ACI 9 «Этическая жизнь», занятие 7

Class Seven: Taking and Keeping the Vows

Proofread by: Summer Moore



(cut) We have we finished the eight classes of doubts and then we have reached a
section on the {ten}. Now say {ten} {repeat}, {ten} {repeat}. {ten} means
something upon which something is based. So like this is...

(Student: This is supposed to be what?)

This would be the {ten} supporting you, the pen. The eraser would be under the
pen. So this is the {ten}. This is called the {tenpa} line, it’s spelled differently. But,
but the {den} is the thing that’s providing the foundation, okay? In Vinaya {ten)
can refer to a appropriate body and mind to take the vows. So, if you are, if you
are a {ten} you can take {Pratimoksa} vows. And if you’re not a {ten} you cannot
take (Pratimoksha) vows. For example animals can’t take {Pratimoksha) vows.
You have to be a human, okay? Only, only humans, of, the five realms only
humans can take it, {Pratimoksha} vows, okay? Not even gods can take
{Pratimoksha} vows. A god cannot become a (ge lob) or a {gelob ma} Diva,
pleasure being, that’s because they, they cannot have required motivation for
taking them which is what?

[students: Renunciation]

Renunciation. You can’t be sick of life because their life is too fun. Alright?
(laughs) Seriously. So, in, in any realm where they’re having too smooth of a
life they, they are not a {ten) for {Pratimoksha} vows. In any realm where they
have too much suffering to think straight, like the Hell Realms, they cannot take
{Pratimoksha} vows. Although they have some kind of natural renunciation.
And then if they’re too stupid, in the case of animals, or {pretas}, or things like
that, they cannot, it, it’s not a mental thing. They can’t understand why they’re
taking the vows. They can’t understand how to teach the vows, okay? So that’s
the idea of a {den}. Je Tsongkapa’s root text says the following {Gling su kepa
pune}. That’s where he explained the {ten}. So their first requirement he
mentions is (Gling su kepa}... {Ling su}, you know what {Gling} means? {Gling}?
I’ll just yell. How’s that? Can you hear okay?

(Student: I don’t know how to get the speaker to work.)
Okay, Ill talk louder. {Gling su kepa pune} {Kepa Pune} means man or woman.
Human...has to be a human. {Gling su} means on the three continents. Okay?
How many continents are there?

[students: seven}

What? There’s four main continents. And then each main continent has a sub-
continent. So there’s twelve or four, whichever way you want to look at it.
Okay? Four main continents. North, south, east, west. Okay? We live on the
southern continent. And {gling su kepa pune}means men or woman humans of
the three continents...meaning the first kind of being who’s a human who cannot
take {pratimoksha} vows, is someone who lives on the northern continent,
which is knows as “Unpleasant Sound.” {Tibetan} What’s the reason is that their
life-spans are fixed? They always live to five hundred. They never die early.
They have some kind of strange karma where they don’t die early. So people
don’t get renunciation. So the reason that that continent is called unpleasant
sound, is that just before they die they hear some voice in the sky saying
“tomorrow’s the day...” No...and then they draw unpleasant sound from that.
So, through their whole lives they have this pretty...they have some kind of
feeling of stability or some kind of feeling of what do you call that? Where you
think everything’s okay?           Like security...they’re not going to die
prematurely...and so they don’t get true renunciation. Yep true renunciation
you have to be aware of you death. The real most basic reason to be a Buddhist
is to be aware of your death. The minimum motivation is to be aware of your
death. So they can’t do it. So if you had to make...if your homework said, give
me seven beings that can’t take {pratimoksha} vows, cannot be a {ten} to
{pratimoksha} vows, the first one would be, someone who lives on the northern
continent.



{Chardmesugibu Za ma Tibetan- unclear}, wanting to change its elements. {Za
ma} means, {Za ma} means somebody’s who’s impotent in the sense that they
cannot engage in sexual relations. And they cannot take {pratimoksha} vows.
There’s a kind of energy in the human beings, either a male energy or a female
energy, and they’re described in the [B. Ahbidharma] second chapter. The (b.
Ahbidharma) in the second chapter, there are twenty-two powers or energies in
the body which are discussed and two of them are the male and female energies.
And you might call it hormones or something, okay, but if you don’t have them
or if there’s something wrong with them you cannot be a {den} for
(Pratimoksha} vows. Apparently if you’re deficient in, in either male or female
energy your mind cannot be strong willed enough to keep a vow. Somehow
that, those hormones give you some kind of firm mindedness or willpower to,
to keep a vow. And, and they say that a, if you don’t have that if you don’t have
those two powers then you, you somehow lack the sufficient will-power, or
decisiveness to keep the vows. So you have to have one of those two vows. {Za
ma} means a being who, who’s, who’s incapable sexually. Who just doesn’t have
sexual energy. {Za ma dang}, that’s number two. {Ma ning}. {Ma ning} means a
neuter okay? A neuter. There’s ten different kinds, five of them are female
{unclear} neuters and five of them are male {unclear} neuters. And basically it’s
just someone who, who again does not have either one of those energies. Or
something’s wrong with those energies. They don’t really have that energy in
its proper form. In the sense that they are neuter. Like they could have been
born neuter, neither male nor female. Or the could of been, they could of had an
accident and, and lost their sexual organ or something like that. It’s somebody
who’s, who’s been neutered that way, doesn’t have that energy. Doesn’t have
that hormone, hormonal energy to, to keep the vows. Okay? So that’s three so
far. (Za ma Mtsan Gnyis(unclear)}. {Mtsan Gnyis} means hermaphrodite,
meaning somebody whose has both sexual organs at the same time. And they
also, they don’t have a, a pure sexual identity or energy, and that, that’s required
for the vows. {Mtsan Gnyis…Tibetan}. Then he says {sok}. {Sok} means what?
{La sok pa}.

(Student: Etcetera.)

{Sok} means etcetera. Okay? (laughs) And then you have to go through one of
the etceteras. Let me see if I can remember. One is the {Sa nem}. Somebody
whose committed a {sa may}. What’s the {sa may}?

(Student: The five bad deeds.)

Yeah. One of the five ultimately bad deeds. Which are...

(Student: Killing...)

Killing your...

(Student: Mother...)

Mother. Killing your...
(Student: Father...)

Father.

(Student: Hurting a woman...)

Killing an arhat. Killing an Arhat. What’s an arhat.

(Student: (unclear)

Someone who’s reached nirvana. What’s nirvana?

(Student: (unclear))

Permanent cessation of you mental...

(Student: Afflictions.)

Afflictions. Yeah, okay? Now whether they have suffering or not is a big
debate. They have suffering but not the truth of suffering, something like that.
(laughter) I mean they can die and they can have their heads cut off and
something like that. But they don’t get upset. Okay? Which would be
interesting. Forth one?

(Student: (unclear))

Technically it’s called trying to draw blood from a Buddha in anger. So I guess
that’s to eliminate nurses who are drawing blood, you know. Stuff like that.
Trying to hurt a Buddha. Trying, because you can’t. Okay. And then the last
one...

(Student: …Sangha)

Yeah, causing a schism in the Sangha during the time of the Buddha. So we can’t
do number five. During the time of The Historical Buddha, we can do a
{unclear}, which means a close one but we can’t do a real one. We can’t do the
real one, right now. We can do something which is like ninety-nine percent as
bad, which is splitting up people in a Dharma center…but we can’t commit the
ultimate one. Only one person in history (unclear), they’re in the lowest hell.
Okay, that’s how many?

