. You know, you
find out that the only thing you can do is keep quiet, you know. I mean, you
can't carry on a normal conversation anymore cause it's like twenty of these
things are happening in five minutes, you know and and it would actually be
quite nice and refreshing. The only thing to say here ... I think there are two
points that may not be obvious. One is that even sweet words spoken with
harmful intent qualify as harsh speech, you know. I always give the example ...
you're sitting in the checkout line and they want to get you and they say, "Have
a nice day" which means, you know, "Move it!" you know "Get out of here" you
know. The other thing to mention is that harsh speech doesn't have to spoken
towards an animate object. If you stub your toe and you curse, that's harsh
speech. Because it's bad, no. Because it's evil, no. Because God doesn't like it, no.
Because it has a karmic effect on you. Yeah.

[student: Does that mean swearing?]

I depends ... the motivation is very important, you know. They ... it says in the
scriptures you can use ... I mean, I often use very bad language to my close
friends in an endearing way. I can tell you some of the nicknames we had in
college for each other. And that's just ... that's not harsh speech at all. Those are
sweet friendly words, you know. But then to use nice words with with really
malicious intent and you know the person is going to be hurt, is harsh speech.
So obviously, it's from the intent and from the effect, okay. Je Tsongkapa has
the following to say about idle talk. It does not have to directed toward any
animate object. Even if you're just muttering to yourself or singing pieces of
song to yourself or stuff like that, it's idle talk, okay. Includes words spoken in
arguments, criticisms, disputes. Reciting useless non-buddhist texts. [laughter]
Useless joking. Whining, complaining or kvetching. [laughs] [laughter] The
word he uses is very much like kvetching. It's ... {maynot dimpa} means you
know, ah ah ah ... ah poor me. Wasting your time like that. Gossiping about
politics, sex, etc. Crime, he mentions. Excuse me? ... I'm sure sports would
qualify, yeah. Any talk of a person engaged in wrong livelihood is, you know ...
as you cheat the person in the deal that talk ... because the whole basis is wrong
livelihood is ... qualifies as idle talk. He gets to the most extreme version of idle
talk is to recite your prayers while not thinking about them. Which I think all or
us do. And that's something to watch out for. I think a very extreme form of
idle talk occurs among dharma students. And I think it's when you are ... you
know, I was out in California ... lot of the students have been dharma students
for twenty years ... they know all the gossip about every single center, every
single lama, every single practititioner, what every single western monk or nun
has done bad, you know.            And they go on and on about it ... and it's just a
torrent ... and it never stops. And it's just like your head is wizzing, you know,
and you say stop. They say ...Oh, I know about this tantric thing you know, and
they go on and on and on about all these details about, you know, and they're
just talking for the sense of talking. It's not like they want to instruct you on
what it means or they want to point out a fault that we want to avoid ourselves,
or something like that. It's just because they want to talk. And that's what they
talk about because that's what their life is, you know. These are people who
spend their whole lives ... who don't have any other activities in their lives but
dharma so there ... so what they gossip about or what they do idle talk about is
all dharma and it's like ... it's like overwhelming. It's like it's like a huge wave of
water, you know, smashing on you and it's really really bad, you know. It's
really really bad for idle talk about dharma. I mean, as you get more educated in
dharma, you should ... it should become more sacred to you and it and it should
be something that is almost spoken about in whispers, you know, like ...
especially tantric stuff. I mean, it should be like so holy that you just want to talk
about it in private with one person on special nights or something, you know
what I mean. I mean, it's very very holy. Everything should become more and
more sacred and not more and more ordinary. You know and that's the whole
point of those teachings. So I hope we avoid it. As a group I hope we avoid it.
As you become more educated in buddhism, as you make contact with other
dharma practitioners, I hope you don't sit down and just blab for the sake of
blab ... dharma blab, you know. It's very distressing and I was getting into it, you
know, I was doing it too, and it was very distressing to see myself doing it. And
I'd go home and I'd say I shouldn't do that. And the next morning I would ...
what else happened?, you know. [laughs] [laughter] and it's really really bad.
You have to be really careful about it. I hope we can be careful about it. I hope
that dharma is a thing we only speak of in hushed tones as something very
sacred and beautiful and meaningful and if someones is not doing it just right
well anyway you can't ... you never know their motivation. You can't read their
minds. Even if you could, is it useful to be talking about it? You know, or
maybe we should be talking about someone's ... what someone is doing right,
you know . There's plenty of inspiring people to talk about, you know. So we
could talk about them, you know. We could talk about the Dalai Lama, you
know, something like that. Yeah.

