ACI 9 «Этическая жизнь», занятие 8

Class Eight
Transcribed by: Karen Becker

(cut)

and we came to the end of Je Tsongkapa's vinaya teachings. I
thought it would be good for dessert to do a thing called (lam
rim). Say (lam rim) (repeat) (lam rim) (repeat). (Lam Rim) is
good in that it's like grounding yourself. I think, you know,
the idea of these classes is that it's a five year course, or I
don't know how many years it is gonna be, (laughter) but the idea
is that you could learn to to translate or to become a teacher of
Buddhism and it's good every once in a while to go back and
ground yourself in (lam rim). (Lam rim) is like the basis of
everything. And we'll talk about it's benefits tonight, but I,
it's important I think that as we go through the whole process
that you go back to (lam rim) every once in a while. (Lam rim)
keeps your...especially your motivation in the right place and it
gives you also a view of the whole Buddhist teachings. So, I
thought every few courses we should go back to (lam rim), okay?
(Lam) means "path" and (rim) means "the steps, steps along the
path", okay? Buddhist teaching is like a big...I like to compare
it to an automobile engine and you can open up the hoods of
various cars and especially if you're like me and you don't know
anything about engines much, they all look the same, you know, I
mean you look in and there's a little bit difference but but you
look in and it, and it looks like an engine and then you get
behind the wheel and you put the key in and you turn it and then
sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't
work it means that something big is missing, you know, like a
battery, or or, you know like your carburator you can do without,
almost...it'll go for a while and and you can get to where you're
going, or like certain kinds of filters, like the car won't break
down...it'll still go some place for a while. Pistons...I once
took apart a Volkswagon and and wrecked one of the pistons and
they still work. You can you can run on three or five pistons.
It doesn't go very fast but you can get there. And in other cars
you can open it up and everything looks normal but something
really important is missing and the thing doesn't work at all.
(Lam rim) is like that. (Lam rim) is is a presentation of all
the steps that you need to get to Buddhahood, and it's a specific
number of steps. It's just like a car engine. If one...any one
of the major steps is missing you can't get to Buddhahood. If
you have all the essential steps but you don't have like all
these accessories it'll still get there. So, it's important to
know what (lam rims) are really...by the way (lam rim) refers to
the whole kind of literature called (lam rim) and the whole idea
of a teaching where you get all the parts in one teaching, but
also each separate step is called (lam rim). A (lam ram). So
the (lam rim) teachings have maybe ten, twenty, thirty (lam rims)
inside. Meaning, steps that you must have. Sometimes sometimes
they say this is a (lam rim) meaning one part of the whole (lam
rim), so you gotta watch out for that. Sometimes (lam rim) means
the whole presentation on the steps of the path to Buddhahood,
which means the whole engine and sometimes when you're talking
about a certain kind of meditation like death meditation, that's
a (lam rim) meaning one of the steps that you need to have. So
you...it's important once in a while to go back and find out and
and review just the essential structure of Buddhism, what you
need to know. If you go through the whole monastic course, which
is the idea of these five year program, you you start out in the
monastery doing (b: Perfection of Wisdom), you do that for twelve
years, then you do supplemental topics of the perfection of
wisdom, it might take you another three or four years. Sometimes
it's included in the twelve years. Then you do (b: Madyamika),
that's two years, then you do (b: Abhidharma), that's two years,
then you do (b: Vinaya) two years and you have about eight years
of (b: Pranama), which is logic, (tse ma). And then as you get
towards the end of the whole course you begin to see the
structure of Buddhism. It's very interesting. As you get
towards the last three-four years, you know, up to then it's all
these...all this great mass of things to learn, you know, and you
keep going and going and going, debating and debating and
debating and you don't really see a lot of tie-in with other
subjects. You would think like Buddhist logic at the perceptual
theory, psychology, cosmology, and and how do you know, you know,
things like that, epistomology...those are all...they all seem
like much different subjects, but then some where around the
fifteenth year or something you finally get it and you see how
everything is one huge interconnected spider web, you know, and
how everything forms a huge network of light, like...like I like
to think of it as a big sphere and each of the different subjects
is like a a point of light on the sphere and in together they all
make one of these AT&T (laughter) you know, (laughs) spheres, you
know, and and it really is like that, but you don't get it until
about the fifteenth year and then you finally see the the
structure of the whole thing, and you see how like Buddhist logic
relates directly to seeing emptiness and and you see how
psychology relates directly to to karma, and and you begin to see
how past lives relate directly to to a teaching on on something
that would seem completely unrelated, and suddenly you see how
everything connects with everything else. That's that's like a
(lam rim) realization, you can either go to the monastery for
fifteen or eighteen years, or you can study (lam rim). (Lam rim)
is like prepackaged, fast food (laughter) you know (laughs) and
you can get the whole structure, the whole vision that takes you
know almost fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years to get in the
monastery, you can get that whole vision by studying one good
(lam rim), and that's the point of (lam rim). It was revived by
Atisha, and we'll talk about the history of it, it was taught by
the Buddha...the idea was taught by the Buddha in the in the (b:
Perfection of Wisdom Sutras) and then it was carried down through
through the centuries. So I'm gonna go over a very brief (lam
rim), like three classes worth. This is known as the (b: Brief
Lam Rim) also...it's name is (b: The Brief Lam Rim). Say (lam
rim) (repeat) (du dun) (repeat) (lam rim) (repeat) (du dun)
(repeat). (Lam rim) means ("lam rim"), steps on the path, steps
of the path and then (du dun) means "very very brief; brief
presentation". Okay. A brief presentation on the steps of the
path. It was written by...you tell me (laughter)