(Student: Five.)

Okay. Six, say {Rku Thabs Su Gnas Pa} {repeat), (Dupsu) (repeat), (Rku Thabs
Su} {repeat}, (Gnas Pa} {repeat}. {Rku Thabs Su Gnas Pa} means someone in, in,
this is historical and India, I guess it could also happen now-days, who goes into,
who hears there’s gonna be a Buddhist ordination ceremony... I, in fact I have a
lady last week who was like this... and she wants to write her PHD thesis about it
and ah, that ceremony is secret, cannot be attended by anyone who’s not taking
the vows, or giving the vows, and, and she wanted to know if she could, you
know, like stand behind a curtain and hear the whole thing, then she could write
about it for her doctorial thesis. Or, and in ancient India the idea was that
someone would pretend to be taking vows just in order to, to hear, you know,
what’s it’s all about, and, and, and. you know, how can they use it for their PHD
thesis and stuff like that. And that’s called {Rku Thabs Su Gnas Pa}. {Rku} means
top rip off. To steal something. {Rku Thabs Su Gnas Pa} means to, to be
somewhere with the intention of being an imposter with the intention of stealing
this knowledge through some lousy motivation like a PHD for instance.
In...instead of what? Renunciation. Instead of taking them or learning them or
studying them because you are feed-up with the ups-and-downs of life. That’s
{Rku Thabs Su Gnas Pa}. Um, seven... Say {Log Lta}, say {Log Lta} {repeat}.
{Can} {repeat}. {Log Lta Can} (repeat}. Okay, someone who really doesn’t really
believe in...

(student: Karma?)

Karma…laws or karma or past and future lives. Those are the two classic ones…
also the Three Jewels, things like. That would be {Log Lta Can}. Okay…and
those are certain types of people who cannot support their min…their state of
mind and their body, either their state of mind or body and or both, okay?
Cannot support the {Pratimoksha} vow. They cannot take the {pratimoksha}
vow…in this life. So I don’t think…I think all of us can take them, right? Right?

(student: Right.)

Alright, so that’s the discussion of the {ten}. Now we discuss the {tongway gyu}.

(silence)
Say {Tongway} (repeat}, {Gyu} {repeat}. {Tongway Gyu} {Tongway Gyu}.
{Tongwa} means to lose your vows. (Gyu} means generally cause, but here it
means what can make you lose your vows. Things that can make you lose your
vows. It’s a very depressing subject, okay? I don’t like this subject much. But
we’ll go through it just so you know what, what the rules are.             Okay?
{Tongway Gyu}, the ways you can lose your vows, can be divided into two
types. Okay? The first type are general ways of losing any {Pratimoksha} vows.
In other words if you do one of these and it happens to be like five, it doesn’t
matter what vow you have, you’ll lose it. Okay? And then there are specific
ways to lose specific vows and there’s like three examples of those. You know
like, for certain kinds of vows you would lose that particular vow but not a
different kind-a vow if you did that particular thing. Okay? So there’s general
ways to lose any vow and then there’s specific ways to lose specific vows. Okay?
And that’s the big division of two ways to lose your vows. So the root text says
{Lappa Pul…}.

(silence)

Say {Lappa} (repeat), {Pul) (repeat). {Lappa) (repeat) {Pul) (repeat}. {Lappa}
means generally advice or instructions. Sometimes it means precepts. Here it
means precepts. (Pul) is a, what’s that word, what’s that word for a polite word
for a nasty thing?

(Student: Euphemism.)

Euphemism. (laughs) Okay? {Pul} means to offer. Okay? Another {Pul} means
to give your vows back. Formally. Ah, that’s why you, you, you can either do it
in front of another ordained person or you can even do it in front of a Buddhist
statue and there’s a, there’s a ritual, short ritual where you say…Okay, I’m, I
can’t keep these vows any longer. I formally give them back. The motivation
for that he doesn’t discuss but in my own mind, you know, I, I see it like this,
when you take most of the (Pratimoksha) vows, you know all except the first
two, you swear to do so for the length of...

(Students: Your life.)

...your life before all the Buddha’s and bodhisattva’s of the ten directions, you
know? When you’re making a solemn vow in front of these enlightened beings,
and according to all, according to three kinds of Buddhist belief they are there in
the room. They are listening when you take the vow. And what’s the only
motivation you’re allowed to have? I mean is it you wanna look nice or you
kinda like the other people who are monks and nuns or you wanna go along
with your friends, what they’re doing, or, you wanna seem to people to be
more, more norm or something, you know? What is it? The, the only
motivation is that you’re sick of, of, of this kind of life where your body is
doomed, your relationships are doomed, your possessions are doomed, you
know? Your intellect is doomed. You’re gonna be, you’re gonna end up senile if
you live that long. You know? There’s no future in any of it. There’s no, there’s
no way any thing about this world can go right because it’s all created by karma
inclinations.     If those things, if those things are generating your world
everything has to screw up sooner or later. Just give it some time. Okay. It’s
not screwing up now give it another couple of weeks, or six months or a year,
you know? It cannot go right. You know? Quit struggling to make it go right
through external causes cause it cannot work. It will not work. Something will
always go wrong. And that’s renunciation. That’s a recognition with which you
take the vows. It doesn’t seem to me possible to give the vows back if you still
have any kind of understanding of what’s going on. You know, because you
took them to get outa that and, and that doesn’t get better. It’s not like, you
know, samsara suddenly gets nicer when you’re thirty or forty or something,
you know? It doesn’t work that way. It will always be screwy. And it will
always be, everything will be, there’s this African novel I had to read in high
school, it was called the Things Fall Apart. (laughs) And a, it’s very famous, is a
just, things fall apart, you know? And things fall apart, you know, everything
falls apart, so, and it doesn’t change. I can’t understand why anyone would,
would give the vows back. That, that situation doesn’t change, okay? Until you
use the vows to reach nirvana and Buddhahood. So I, I don’t understand. I, and
secondly the thing I’d say about it is that you can’t judge those people who do
give their vows up. I’ve known great Lamas, who I still consider great Lamas,
who have given their vows back. And they’ve gone on to do some other
extraordinary thing and maybe they have some extraordinary insight into the
future and what they could do if they gave the vows back. And maybe they
had, or maybe some Tantric deity appeared to them and said you’re problem is
pride, I want you to appear to mess-up in front of everybody so you can
overcome your pride about being pompas. And I can imagine that that’s
possible. So I don’t say that we can judge people but I’d say that if you take
them, and if that doesn’t happen, then (laughs), then, then I can’t understand any
reason to give them back. I, it doesn’t make sense. If you, if you took them for
the right reasons. So that’s the first reason.

(silence)
Say {shi pu} {repeat}, {shi pu} {repeat}. There’s a couple of words in Tibetan for
dying. This one is a little more exotic, okay? {Shi} means to die, but {pu} means
to move on, to transmigrate, okay? So {shi pu} is an idiom that means to die and
go on. What it means is die, okay, die and move on. Die and move on to your
next life. Die and move, okay? And that, if you die and move you lose how
many of the eight kinds of vows?