[student: What do you to sorta adjust your outlook when your in the work
world and you’re with people and your way of getting by everyday is to talk
about ...]

Tsongkapa talks about it. Tsongkapa addresses that question. And he says as a
bodhisattva ... he mentions it in the bodhisattva vows, {chapa ...{tibetan} it's one
of the bodhisattva vows ... you're not allowed to {chapa chema temla ten} means
out of attachment to it, to engage in in idle gossip or idle talk. Idle chatter is the
meaning of the word.        And then he explains, "What do I mean when I say
{chapey}" because all of the texts say {chapey}. I found this as {chapey}. It means
if you're in a work situation and the only way to make everyone comfortable ... I
mean, I used to work in a trucking company ... you can't talk about sacred holy
things in hushed tones, you know ... people want to know what the Jets did and
the Giants and why the hell didn't they ... and you're not ... and you don't want to
make everyone uncomfortable. The point of a bodhisattva is to blend in in the
world and Je Tsongkapa says, "Blend in, know about those things, talk about
those things and when the time is ripe without being missionary try to try to
swing it towards something meaningful. And if you can't it's okay." But then
just blend in. The point of a bodhisattva is that you're supposed to blend in and
not and not jar with the world. You're suppose to blend in and when the time is
ripe you you make your move, you know. [laughs] [laughter] okay. And he
talks about it. He said that. His commentary on the bodhisattva vows is very
useful and I hope some day we can translate it. It's there. We can read it. He
done it. We've finished it. But it would help a lot of people if we could do that.
Three in mind. There's a word in the ten commandents, what is that?

[student: coveting]