(students: Je Tsongkapa, 1357 to 1419)

Written by Je Tsongkapa, 1357-1419. Je Tsongkapa wrote about ten
thousand pages of Buddhist commentary and I don't...I think I've
mentioned it many times, but in the monastery we study maybe a
few hundred pages of that. For example in the winter debates we
study a a commentary on some of his work by one of his disciples.
 That commentary... the first chapter is maybe a hundred pages
long. It takes eight years to get through the first chapter. It
takes almost a month to go over about ten pages of it. I mean,
you can debate for about a month, one small section from the
first chapter. This is the (b: Pramanavartika Commentary) by
Gyelsab Je. So like the last two chapters no body's gotten to in
recent history. I...someone just wrote a commentary on it...the
teacher of my teacher in the monastery, and and it's it was a big
event, you know, everybody was really happy and they because no
one has really gotten to the third or fourth chapters in recent
history. Je Tsongkapa wrote ten thousand pages of text on
commentaries like that. I mean for him it was like a hot knife
cutting through butter. And and he just perceived these things
absolutely perfectly, quickly, and and he just wrote com, ten
thousand pages of commentary. You could spend a month on on
thirty of them, forty of them. You could never ever master all
of them. You could never even read all of them and here's this
person who's...didn't spend much time writing, he spent most of
his time in meditation, he was a great tantric master, very
secret about it and he spent a lot of his time communing with his
his Lamas including Manjushri, but but in his free time he was
(laughter) he was (laughs) composing these scriptures. He also
founded the great monasteries of Tibet, Ganden, he founded
himself, Sera de bum he...was founded by his disciples,
Tashilunpo by his disciple the first Dalai Lama, like that. That
was in his free time, you know, so how he did it is is
incredible, but basically he he wrote his lon...his great (lam
rim) is suppos...I I would say most people agree it's the
greatest Buddhist scripture ever written in the Tibetan language
and the greatest piece of literature in the Tibetan language.
That's a thousand pages long. He wrote a medium size (lam
rim)...I think it's a couple hundred pages long. He wrote some
briefer (lam rims) and then he wrote this very very brief (lam
rim). The other (lam rims) that he wrote are are very very
detailed, very scholarly, very deep, (b: Lam Rim Chenmo)...no one
has translated it well yet, it means people are still waiting for
someone to translate it. It's extraordinary. And then and then
only once in his life he wrote a (lam rim) based on his own
personal experiences. The other (lam rims) were...he...are
mostly collections of of things that came before him. He
collected the knowledge from ancient India, he organized it in a
(lam rim), and that was very famous for that. But but only one
one occasion he said, he took all his own experiences and put
them into (lam rim) and you won't find quotations in this (lam
rim), he's not quoting other people. He's actually giving it
from his own experience. And that's the (b: Lam Rim Du Dun). So
it's very cool...I mean often times in Tibet it's the first thing
a Lama will teach you. This is some (unclear). It's the very
first thing a Lama will do it's teach you the (b: Lam Rim Du Dun)
just so you have it in your mind, this song of pers personal
experience, 'cause sometimes it called "The Song of my Spiritual
Life". And I give (unclear). You know you did something
important if the demons come and try to (laughter) interrupt us
(loud sirens in background). (laughs). If everything's peaceful
then you know it's not going very well (laughter). Say (je)
(repeat) (nyam gur) (repeat) (je) (repeat) (nyam gur) (repeat).
(Je) means "of Je" meaning "of the lord", okay, the lord's. (Je)
means "the lord's". What's a (dor je)? Yeah, the Lord of Stone.
 (Dor) means "stone", (je) means "lord" and that's a diamond.
Okay. So (je) means "lord". (Nyam, nyam) means "personal
experience". And (gur) means "a song" (Gur) means "a song". So
this book is...(b: the Lam Rim Du Dun) which we're about to study
is also know as (b: Je Nyam Gur) which is "The Song of my
Spiritual Life" And he actually recounts the important events in
his own spiritual life. At the beginning of the (lam rim) you
try to...you try to show how it's the...how it's coming directly
from the Buddha and and you try to summarize it and and show how
the lineage came down to you. We consider it very important in
Buddhism that what you're learning is not only, I mean it's not
only a bunch of books that have been passed on down from person
to person. It's actual experiences and actual blessing of a
human being teaching a human being. And that blessing coming
down through the centuries from from person to person. It's not
just that the books were handed down one by one. The knowledge
itself and the blessing of the knowledge that can only be
transmitted from one person to another in...live...which is I'm a
little bit worried about the correspondence course, it has to be
from heart to heart, you know. It has to be a knowledge has to
go from one person to the next person. So we think it's
important that you have to show where that lineage comes from.
It if it is ever broken then it will die in this world. People
have to continue to, to...you have to be a receptacle and then
the Lama comes and pours water into you and then you you keep
that water and then you go and pour it into the next person that
you teach, and then the the water has to be poured on from from
heart to heart like that. It it's important to show how that
lineage has not been broken. Yeah.