(Student: All of them.}

All of them. (laughs) Okay? Remember, remember where we are, we’re
talking about the general causes for losing any vow. Any of the eight vows.
Okay? What about one-day vow? (laughter) I think if you died in the, half way
through the day you’d lose it. (laughter) And then it’s gone, okay? {Shi pu tang
tsen nyi jung}.

(silence)

Say {tsen nyi} (repeat), {jung} {repeat}. {Tsen nyi} {repeat}, {jung} {repeat}. {Tsen}
means a, normally {tsen} means name. It can also mean mark, like a mark on
the Buddha. But sometimes it means sexual organ, okay? That’s when Rinpoche
says “sign”, that’s what he’s talking about, okay? {Tsen} means sexual organ,
{nyi} means two, {jung} means if they appear. And what it means is if you took a
vow with only one sexual organ and then your body changed and you had two
sexual organs you would lose the vow. {Tsen nyi jung}. This is only the Vinaya
so apparently it’s (laughter), apparently things like this happen more, more often
in the past. You know? Apparently things like this were not unheard of in
ancient India.

(Student: Do they have to be different or can they be the same?)

I think something’s that they’re the same, that they’re different.        Cause that
would mess-up, mess-up the energy of either male or female.

(Student: Are there some people who have three?) (laughter)

Excuse me?

(Student: Are there some people who have three?) (laughter)
We’ll have to debate this more. (laughter)        By the way those things are all
covered in the, in the more extensive text.

(silence)

Say le... yeah?

(Student: On number three {Nyi Jung} what’s the meaning of that?)

{Nyi} means two and {jung} means they, they appear on your body. {Len}, say
{Len sum gyur} (repeat}, {Len sum gyur} (repeat}. {Len} means, in this case,
time, like one time, two times, three times. Okay? {Sum} means what?

(Student: Three.)

Three. {Gyur} means change. Okay? If you change sexes once it’s okay. You
know like if you’re a {Ge long} and your sex changes to female and you become
a...

(Students: {Ge long Ma})

Okay. If you’re a {Ge Tsul} and you change to a female and become a {ge tsul
ma}. If you’re a {ge lob ma} what happens? You become a {ge tsul}. Okay? You
become a {ge tsul). Because there is no {ge lob pa}. Alright? Ah, so you can
change sexes once and even twice and you still keep a vow. Okay? But if it
happens three times, apparently, or more, apparently there’s some kind of...

(Student: Three strikes you’re out.) (laughter)

Oversexed. (laughter)

(student: unclear)

I don’t know, I don’t know, somebody asked me if it was three or after three
and to tell you the the truth I’m not sure. (laughter) The Dalai Lama always says
I’ll let you know when it happens.(laughter)

(silence)

Say {Ge Tsa) (repeat), {che} (repeat}. {Ge Tsa) (repeat), {che} {repeat}. {Ge Tsa} is
a very specific concept as {ge} means virtue, {tsa} means root. Like your root of
virtue. And people have been, you know people have translated it as like hard
virtue or (unclear) virtue or elementary virtue or something like that. And I was
in the monastery and we debated about it, I asked all my teachers, I, I couldn’t
see much difference between, I didn’t understand what was your rudimentary
virtue and what was not your rudimentary virtue, you know? Cause this subject
comes up a lot in the dis..., in the discussion of the {Paramitas}. Like when you
get anger. Extreme anger at a bodhisattva or something that can, can hurt the
{Ge tsa}. And {Mokda}, wrong views, like this is all garbage, when you say this
Buddhism stuff is all garbage, like I’ve met students who, you know, they, they
got into a bad frame of mind and it got worse and worse and worse and then
they went to Rinpoche and said this is all garbage, I give it up, you know? And
they leave. That’s {Ge tsa che). You cut your virtue root. Now what’s the
difference between {Ge Tsa} and Ge wa)? You know, virtue and virtue root. I, I
can’t get it very straight. I’m still working on it. Tell you the truth. Apparently
{Ge tsa} means your whole accumulation of virtue and, and it’s not like
elementary virtue, virtues or something like that. It doesn’t seem to mean core
of virtue so much as your general accumulation of virtue, through your life for
example. And if you, if you get a extremely bad wrong view you somehow
destroy that whole accumulation. And that’s the {Ge Tsa che}.

(Student: What is {che}?)

{Che} means to cut like {dorje Chepa} is the present tense. {Shepa} is the past
tense. {Dorje che}. {Che} means to be cut, cut off. Okay. To, to cut off your root
of virtue. Meaning destroy, destroy your, your accumulated virtues. As far as I
have been able to work it out, various Lamas... {Ge tsa che}. Those are general
ways of losing your vows. Those five. Now we’ll go to some... you got a
question?

(Student: Yeah. In Theravada Buddhism you can’t become a monk if you’re
missing a limb. I don’t know if that’s true?)

You need, our group, our, our, monastic code is (Theravadan). And technically if
you have certain gross physical deformities you’re not supposed to become a
monk. We’re not supposed to make you a monk. I don’t know, I don’t think
you, it’s not listed as losing you vows if you become deformed after you...

(Student: (unclear) if you’re a monk and you stepped on a land-mine or
something?)
Yeah. I, I don’t think you lose your vows. I have never seen it listed as a, as a
reason to lose your vows if you’ve already taken them. And, and I think in
practice I’ve seen many kinds of monks with many kinds of handicaps, granted
vows, they kept it very nicely. So I don’t, I think it might be a cultural thing. I
think in ancient India they didn’t want to collect all the handicapped people in the
country and all the, all the retarded people. And they were certain, ancient rules
about who you could make a monk. But, Je Tsongkapa doesn’t go through all
those. But there, there’s a long, long list and there’s a point in the ordination
ceremony where the assistant vow giver, who’s called the {Tsang tin}, has to take
a candidate to a room and ask him these like thirty-forty questions, you know?
Do you have this, do you have this, I mean, do you have this disease, do you
have this disease? Are you, are you here to steal something, you know? Do you
have a large debt that you’re avoiding by coming in the monastery? Are you in
the service of someone that you’re trying to run away from, you know? Stuff
like that.

(Student: (unclear)) (laughter)

I can’t tell you all the details. (laughter) They, they take care of that. (unclear)

(silence)

These are the, these are the specific causes that can make you lose certain vows,
okay?

(silence)

Say {Nyi shu} {repeat}, {malun} {repeat}, {dershe} {repeat}. {Nyi shu} {repeat},
{malun} {repeat}, {dershe} {repeat}. {Nyi shu} means twenty years old. (Malun}
means didn’t reach it. {Dershe} means to find out. And, and this is a very specific
thing. Ah, you thought you were twenty, you have to be twenty years old to
take {Ge long} vows, full monk’s vows. Okay? So if you, if you thought you
were twenty and took the vow and be..., but you weren’t twenty yet and before
you turned twenty you found out that you weren’t twenty then you lose your
vows. Okay? Then the vows disappear. Very interesting. Okay? You got it?

(Student: And if you didn’t find out?)

Then you would keep the vows.
(Student: (unclear))

Yeah, before you turn twenty. Counting time with the moon the text says.
Okay? Don’t forget that those nine months are considered, in, in Buddhism,
they’re considered lifetime, you know? So you, when you’re three months out
of the moon you’re already, you can have your first birthday. Conception date.
Anyway. Okay...