Coveting. It's very much coveting. It's exactly the same thing. In the ten
commandents, the one I grew up with it said your neighbor's ass and your
neighbor's wife and there was a list there. I guess it means car in these days. Je
Tsongkapa points out that this refers not only to their personal possessions of
another person but to their personal characteristics such as ... he lists, intelligence,
health, fame, and even spiritual fame ... and even spiritual acclaim, you know.
Then he mentions five conditions. He says, "This this state of mind always
always invites ... involves five different conditions." The first condition he gives
is that you are very attached to your own possessions or to whatever personal
characteristics you already have., That's number one. Number two is that you
desire to accumulate more. Number three is you find out what another person
has and gets some taste for it. Number four is that it occurs to you that you
would like to make those things your own. By the way does it necessarily mean
taking them away from the other person? Sometimes yes, not always, okay?
And then lastly that desire reaches such a point that you're no longer able to
manage it and it and it takes over and then you ... you're about ... this is all
mental, right? ... then at the point where you do something about it that's gone
out of this mental part. So that's taken us up to the fulfillment of this bad deed.
Is where mentally you don't have any more shame about it or embarrassment
about it and you're ready to do whatever you have to do to get that thing, okay.
Normally implying in an inproper way, okay.             But even in a proper way, I
mean, to freak out and to spend your whole life trying to get rich in a proper
way is also number eight, okay. I don't know what to call this. Ill will? How
about ill will? Did you ... I don't know ... did you guys ... some of you were here
when {Chompa?} Rinpoche came and talked. He he came on a Friday night ...
we didn't find out about it ... he was at the airport for three hours. We stole him.
We brought him here. He talked for like twenty minutes and then he ran away.
Anyway, he was on his way to Morocco to be {Ling Rinpoche} in the new movie
and I remember distinctly when I was first learning Buddhism and he was the
translator ... in the very first days that I was learning Buddhism and we were in
the back of a jeep together and I turned to him and said, "What does number
nine exactly mean?" And he said, "It's when you are pleased when other people
fail." It's when when other people are going through some kind of misfortune
and you're getting some kind of pleasure out of it. And this is very very
prevalent. I mean, if it's in the top ten we must be doing it on regular basis. I
even see people at work who are in charge of a department or even own the
company but still feels good when someone screws up. You know there some
kind of human thing which you know ... "Oh, I'm really sorry ... you really
screwed up that deal, didn't you, you know" [laughter} You know, and even the
boss ... even this thing about competiveness or something that kinda enjoys it
when someone else messes up and people [laughter] ... and people hear that
someone else has has done something wrong and they're like , "Oh, tell me more
about it", you know. I mean. Lama Zopa said that ... often times Americans
react to someone's spiritual failures with this kind of you know, curiousity , you
know like ... Oh, tell me more,you know. Just exactly how did they mess up?
You know and and that's number nine. That's ill will, okay. I like to call it wrong
world view. For me it's more ... it means more ... I even call mistaken world
view. the classic two are what? Not believing in the laws of karma which means
you will gladly do the other ... nine. So this is the worst one to have. This is the
catch twently-two, you know. Once you ... which came first the chicken or the
egg? But once you have this one you'll do the other nine, okay. I mean, I think
for us the only reason we don't do anything bad is because we grew up being
told it was bad and our parents ... I mean there's are a couple of reason why we
don't do bad things. Our parents mostly taught us that it was wrong. The
society said that it was wrong. If you went to church, they said that God didn't
like it or God punished you for it. Some of it is just flatly illegal and you could
get arrested for it. But then there's this thing of of whether you do in public or
private, you know, and I think we all have that. You know, there's some bad
deeds that if you do it in private or if no one finds out about it, somehow it's a
little bit better. But in karma that's all irrelevant, you know. Karma ... the only
witness you need for a karmic action is yourself, you know. The karma is
collected when you're there which you always are [laughs] so, you know. I
think those are the myths you have to overcome. It's not bad because your
parents said so. It's not bad because the country likes it or not ... your society
likes it or not. It's not bad whether it's legal or illegal. It's not bad whether ...
because you did it in public rather than doing it in private ... it's bad because it
creates a seed in your own mind which causes you to suffer later. It's bad
because it it does not allow you ... it's bad because it blocks you from reaching
nirvana.      It's bad because it it stops your own happiness and your own
contentment, you know ... primarily. If you don't reach contentment nor
happiness yourself you can't help anybody else and so it's also bad for others,
you know. I mean, the main reason bad deeds are bad for others is not so much
that it hurts them. It's that it prevent you from getting to a place where you can
bring other people to contentment or happiness. It blocks you so then therefore
it blocks others. It's irresponsible. It's like having the aids vaccine and throwing
it out the window, you know. Or or holding it and waiting, you know. It's
irresponsible in that way. So those are the ten. I'll start to explain the karmic
results. We'll do one and then we'll take a break. There's about four different
kinds of karmic results that you get from doing one of these ten, okay. And
again, I'm not talking in terms of the fear of God. I'm talking in terms of "Let's
figure out why the particular screwups in my life where they came from" You
know, it's interesting. What made my boss like that? You know, why is my
other boss kinda sweet? What what caused it?              What made New York so
stinky? You know, what made New York dangerous? What makes the East
Village kinda cool at night sometimes? You know, I mean what is it ... where
does it all come from? Why am I depressed sometimes? Why don't I have
energy sometimes? You know, this is very interesting. All of it comes from this.
The first one is called ... I'm going to give a little bit of Tibetan. Say {nam min}
[repeat] {nam min} [repeat] In sanskrit it's like {pacha tier} or something, which
means to cook and {nam min} in Tibetan means to ripen. Like {nimba} ... like a
blister when it's just ready to pop is called {nimba}. I means ripe and ready to
pop. Like if it's just a little bump, it's not {nimba} yet. A fruit which is all nice and
red and soft is {nimba} and when it's all hard and green and small, it's not
{nimba}, okay. When a person has taken a Tantric inititiation, they are {nimba} ...
to learn the secret teachings . If they've studied sutra well and they've taken a
proper initiation. If they haven't studied sutra well and have'nt taken a proper
initiation they're called not {nimba}. So {nimba} has all those meanings. Being
you're ready, ripe ... properly ripe, okay. Here it means a ripen result. This is
the result that you normally think of. And there are three flavors. If you do a
bad deed ... BIG ... okay [laughs] ... a big version of a bad deed ... you know, like
killing your mother or or stealing from a temple ... sexual misconduct with a
nun, something like that. If you if you do them in an extreme case the {nam
min} is to a birth in the hells, okay. the {nam min} is a birth in the hells. If you do
them to a medium extent ... you know medium serious ... it causes a birth as a
craving spirit, a hungry ghost, {preta}, okay. And small, what do you get?
Leads to a birth as an animal. That's one kind of karmic result from the ten,
okay. That's only one of the kinds of karmic result. There are going to be four
karmic results. But number one has three flavors. Big , medium and small. So
basically {nam min} means what kind of rebirth are you gonna to take, okay.
{nam min} is referring to what kind of a rebirth are you gonna to take. Some
scriptures, Je Tsongkapa says, reverse these two ... animal and {preta}. They
consider animal worse than {preta}. It doesn't much matter. Do you want to do
one more? Okay. It's not that hot. I'm going to call this {gyu tun} number one
because there's a {gyu tun} number two. Say {gyu tun} [repeat] {gyu tun}
[repeat]. {gyu} means cause and {tun} means consistent with. So it means ... it's
the kind of karmic result which is similar to the cause and I like to call them a
consistent karmic result ... a consistent karmic result. The great scriptures lists
two each for each of the ten and I'll give them to you very briefly. By the way
these are mostly referring to your own person. These are karmic results which
are occuring in your own person ... or from your own point ... personal point of
view. They are personal karmic results which resemble what you did and the
and the scripture always say at this point, "If you do get to be born as a human
then” ... okay ... then {gyu tun} is almost assuming that you got back to a human
realm. But then you have all these other problems. For the first bad deed, which
is what? Killing ... there are two. Your life if short. You die young. I'm going to
give two and the great scriptures give two for each ... you get sick easily.
Somebody asked me, "What the karma of not having any energy? You know,
and that seems to be it. It seems to be that you threatened other people's lives or
other beings' lives and you don't have energy. At this point I think it's worth it
to say, "How could you improve your energy?" There's there's two things really.
I mean, very very important.          I mean I'm talking about changing your
environment. Changing your life. Because it would be very cool to to treat the
karmic causes .... rather than just taking geritol which may or may not work
[laughter]. By the way if it works it only works because of what I'm about to say
[laughs] [laughter] okay, seriously, seriously. That's why medicine doesn't
always work for the different people or even for the same person on different
days. Because it's still up to your karma, whether it works or not. So, first of all,
if you're a person who doesn't have energy or or or who does have health
problems or does get sick easily you have to recognize what it's coming from
which is that you were not careful