(student: I had a comment about that. I I dare to presume that
that is the difference between knowledge and wisdom. What you're
describing is the difference between knowledge and wisdom because
we have a lot of knowledge through the medium of technology which
you become addicted to that medium, we become addicted to that
knowledge. But we don't really have wisdom in the way that this
from person to person transmission occurs.)

Yeah.

(student: So I think that that might be one of the components
that differenciates between the two terms.)

Yeah. So we'll show how...we'll show how it comes down from
person to person. Starts with who?

(students: Buddha)

Buddha (laughs) okay. I mean in this planet, okay. Say (shakya)
(repeat) (tuppa) (repeat) (Shakya) (repeat) (tuppa) (repeat).
(Shakya) a lot of people confuse it with (Sakya), okay. (Sakya)
is a...is actually a place in Tibet that means "great earth".
(Sak ya.) and there was a great school of Tibetan Buddhism that
grew up in that area, and it reached it's peak around the
thirteenth century, around the twelve hundreds and with the Sakya
Pandita, and and that is one of the four great traditions of
Tibetan Buddhism. (Shakya) is a totally different thing and
sometimes they spell it like (Sakya) and they hide a little
diacritic mark on top of it, and people think (Sakya) and
(Shakya) are the same thing. This is (Shakya). (Shakya) refers
to a a race of people that lived in India five hundred b.c. And
the king of the (Shakyas), or the...actually he was the prince,
was Gautama Buddha, you know, he he grew up as a prince and the
(Shakya) were his people. (Tuppa) means "able one: capable one;
muni". So his name is Shakyamuni. By the way, during his own
time, what happened to his people, the Shakyas, do you know?

(student: They were destroyed.)

They were totally wiped out. Okay. They were totally destroyed.
 Even...and and he was present at the time and this this
slaughter was taking place around him, and and some of them came
and took refuge to him physically, you know, came and and came
into his house, into his room and tried to hide behind him or
hide near him and they were all slaughtered. He couldn't protect
them. Which which gives you an idea about about the meaning of
refuge. The meaning of refuge is not going physically and hiding
behind the Buddha. It's a mental thing that you do and and and
it's the mental thing that protects you. It's not it's not the a
a physical going for refuge or something like that. The opening
lines of Je Tsongkapa's song of his spiritual life, I'll just say
them to you and and you repeat them...I'm not going to write them
on the board, but they also happen to be the opening lines of his
great lam rim, (b: The Lam Rim Chenmo) so must be important,
okay. Say (punt sok) (repeat)(ge lek) (repeat) (che way)
(repeat) (tum be) (repeat) (ku) (repeat) (tay ye) (repeat) (jor
way) (repeat) (a ru wa) (repeat) (kong way) (repeat) (sung
(repeat) (ma lu) (repeat) (she ja) (repeat) (she shin) (repeat)
(si te) (repeat) (ku) (repeat) (shakye) (repeat) (tsong wa)
(repeat) (de la) (repeat) (gur chak sa) (repeat). Okay. This is
important because it describes the quality of a Buddha. And
especially a buddha's body, speech and mind. Where do the body,
speech and mind of a Buddha come from? (Kun sok ge lek che way
dum be ku), it's a very very famous verse. We have to recite it
all the time in the monastery. What does (kun sok) mean?

(student: Excellent?)