(Student: (unclear))

Yeah, to take the full monk’s vows you must be twenty. You have to be twenty.
You can’t make that decision

(Student: And that’s the maximum right?)

Oh no, no maximum. And in fact, in Tibet, there’s a, there’s a custom for people
to take them when they’re seventy or something like... People who have gone
through the whole family life thing but they want to die in the robes. In, in fact
my first Tibetan teacher did that. So he was a, he was an aristocrat. A very
famous aristocrat and wealthy aristocrat and he got renunciation about six
months before he died and he... (laughter) No, and he wanted to die with his
robes on. So he, he took the, he took his robes and then his wife still took care of
him because he was bed-ridden and every night she’d go out and sleep on the
porch.

(Student: I was going to bring this up earlier, but going back to impotency...
(unclear))

Which is (unclear) ...not, not able to have sexual relations.

(Student: Could they impotent now but unable to perform when they were
younger?)

I don’t, you know I’d have to check out the, the fine points, which are you know,
the Vinaya texts are sixteen thousand pages long. I think you’d have to have…
be… have that in you when you take the vows.

(Student: When you take the vows?)
It’s not listed as a reason to lose the vows in this very brief test. Now maybe in a
more detailed text. Yeah?

(Student: The monk who died six months after taking the vows?)

Yeah.

(Student: Was there a provision made for his wife in terms of his wealth?)

Yeah. Normally she would get it, you know. I think... Tibetans are very, and
Tibetan Buddhism, don’t forget they are bodhis..., they are normally people with
bodhisattva vows and with Tantric vows which is much different from the
monks in these southern countries, you know? Normally a monk in a Tibetan
monastery has all three sets of vows. So your behavior, your motivation, is
much more broad. You know? You really, it’s, it’s, be...renunciation is why
you’re a monk. But normally you have bodhisattva vows which, which mean
you’re supposed to take care of everybody. And if that means, for example,
collecting wealth and using wealth, you have to, you know? And that’s a big
difference between the southern and the northern traditions. Most monks in…in
Tibetan monks they tell all three sets of vows. And there are certain provisions
in the higher two sets of vows which require you to do things which..., if you
only had the lower vows would be breaking those vows. {unclear}

(Student: (unclear))

Do you know? Yeah. He says yes. I, I don’t, I...

(Student: What was the question?)

(student: For a full nun you have to be twenty.)

(silence)

Which seems to be a really wise rule, right? Cause, I mean in ancient India you
were halfway through your life by then.

(silence)

Say {Ten Chir} (repeat), {Ke lang} {repeat}. {Ten Chir} (repeat), {Ke lang}
{repeat}. {Ke lang} means to take it up with your mouth. {Ka} means mouth,
{kay} means with the mouth, {lang} means to take it up. It’s the Tibetan word
for, to agree to do something. Or to accept something. To agree to do
something. {Ke lang} means to agree to do something. {Ten Chir} means here,
in part, to have sex. To have sexual relations. And this is a specific way for being
{ge lob ma}. An intermediate nun loses her vows, all her vow immediately, if
she does this one action. Which is only agreeing to have sexual relations with a
man.

(Student: What about sexual relations with a woman?)

Say it again.

(Student: What about sexual relationships with another woman?)

The text I read said it was with a man.

(Student: (unclear))

Let’s not go into the detail now.

(Student: Venerable Elle: No I don’t say that. I’m saying that if you break a root
vow (unclear))

Normally, yeah.

(Student: So that this one (unclear) if it were a root vow.)

Seems to be. (laughter) Yeah. You learn in these debate (unclear) to be very
cautious. (laughter. Say {Nyin Shak De} {repeat}, {Nyin Shak De} {repeat}.
{Nyin}, {Nyin Shak} means one twenty-four hour period. {Shak} means one
twenty-four hour period. {Nyin Shak}. {De} means past, finishes. So why do
you lose your vows if in one twenty-four hour period you?

(Student: (unclear))

Yeah, this refers to the first two of the eight vows.      I’m sorry, the first one.
Alright? Which is what?

(Student: One day vow.)
One-day vow. Okay? So very specifically in the one day vow you lose it when
the day finishes. When the sun comes up the next morning, okay? When you
can see the lines on your hand. And that’s, that’s the {Nyin shak de}. So here
you have three specific causes for losing your vows in the case of a full monk, in
the case of a {ge lob ma} an intermediate nun, and in the case of a one day vow.
Specific causes, specific ways to lose it. Just that vow.

(Student: (unclear))

Right, right. That’s why I said things make you, make you lose a vow.

(silence)

Now there are two groups, there are two Hinayana groups that have, that add
two more causes. They say there’s two other ways you can lose a vow. Those
groups are the sutras...

(silence)

Which are the second of the four great schools of India. {sautantrika} And, the...

(silence)

There’s a group called {Neyopa} which means under the sun. And they, they,
they lived in some land which is like in central India, or something like that.
Refers to their geographical location. They are a group of the {Vibashika}, you
can call them detailists.

(silence)

And they, they have two more ways to lose a vow.

(silence)

Say {Tsa Tung} {repeat}, {Jungwa} {repeat}. {Tsa Tung} {repeat}, {Jungwa}
{repeat}. {Tsa Tung} means a {pamba}. What’s a {pamba}? Defeat. There’s five
groups of vows, right, for {ge long} or {ge long ma}... we had six because we split
one of them into two... there’s five groups, this is that first group called the
defeats, okay? The very, most serious. When the full monk there’s how many?
Four, (unclear) And full nun there’s eight, okay? So the most, the, the very most
serious four for a full monk and the very most serious eight for a full nun. It’s
called a {Tsa tung}. And {jung wa} means if you have a {chatzu}. If one of them,
if you break one of, one of those first groups of vows. The very most serious
ones. So according to these two groups, if you commit one of those, you break
all your vows.

(silence)

Say {Damchu} {repeat}, {nuppa} {repeat}. {Damchu} {repeat}, {nuppa} {repeat}.
{Damchu} means the Holy Dharma, meaning the Buddhist Dharma. Buddha
Dharma. {Nuppa} means if it declines in the world. If in the whole world
Buddhism like starts to disappear. Then they say, these two schools say you
would personally lose your vows, also. Your vows would disappear. Buddhism
in general disappeared in the world your vows would also disappear. The other
schools say come-on! That is the Holy Dharma (laughter), and if some person
still has vows and still keeping them well then the Holy Dharma didn’t disappear
in the world did it? So then there’s a disagreement among the schools. These
are, these are the, these two viewpoints are not accepted by the, the school of, of
Vinaya in Tibet. Which is called the {Kajneri} detail of school. Okay? We, our,
our Vinaya follows the details of the school of what’s called {kutchnees). Of, of
northern, northwest India. Of the, of those days.

(Student: So this school say what about (unclear))

You lose all your vows. You..

(Student: (unclear))

All. Hey, good question. Lets do that. She says well what does happen to you
in the, in, in the school that we do accept, if you do break one of your root vows?
Most seriously.