[cut]

...a path. We talked about it in Caifornia. We talked about here a lot, too. The
four powers, okay. We will go over the four powers. We will talk about the
four powers. There is a way to clean out your old bad karma, once you identify
it from this class. You know, once you identify the causes for not having energy
or for getting sick easily you can actually try to short circuit the rest of that
karma. You can actually manipulate that karmic energy and you can wipe out
most of it. It would be very cool. What I'm talking about is is ... this is getting
into something very cool. Tonight's class is meant to say ... look at your
environment ... look at your person ... look at your own mind and your own
body ... understand where all those things come from and then go back and
tinker with it and things will actually change in your life. It's kinda it's kinda
interesting and it works ... it's the only thing that works, by the way, okay.
Number two. If you steal then you'll be one of those people that can never have
enough money to live on. No matter how much you struggle, how much you
work, how much you put forth effort, you just never make ends meet, okay.
That spell ... I don't know. This means even if you do own something you really
don't own it. You know, like you have to share it with your sister or something
like that. You don't enjoy the private use of anything, you know. Everything
you own is tied up with someone else's interests and you can't really use it the
way that you would like to use it.        It's always like, you know, like you're
married to somebody and you have a car and you can't quite take it out when
you want to take it out because they might need it or your kids need the car or
your mom needs the car. And you can't really enjoy the exclusive use of that
object. That's a result of stealing.

[student: What about racism or institutionalized slavery?]

In what sense?

[student: Well if someone is slain or someone is the object of racism [unclear]
then there's a class thing or race thing]

Oh, we're going to come to that. We going to come to that. I .... you mean what
is the karmic cause of being treated with racial prejudice or something like that?

[student: What is the connection between the institutionalized aspect of these
things [unclear]]

No, that's that's a karmic common karmic cause. Yeah, if all the women in the
world are being discriminated against ... or if all the women in one Muslim
country, for example, are being dumped on, then according to Buddhism, they
all at one time in the past communally commited some some act of dumping on
another people and that and that happens in the scriptures. It is described in
scripture, you know. Is it right? No. Should we fight against it? Yes. Does it
have a cause? Yes. You know, it doesn't mean it's right and it doesn't mean you
shouldn't fight against it. It's not talking about that. But the real way to fight
against is that every person involved should try not to do it. But the natural
reaction to being dumped on is to dump on other people and that why samsara
is called the wheel, okay ... the circle. Seriously, okay. The natural reaction is
normally the one that perpetuates your own con ... bad condition. That's why
you learn Buddhism so you can react unnaturally with knowledge and with
compassion, okay.          Okay, number three.            People around you are
unreliable,okay. Meaning you have not been reliable to your spouse, okay. This
is the result of sexual misconduct, particularly adultery, okay. I don't know. I
was a manager at work for years and I had two kind of supervisors, you know.
One was ... you just ... you could just ... you didn't have to do anything and they
would do everything and you would get credit for it and you would get all these
bonuses and everything, you know. I mean, these are reliable people. And
then there were these other kinds of managers that didn't do anything and they
were unreliable and everytime you gave them something to do you would have
to chase them and make sure that they did it and everything else ... it's my own
karmas fault. I created the reliability of half those people and I created the
unreliability of the other half of the people. And if you're surrounded by people
who you can't count on, it's because you committed sexual misconduct. And
that's interesting to know. Because then you can fix it. You know...And not all
the connections are very obvious. And that's why we rely on the Buddha, okay.
Second one.

[student:Which part of sexual misconduct?

This is mostly adultery. It's mostly referring to adultery. You have not been a
reliable spouse. People are always coming on to your girlfirend or boyfriend,
okay. You walk down the street and ten people are [laughs] making your
girlfriend an offering, you know. I had a girlfriend once. We 'd go to restaurants
and the waiters would drop cards in her lap, you know. [laughs] [laughter] That
was from adultery,okay. [laughs] [laughter] Okay. I think maybe we'll take a
break there. [laughter] True confessions.

[student: Are we going to talk about how to clean up [unclear]]

You know, we will. We have to. Okay. By the way I have the homework and
stuff up here which I just got so ... you want to hand them out.

[cut]

No one believes what you say when’s it’s true. It's kinda an obvious question .
It's a children's question and it's a question that you don't ask after your mom
tells you three times, "Don't ask stupid questions?" Why do people believe other
people who lie all the time and why don't people believe people who are telling
the truth? And there's the answer, okay. Because those people individually didn't
lie or did lie in the past, okay. Whether or not people believe you has almost no
correspondence to what you're saying is true or not.              As you've seen
throughtout history, okay. And other people are always trying to deceive you.
Other people are always lying to you. And you see people who go through
life,you know ... I know people who go through life and everytime they go to
the store somebody is cheating them [laughs] and everytime they have
something done at their house, the contractor is, you know, cheating them and
they buy a car and the guy cheats them and then you know ... I don't feel like I
have this particular karma and I just can't understand why they feel so wary of
everyone. But that's why. They should because they [laughs] [unclear], you
know, okay. Number five ... which was what? Why are the people in your
office always struggling against each other? Or why are the people in your office
always getting along with each other? Why when you got your new job, they're
all fighting with each other and then when you went to the new job, the other
job, they weren't, anymore? And why would your family fighting with each
other and later they patched up and why did they start fighting again? You
know. It's really the result of that. Yeah.