(silence)

{Kashmiri…} means {Kashmiri} detailist which is what we are. {Dondeng etc}
means if they, if somebody with monk, with full monks and nuns vows commits
a, one of the defeats, {Bulun Norden Shin}. {Bulun} means to have a death.
Okay? {Bulun} means to have a death. {Norden} means to be rich. {Nor} means
wealth. {Den) means how you spend, and related obviously to the word
{Norbu}, for example. {Shin) means the metaphor. You can use the metaphor of
that. So they say a person who for example breaks the vow against killing.
They become like a rich man with a big debt, okay? And I always give the
example of my boss. (unclear). He started out with fifty thousand dollars, he
built it up to a hundred and fifty million, he’s down to a, I don’t know what, lets
say fifty million, ah, and he owes about five million. Okay? And he doesn’t have
any cash and the company might fold because he’s worth fifty million but he
can’t liquidate fifty million so he’s, he can’t pay the bills, I mean... So, that’s a
little bit of {Bulun Norden Shin} okay? That’s if you have the vows at all you are
like a very, very, wealthy person. If you broke one of the root vows, in that
sense, you really have a huge debt. But the debt is much less then, in what you
have. And, and then Chone Drakpa Shed…

(Student: Who’s the commentator on that?)

Dharma Badhra says (laughs), I get confused. Dharma Badhra says you are poor
from the point of view, if someone says How’s your job against killing doing,
you have to say I’m broke. You know I really messed up. And if they say how’s
your other vows doing, you have to say I’m really a lucky person. I’m, I’m rich
in the vows. Because I’m keeping all of them. So from this point of view you’re
a pauper. From this point of view you’re like a rich man. Okay? But you don’t,
according to, to the school that Je Tsongkapa follows and that we follow and all
the traditions in Tibet follow you don’t lose, you don’t lose all your vows. You
don’t, it’s not a {tongway gyu}. It’s not a, it’s not, you don’t lose all you vows
like that. It’s very, very, very serious. It destroys that vow. I mean it, it, it
practically wipes out your vows. It, it, destroys, it, it damages that vow
irreparably. You cannot ever bring it back to its full strength as it was before.
And, if you, and I believe you, it’s only if you don’t hide it that you don’t lose
your vows. You have to admit, admit it to people. And then all sorts of bad
things happen to you in the monastery. Like you get demoted and all sorts of
things. But you don’t, you’re not thrown out of the monastery. You don’t lose
your vow.

(Student: (unclear))

I’ll write it, okay? How do you spell that? (laughter)

(silence)

What’s that?
(Student: We were thinking English spelling.} (laughter)

I’ll do both.

(silence)

Generally {Kashmiri} means Muslim. I mean in modern Tibetan it has come to
mean Muslim. But in ancient Tibet it meant someone from Kashmiri. And most
of the Muslims who came into Tibet were from the Kashmir. Were traders from
the Kashmiri (unclear). And their work, there was a large Muslim community in
Tibet. I mean especially in Lasha…And, they, they were very well accepted and
people got along very well. Now-days they’re getting much more powerful in
Tibet and there’s some problems there. There, there were Tibetan monks in
(unclear), very interesting, I met and spoken to them, they’re very interesting
people. (unclear) Alright, {Atchinchingamaw etc.}, maybe a good time to take a
break? We don’t have much more.

(cut)

…is really just (unclear). Which is the permanent ending of your mental
afflictions based on having seen emptiness directly. Because you saw emptiness
directly you’re able to remove your mental afflictions permanently. Then you
can either sit there or you can go up, get your rear end up to the bodhisattva
track. Okay? And, and there’s this whole sweet thing in the scriptures about
how the Buddha’s and bodhisattvas knocked these people out of it. It’s called
peace. It’s called, during this very blissful state, where they, they don’t care
about other people and they’re just sitting there and enjoying nirvana. And then
there’s all, this beautiful description of how the Buddha’s and bodhisattvas wake
them up and get them to go up to the bodhisattva track, you know? What they
whisper in their ear, you know? It’s very sweet. Like how, how does it happen,
you know? What kind of karmic cause would make you leave this Buddhist
nirvana? And then somebody’s like trying to push you (laughter). Like, you
know, let’s go. Gotta get to the bodhisattva track. Bodhisattva track, first path,
true renunciation aimed at yourself and others. Which is otherwise known as?

(Student: Bodhicitta.)

Bodhicitta. Okay. The wish for enlightenment. But now you know it means the
wish for total enlightenment.      And, the second path is a bodhisattva’s
understandings of emptiness and (unclear). Third path, a bodhisattva’s direct
perception of emptiness. Forth path, a bodhisattva going through the process of
removing their mental afflictions and their obstacles to omissions. And then fifth
path, total enlightenment. So those are the three enlightenments. Two of them
are nirvanas, one of them is pure and total enlightenment. When you reach
nirvana it’s just a state of mind. Your mind is just totally clear. Clean. No dirty
thoughts ever again. Nothing. No irritation, no stressful thought, no unhappy
thought... Your mind cannot be shaken out of a very, very stable kind of
contentment and happiness ever again. Period. Cannot happen. The outside
world can be all chaos and it probably will be for a while. You know your boss is
still screaming, the company is still going to belly up, you know? Friends are still
being bad to you sometimes, you know? You think…all sorts of things can still
happen. Your finances can go up-and-down (laughs), you know your health can
go up-and-down but your mind is just totally like in this golden window and,
and nothing can shake it out of that state.             You are in a state of total
contentment. You can never really be irritated or anything again. Ah, that’s
nirvana. And then enlightenment is when you go on beyond that and, and you
have this experience of taking other people... Your whole viewpoint of being in
that golden window is to turn around and bring other people there. And, and,
your whole, the whole feeling that you have as you’re, as you’re entering it is
that you stop and you hesitate and you look back and you think I should bring
other people here. If you hesitate and didn’t stop, you know, not enter it, no.
You enter it. But as you enter it you’re thinking I’m doing this so that other
people will meet me and they’ll sense what I have and they will, then I’ll be able
to teach them and take them to that same place. So that’s bodhi, that’s bodhicitta.
And I’ll take them out, out, as I, I will enter nirvana and I will stay in nirvana and
I will reach that state of mind... other people will smell it and they’ll be attracted
and then I’ll, I’ll teach them how to do it, like that. And that, that’s, becomes, that
becomes the motivation which turns into full nirvana. And, and if you do it with
the, with a tantric teaching, if you have initiation and if you had a proper
transmission from, a personal transmission from a, from a qualified tantric Lama
then you can do that in this life. You can do it very quickly. Very quick and very
subtle and very… if you don’t do it just right it’s a disaster. So it’s a very delicate
thing. That, that last step of accelerating it needs total purity and devotion and a,
and if you don’t pull it off then it’s a disaster. So ah, that, and that’s a very secret
thing and a very private thing and you can’t talk about it. (laughs) So we had a
question. Yeah?

(Student: We just did on the homework and on the quiz the consequences and
the ah...)
Yeah, good.

(Student: The environmental consequences of the two you know…and you were
saying that when you reach nirvana you can have all these things going on
around you but it doesn’t affect you but the fact that they’re going on around
you has is that related to the consequences and the karmic results that you just
went over?)

Yeah, good. It’s, it’s the external world is still absolutely result of bad karma
and… mental afflictions. So you didn’t purify that yet. All that you purified was
your own life. So, so your body is still getting old, your relationships are still
screwing up, your business is still going up and down, your finances are going
up and down, your body is getting sick or not getting sick, your meeting people
that scream at you or don’t scream at you... You mind is totally holy but other
people see whatever they have the karma to see and they react to you whatever
way they have the karma to see. And so it’s possible that a person could reach
nirvana and still be embroiled in controversy and people still attacking him and
you know, in fact it also happens with religious people. But from their point of
view in, in their own mind they, they don’t have any hatred, or any bad feeling
or, they’re incapable of it. Because they, I mean if you want to know the punch
line, because they understand they understand the emptiness of the situation.
The perfect, and they trained themselves not to respond to it, but that’s a long
story, that’s a different class.

(Student: But it’s their karma or your karma?)

What you see is your karma, what they see is their karma. They are forced by
their karma to see a mind, to enjoy a mind, to live in a mind, which is totally free
of any kind of mental affliction. They cannot get mad. They cannot hate
anyone. They cannot be jealous. They cannot even be irritated or, or stressed
out again, period. But the, they can be on the Titanic and the Titanic can be going
under and, and they are doing what they have to do but they’re not feeling bad
or, or, or hurt or, or stressed-out or irritated or agitated or anything.

(Student: Are they saved?)

(laughs) Not necessarily. I mean the first Dalai Lama in his commentary on {B:
Abhidharma} relates the story of many arhats who suffered terrible deaths.
Uneama himself, for whom the wheel of life was painted, suffered a terrible
death. It’s not, he didn’t have any mental afflictions, but he, he bod, his body
was, was murdered. So, so {arhats} are in this weird schizophrenia where the
mind in total happiness and contentment but the body is still going through a lot
of disasters. Just like us. (laughs) Yeah?

(Student: So how does feeling compassion for someone if you’re an {arhat} and
you see someone suffering then do you feel some kind of that pain which would
not be contentment and happiness?)

Right. I, I debated this, you know, I had the honor of being the person, person,
I, it was my turn to debate Pabongka Rinpoche when he took his geshe test. So I
was a senior monk in our house and wasn’t a geshe yet. So I, I had to be the first
one. And that was the question I asked him. You know I said “How can a
Buddha be aware of other people’s suffering and not feel some kind of mental
distress. I mean how can an enlightened being be aware of other peoples pain
and not feel some sort of pain themselves? You know empathize.” And we had
this huge debate. We had a long debate, and all these geshes got up and joined
and I think at the end what we all decided was ah, which is how it happens in a
debate, was, was that they’re aware of your suffering but all they feel is
compassion and that compassion is a kind of bliss for them. You know that
compassion is the kind of good feeling from them. I mean it’s a, it’s a kind of a
sweet sadness where they’re aware of the suffering, they’re very, very
concerned about it but it doesn’t make them feel any pain. They, they, they love
you and, and they want you to be free from suffering, but their, the emotion to
them is some kind of sweetness. Alright? They can be aware of your suffering
and not be in suffering themselves.

(Student: Call that total detachment. Wouldn’t you?)

I don’t know, detachment kinda to me seems like they don’t care and it’s not like
that. They really care. They’re attached...

(Student: They care but at the same time you don’t care because it’s emptiness.)

Because it’s empty you should care. (clap of hands) (laughter)

(Student: Because they want to free them right?)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but not being attached that’s a delicate idea. You gotta be
careful. We gotta talk more about that. Yeah?
(Student: You mentioned once about repairing a vows about the powers
(unclear)).

Yeah, yeah. Yeah we’re gonna have it in the Lam-rim which is coming up now.
After this class. We’re gonna go through the four powers. Yeah?

(Student: Can you restore these vows through the four powers?)

No. Chone Drakpa Shedrup says the ritual for restoring {pratimoksha} vows,
especially through the higher vows, is the Sojong Ritual. Is, is the bi, bi-weekly,
every two weeks. Yeah? Ah...(unclear)



(Student: Two months.) (unclear)

Ah, two times a month. (laughs) Ah, you have a ceremony to restore your
vows. And that’s a method for restoring your vows. And then Chone Drakpa
Shedrup says What happens if you can’t get the sojong? You know? Can, do, do
the four powers do the same thing? He says absolutely yes. He says you can do
the four powers anytime. And in fact when you break a vow you must repair it
immediately. If you have any means to do so. The karma doubles about every
twenty-four hours or so. And it’s exponential. So, you know, you must, you
must open it up, admit it to somebody and then, and then immediately take
steps, you know? I, I like to do it right at point, do the bad deed, you know? Do
the bad deed and then I’ll, doing the four powers and then about five minutes,
you know? And, and admit it to somebody. And try to straighten it out. Try to
remove the power. You have to act immediately. It, it has some kind of very
instant exponential growth and karma. It’s very well-known. So it’s important
to try to, try to, stop it immediately. Before it grows too strong. What did you
say?

(Student: Nip it in the bud.)

Yeah, nip it in the bud. Perfect.

(Student: (unclear))