[student: [unclear]]

Right, exactly. But there's one thing I have to mention is that the definition of
good karma .... what's the definition of bad karma? Yeah, it has to involve
suffering. Like if people are fighting around you but it doesn't bother you in the
least it's not a bad karma. It's not the result of a bad karma. It's very interesting,
you know. It it all depends on your personal reaction to it, you know. If things
are falling apart in your life but you are blissful that's the result of a good karma.
It's very interesting. It's really the effect that it has on you that determines
whether it came from a bad karma or a good karma, okay.                      And then
secondly ... this is ... I mean, I had a brother who committed suicide and they
always said that it was because of the people he was hanging ... I think it really
was, the people he ended up hanging out with ... he was a good guy but he used
to hang out with some really bad types and I think this would be that ... that you
you just fall into a group of friends or associates who are ... who are bad, you
know or you know ... you gotta get stuck in a business where the boss is telling
you to lie or cheat or stuff like that or you get involved in a career where
cheating is part of that business or something like that. That would be a result of
this karma. Result of harsh speech . The whole world around you is making
lousy noises at you. Silence, jackhammers [laughter] ... people fighting, okay ...
music that you don't like ... your neighbors won't turn off their stereos ...
seriously. It's very interesting. [laughter] No, it's very interesting and if you
want the neighbors to turn off the stereo, don't call the police ... watch your
harsh speech. Very interesting. I mean, it works and it's very difficult. It takes
great knowledge. It really does takes great knowledge to act correctly. If you
want the guys to turn off their stereo, never again say any harsh speech ... AND
do the four forces with your old harsh speech, you know. And the and the
stereo ... the guys will move out, okay. If you're stuck in this lousy little dharma
center in the basement of thirty-ninth street [laughs] you know, keep doing
virtuous deeds in that place and then sooner or later someone will force you to
move to a [laughter] East Village apartment based on that ... seriously. That's the
way to get there. Seriously. I mean, that's not nirvana. We have work on that.
That's a different thing, okay.

[student: So even when you're in the country and the crickets bother you]

Yeah, it's the result of bad karma.        Result of harsh speech. And and and
remember at the beginning of the class I said, "Think about the thing that
bothers you" ... well maybe you can reconstruct it now. That's the whole point.
You can reconstruct it ... find out why it happened and this can be anything from
your physical appearance ... to the world around you ... to your own thoughts,
okay. If you don't like you own thoughts, then fix your karma. Because that's
also a karmic result. Other people speak to you in an argumentative way. I
mean, wherever you go, people are always challenging you, fighting with you,
talking to you roughly, okay. What's number seven? Idle talk. I've seen people
at work. They come up with great ideas and you'll be at a meeting and someone
will raise their hand and give a really great idea and everybody will go ... you
know, it's like who cares ... you know. The boss will just blow him away. Like
just ignore them and go on to the next person, you know. That's the result of idle
talk. Other people ask me, "What causes low self esteem?" or a lack of confidence
in yourself. And it comes from idle speech. Very interesting. If someone taught
you some kind of special practice ... you know, like some kind of psychiatry
thing ... and it overcame your lack of confidence ... it would be because your
karma for idle speech had worn out simultaneously. And if they taught you this
method and it didn't work it would be because your karma from having spoken
idle talk had not worn out yet...and that’s why different psychological methods
or treatments work for some people and don’t work for others, cause it doesn’t
have anything to do with that. And that’s serious. And if they did ever work,
they should work all of the time. You know? If you were getting better because
of that new idea in psychological treament, therapy I guess you call it, you know
if there was some new therapy method that worked...because it worked by itself
independent of your karma which would be self- existently working it should
work for everybody...but it doesn’t...so that’s not what curred you. It was that
your karma for having spoken idle talk alot had finally worn out. It’s cool.
Yeah?
Course IX: The Ethical Life #120A.txt.