Atisha carried around a little {stupa} to confess to. And every time he had a bad
thought he would get off his horse. The village idiot traveling on horseback to
(unclear) from Hoffa, you know like a three day trip and it would take them like
twenty days. (laughter) You know here’s this great, pure, spotless, Indian
pundit, you know, who every time he had the slightest bad thought about
somebody he would stop and get off his horse and put the {stupa} down and
(laughter) and do his confessions, right there, you know? And his entourage
used to get a little irritated with him, can’t we get there? you know. (unclear) So
Tontu, these are the two results of keeping your vows. And… I worry about
this class. This class didn’t quite come out the way I thought it would. The way I
hoped it would. I thought by the end of this class everyone would be inspired
to, you know, everyone would, we’d probably have somebody shaving hair at
the bottom of the stairs, you know. (laughter) I thought (laughter) I thought it
would come out like that. I don’t think you’ve got this overwhelming urge to
take, to take ordination. (laughter) And somehow I’d want you to at least get a
little taste of it. And, and you don’t have to full ordination, if fact it’s a very bad
idea if you’re not totally ripe for it. And very few people are. It’s a very, very,
bad idea if you’re not totally ready for it. But I, but I going to try to talk you into
at least taking lay vows, okay? Lay vows meaning, very simple, like come-on,
you know (unclear) (laughter) no stealing (unclear). No pure, straight, clear,
adultery with another person’s wife or husband, you know? No lying about
seeing emptiness (unclear). You can, no drinking, you can keep those. Ah, and,
and, very, very, what I’m trying to say is that you can get to that nirvana if you
keep these vows. It’s very interesting. People always coming up to me and
saying I’ve been meditating for ten years, nothing’s happening, I’ve been doing
my tantric {sahdana} every morning, I didn’t miss a day, nothings happening.
Um, I can’t concentrate, my back hurts, I can’t keep my mind on this
visualization I’m supposed to be doing. Ah, I don’t feel any sweetness in my life,
or any great, I don’t have, I’m not seeing Angels every night come down to me
during my prayers and Manjushri hasn’t appeared to me yet and, and ah,
nothings popping, you know? I mean, really, if you’re doing really good
spiritual work you should be like popcorn and, and, and things just going off all
the time, great wonderful things all day long like boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom, you know? These great things happening. And then, then, you get in
these long dry spells where nothings happening at all and, and you say why?
You know? I’ve been trying to do everything you asked, supposed to do. And I
always tell people go back to your a, especially with tantric stuff, I mean if you’re
not happy, you’re doing some {sahdanas} for ten years or five years or two
years and, and it’s just like these long empty words and it’s boring and you can’t,
nothings happening! And it’s not very much fun. And go to Tsechu and sit
through this two hour thing (laughter) And ah, nothing happens. I always tell
people go back to {Pratimoksha}, you know? The secret, the key is in your
{Pratimoksha} vow. You know, take some, take some {Pratimoksha} vows.
Have that invisible cloak on you called the {Pratimoksha} vow. And, and it has, I
mean honestly, really truly, it has some, it’s like a super, it’s like a Hidden power,
or something. It’s a Hidden energy that, that changes everything about your
spiritual practice. If you take them, if you take on this invisible energy which
covers your body like a cloak, and if you keep them it, it effects the spiritual
body immensely. You know things start popping. Things start happening. I, I
would almost assert, in public, the, the un-assertible in the secret teachings that
you don’t need an initiation. People ask me should I go take another initiation? I
say, I say I don’t think you don’t even need any initiations. If you keep your
{Pratimoksha} perfectly well you, you will meet that deity and they will take you
and initiate you. You know? You don’t have to go to, you don’t have to, you
know, go on the A-train to such-and-such a street and wait for this guy to come
from India, you know. Keep your {praktimo...}, take those vows, keep them
really, really, sincerely. It’s just fun. It’s not a drag. I mean try to be honest at
work. It’s very refreshing. I’ve been trying it real hard this week. (laughter) I
mean there’s things I wasn’t supposed to tell my boss, you know? He’s, he
wrote me a memo praising me for something I didn’t do, you know? When I
wrote to him I said It’s really a nice thing you said to me this week but I have to
admit I didn’t do it, you know? And he’s like well, but you’re great anyway.
You know what I mean? (laughter) (laughs) That’s the kind-a thing that
happens. I mean you’re just totally honest. Just keep them, it’s fun. It’s really
fun. It’s a lot more fun than trying to hide things. And, and you get these
incredible results. There’s some kind of combination of having that invisible
vow that you don’t get if you don’t have the vow. It’s some... it’s, it permeates
your being and, and there’s some sort of catalyst created if you, if you have that
and you keep them nicely something amazing will happen to you. I promise. It
really does and it’s sweet and it’s wonderful and it’s what you always hoped for
when you came to a Buddhism class, you know? It’s not like these boring tests
and quizzes and more facts, you know? This is like real thing happening. And a,
try it, just try it. If you don’t like it you can always give ‘em back. (laughter)
What-a you got to lose? There’s this Lama who said, you know, everything
you’ve been doing so far didn’t work so might as well try it. You know?
(laughs) You have a question?

(Student: Do you feel your place of work, and expectations for you to be this
cynical person that you’ve always been. Then maybe the time to say goodbye to
that sort of place that’s so ingrained (unclear?).

It depends on, the answer is in the bodhisattva vows, and they say take an action
which fits your capacity. So if you have, if you feel that you can be strong
enough then you should stay there and learn from it, you know? It’s much
more invigorating to be pure in the, in mud, which is the ideal, of lotus. You
know? Lotus always grows in the filthiest kind-a, if you’ve ever been to India
and see where the lotus grow... I’ve never picked a lotus cause I could not get to
the lotus because it’s always in this big pool of crap, you know? You can’t get to
‘em. They’re always growing about twenty feet away in this big pool of ugly,
horrible poop. And that’s the, like, that’s why a lotus is so important in
Buddhism. A bodhisattva shines in the worst crap. You know? I mean a, in, a
bodhisattva can really do their thing in the worse kind of offness, surrounded by
really lousy people, and doing really cynical things. That’s when you can really
show your stuff. And, and so if you have the strength stay there. If you feel, if
you find that it’s affecting you and you can’t prevent it, and you find yourself not
being able to resist those temptations that’ll be cynical and, and, and other things
then you have to be, then you must get out. Then you must get out. So then
there’s this idea in, in bodhisattva, Shantideva says about the perfection of
giving, he says don’t give away your arm at the beginning because you’ll regret
it later. He says start out with some vegetables, okay? (laughter) (laughs)
(unclear) Start, start with carrots and potatoes. (laughter) Try to figure out, try
to give em a potatoes. And then when you’re ready, a real bodhisattva can
reach into their eye-socket and rip out their own eye and hand it to someone, if
they asked for it. They can, they actually have the will power to, to reach in their
own eye-socket and rip it out and give it to somebody. And not feel the slightest
disturbance about it. Like, oh, you want my eye? Okay. You know? I mean,
but he says don’t do it at the beginning, you know you gotta build up.
(laughter) He says, he says start with vegetables. He really does say that. You
have to do it when you have capacity. It’s very important bodhisattva principal.
If you over do it you’ll quit. You know? Many people do that, say Oh, I’ll give
all my money to this Lama, you know, then three weeks later they’re like you
know man, what did I do? You know? And, and they blow it. You know?
So...You had a question.

(Student: What’s the actual progression (unclear) being enlightened and taking
ordination?)

Well we, we talked about {nay me puntsok}, right? {Nay me puntsok} means
the, the ideal way. The ideal way is take, is take your {ginya}, just take your
layman’s vows, and, and when you’ve done pretty well with them and you feel
like you’re ready to go on you take your novice vows. Which is like thirty-six
vows if you count it that way. Ten vows if you count it simple way. And then if
you, if you feel strong enough with that then you take your full (unclear) vows.
That’s the normal. that’s the {nay me puntsok}. And it starts with a, and then
between the {gaystiil} and the {gainyan} you take a vow to, you take a
commitment, (unclear) commitment, to, to leave the family life. Say, I’m, I’m
gonna give up on the family life. And that’s the normal place. But I, I know that
Rinpoche for example, there was a ten year period when he only ordained one
person. And. and, he’s very, you know, I think that’s very wise. He’s, he wants
people to be totally ready to do it. And it’s very, very wonderful and you love,
you know have to do it sooner or later, you might as well do it in this life, okay?
It’s very wonderful if you can do it. It’s really, really good. It doesn’t solve all
your problems. You know changing your suit doesn’t change a single in..., inch
of your mind. But it’s a commitment. You know? And, and, and it helps. So I’d
say start with medium vows and keep them for like a year or two. Really strict
and keep thinking about them. And then when you’re really, really ready then,
then go to Rinpoche and he’ll say naw. (laughter) And then the, and then you
say can I come back and ask in a year? and he’ll say okay. And you know I
mean, if you proved that you’re really serious then it’s good but to, to give them
up is really, really terrible. So, you know, I think the, the real, they say there’s
one great thing about samsara, you know it’s in the scriptures, it says samsara is,
I, I wanted to say sex but I didn’t want to curse, they say samsara’s like that. But
there’s one great thing about samsara, they say, all the scriptures say there’s one
wonderful thing about samsara, is that sooner or later it will reveal its true
nature to you. You know? It, and sooner or later it will, it will tell you the
complete truth about its own nature. You know? So sooner or later your life
will screw up big time. You know? And, you know sooner or later life will
reveal itself to you. You know you have these little, fragile, lousy happiness
right now. And, and sooner or later they’ll get smashed by samsara. And then
you’ll say oh, man, you know, that, it was all right, now I have to take
ordination. (laughs) (laughter) But keep it in mind. You know, {Sem jokshu} it’s
in Tibetan. Keep it in mind. I mean, they’ll come a time when you’re ready,
when it’s very, very comfortable, and, and then, I hate this thing in the West as
thinking about it as like a punishment, or scurging yourself, or you know, Oh, I
can’t have ice-cream anymore, you know (laughter), can’t watch movies, you
know? It’s not like that. It’s like very joyful. It’s very cool. It’s very fun. I mean
if you really go to work and you really be honest for one day, try it. You know.
It’s really kind-a fun and people smell it and the whole place starts to work
better. It’s really weird. Just try it. It’s a lot more fun. It is fun, it’s not like
some, you know, I can’t do that, I can’t do anything. It’s not like that. Take, take
laymen vows at least. Yeah?

(Student: When are you going to have layman’s vows?)
I think we’re gonna try to get Rinpoche to here in November.             And we’re
negotiating. (laughter) Very hard to get him to, to go anywhere.

(Student: If you’ve taken them can you take them again?)

No. Okay? It’s a, it’s a {pratimoksha} vow. It’s {unclear}. You don’t have to
take them again, you can’t take them again. Bodhisattva vows you can take all
the time. And secret vows if you’re ready. You, you got either, once you got it,
you got it unless you have one of those causes to give it up. Unless you die or,
etcetera. Okay, last thing on your homework, there’s a colophon to the text.
Which is where Je Tsongkapa says I wrote this book. You know? Or somebody
says Je Tsongkapa wrote this book. The great poet Je Tsongkapa wrote this
book, and what else did it say, there’s something in there... anyway, then a
{Ngulchu Dharma Bhadra}, which is kinda cool, he explains why his name is so
Tsongkapa. Which, which I’ve never seen before. And you’re seeing these
people translate, I mean Mister Onions, something like that. (laughter) {Tsong}
does mean onion. But apparently it doesn’t have anything to do with that.
{Tsong} is the name of a river that goes through a providence of Tibet called
{Dokan}. And ah, and because Je Tsongkapa was born in that area of the river
he was called (Tsongkapa}. So that’s, that’s one thing that he says. Oh, and then
he gets into the explanation of why did Je Tsongkapa name his book, is it The
Essence of the Ocean of…of discipline? The Essence of the Ocean of Discipline.
Okay. And the…and the explanation is as follows. The discipline part you had in
the first class. Do you remember the two parts of why, why is Vinaya called
Vinaya? {Dulwa}. There were two parts...

(Student: To taint (unclear) the sense of your wanting...)

Yeah, that was number two. Taint your sense powers. You know, you’ll no
longer be living in the world of the senses exclusively which is ice-cream and sex,
okay? And then (laughter), and then, what’s the first one? {Yungmotu}, which is
what? It, it, it, it controls your mental afflictions. It destroys you mental
afflictions. And if you keep the {nyva} it’s (dulwa} or discipline in the sense of it
knocks out your mental afflictions and it, it controls your senses. That’s the first,
that’s why he calls it the essence of the ocean of discipline. That’s the discipline
part (dulwa}. {Vinaya}. Why is it called an ocean. Ah, Dharma Bhadra says it’s
called the ocean because understanding in detail all these principles about what
you’re supposed to do, what you’re not supposed to do and what you’re
allowed to do. You know things like that. The great, the great structure of the
Vinaya precepts, the great detail of them is like the ocean. I mean to get to the
bottom of it is extremely difficult. You would have to devote a lot of study to
understand every aspect of the Vinaya. To, to really understand why, why you
should do this thing like confession, why you shouldn’t do this thing like hurting
other people. Why you’re allowed to do this thing like dancing after {dakkye)
which happened last week. Ah, for eight days you’re allowed to goof-off. You
know why you’re allowed, all the details of those three are, are in the... to really
grasp all the fine points, it’s like an ocean. It would take you a long time. Sixteen
thousand pages to study. In the canon, much less the commentary. Now why is
it called an essence? The only thing that’s famous in Tibet for being being the
source of what? It was believed that all jewels came from the bottom of the
ocean. All kinds of jewels. Because coral came out of the bottom of the ocean.
Things like that. Coral’s very valuable in Tibet. It’s like the number one jewel in
Tibet. So they said I guess all jewels come from the bottom of the ocean. And
the, and the most essential jewel in, in all the world is what? According to Asian
beliefs.

(Student: (unclear))

Well really is a diamond but, it’s also this other, that’s true, but... (laughter) This
other jewel called the wishing jewel. {Mishimogu}, okay? {Mishimogu}. And
this some kind of jewel, that if you find one, and you if rub it a certain way, it’s
like an Aladdin’s lamp. If you rub it a certain way and put it in a certain place
then you can make a wish to it, you get whatever you wish. It gives you your
wishes. So this is supposed to be the ultimate jewel. The essence of the jewel.
The essence of the ocean. It’s the, it’s the ultimate jewel, and since all jewels
come from the ocean, this is the essence of the ocean. So what is the wish giving
jewel of {Vinaya}? And then that’s the end of this class. Okay?

(Student: (unclear) enlightenment.)

(unclear) Understand this, it’s the jewel and not the wish. It’s the thing that
gives you your wish. It is the Aladdin’s lamp and not the thing you wished for.

(Student: The balance.)

The balance, yeah. Cool, {pratimoksha} vow. They are the wish giving jewel. I
mean they, you cannot imagine now, what you can get from them. I mean you
have to keep them to find out. It’s very, very cool. What I mean, you cannot at
present moment, imagine how cool it would be to keep them and get, and get
those things happening to you. I mean what will happen to you, you cannot
imagine right now. It’s, you, you really can’t imagine it. You have to keep them
to find out. You know? It’s something no one can, can convey to you in words.
Okay? You have to take them and keep them and then, and then things will
happen to you that no one can ever describe to you and that you would even
even have dreamed of. And that’s the major {unclear}. And that’s {unclear}.

(Student: It’s much different to take the vows and to keep them then to just live
them.)

Extremely different. Totally different. Totally different. Totally different effect.
That’s, that’s one big principle of the (Vinaya}, you know? Some kind of catalyst
of having them in your being, form..., having them form in your being and then,
and then protecting you. And feeding them. Has a totally different effect then if
didn’t ever take them. And, and if you did the same things. Totally different.
Okay? Ah, meditate on that for a few minutes, okay? And then ah, you know
just rejoice. I don’t think anyone got a good Vinaya class in America up to now.
I mean, I suspect, maybe that’s a kind of egotistical to say that, I, I’m not sure
that anyone’s (unclear). Maybe a few people... But to really have a, a pure
Vinaya class, and to really appreciate what could happen if you took them and
you kept them, I mean, it’s very precious understanding to have in your mind.
It’s very, we’re very fortunate to have done it. Okay? So, it’s a big vow. We’re
gonna have, for desert, we’re having three Lam Rim classes (laughter) after that.
From Je Tsongkapa’s own personal life. But but just rejoice, okay? Supposedly if
you’re happy about doing a great thing, which you just did, it, it enhances it a lot.
A lot more energy. So, just meditate for a few minutes, gonna think about
meaning, think about how lucky we are that we did it, you know? And that, and
that someone in America is, is rejoicing about this holy thing called taking the
vows (unclear). Okay?