Yeah, (kun sok) means like excellent, culminations, something
like that. (Kun sok). (Ge lek, ge wa)?
(student: Virtues)

Virtues, good deeds. (Che wa)? (Che wa) is ten (sayas). (Saya)
is ten (booms) (Boom) is ten (tis). (Ti) is ten (dongs).
(Dong) is ten (gyas) and a (gya) is ten (chus) and a (chu) is ten
(chiks). (Chik) is one, okay? (laughs). (laughter) (Che wa)
means ten million, okay, ten million different virtues. (Che wa
dum be ku), (dum be ku) means "produced", the body was produced
by ten million separate virtues, okay, and that's just a
metaphor. It's actually much more than that, okay. But anyway a
Buddha's body has been created by a certain number of virtues.
And you have to get out of the mood...you know when we were in
California we had a ten day teaching on the Diamond Cutter Sutra
and and I think people really towards the end, they got into the
mood of perceiving the production of a Buddha and a Buddha world
as not being something self existent, meaning it's not external
forces which are creating this this Buddha and this Buddha's
world, you know. It's you have to get in the mo...it's hard in a
in a class that we have only twice a week, but you have to get in
the mood of thinking that how how do you produce a Buddha's body?
 I mean where does a Buddha's body come from. First of all, your
body is a reflection of your spiritual life, you know, and and in
fact the body that you have now, whatever it looks like, you know
people say what was I in my last life, you know, you can tell
almost everything just from your own body. Your body is a is a
foot print of your mental state of your past life. It's very
interesting. The fact that you have a human body means that your
past life was very virtuous. The fact that you are in a Dharma
class means that your past life was virtuous to the extent of one
person in a million. I mean, that person was extraordinarily
virtuous. If you if it's easy for you to understand Dharma and
if you react to it well, then that person was even more virtuous.
 I mean you come into a Dharma class and you have certain
reactions, it means that person was was extraordinarily virtuous.
 Was an extremely fine person. If you react to Dharma with
certain reactions like like it it freaks you out and you can't
think of anything else and you cry every time you hear it or
something like that, you, it's even more virtue, you know. I
mean these are indications of what you were in your past life.
But, since you have a body like this, and assuming no one's a
(tantric) deity and I don't know who is, okay, but assuming you
are who you seem to be, every detail of your body is is a
reflection of your mental state in your past, okay. So like if I
 have bony arms or hands or lousy complexion or or you know, if I
have a bald spot or something, or if there's things about my body
 that I don't like...we talked about it in the last class, these
are all a production of something in my past life. If I have an
office where my boss is screaming at me, if I'm surrounded by
people who are some of them are good and some of them are not
good, if I'm...if if my world is like that, and especially if I'm
in a body which is going to be destroyed by some kind of disease,
which in inevitable, the kind of bodies that we have, that comes
from something negative. Those things come from something
negative. So your past lives did a lot of good things but didn't
pull off the ultimate goal and seriously, and and that's why
you're in a body like this. This body does not fit the human
potential. The human potential is something totally pure, and
and and it has the potential to become totally enlightened and
when you do the body will reflect that. Even if you do it in
this life, I mean, the point of the secret teachings is that if
you reach mentally that ultimate potential in this life then in
this same life your your very body will start to change. And and
it will actually become a a wholly different kind of body.
Not...this kind of body does not reflect the ultimate potential
that each one of us has. This body is a failure of (laughs) you
know, this this body speaks of a former failure of a person to
study the secret teachings and and reach the ultimate goals of
Buddhism and that's why we have a body like this. If you change
the inside, the mental part and the heart, and if they become
totally pure in this life, then then this body will start to
change. And and and it won't look like the way it looks now.
The way it changes and the way it ends up looking have certain
typical ways and if you reach enlightenment in this life then it
has certain qualities. That that life that body will start to
reflect the inner state of the mind and that is a Buddha's body,
and that's the first line of his text. So even in the first line
of his text he's saying something really really extraordinary.
(Kun dzog gey lek che way dun be ku). You have the capacity to
to create virtues mentally, especially through the secret
teachings there could create a totally different body for you
before you die, and in fact you you have to try. It's like a
race against death. Okay. You don't know who's gonna win,
actually. (Che way dun be ku), that's the body of a Buddha.
(Tai droway re wa kong way sung). (Tai dro way) means "limitless
numbers of beings". (Re wa) means "their hopes". (Kong way
sung) means "what that Buddha teaches fulfills the hopes of
limitless number of beings. And this is the idea...even if what
I just said is true, you know, if what I just said about the
Buddha's body is true, then then then the the kind of person who
came into this world and taught that for the first time, how they
get into a body like that, how to reach a body like that, then
that those words have the capacity ful, to fulfill the ultimate
hopes of of every living creature on this planet, you know, if
they could listen and understand to what that person's saying
they could escape that thing called death. They would not have
to die in a body like this. And that's that's (re wa kong wa
sung). The those are words which fulfill your hopes, you know,
so that's the other qual, the second quality of a Buddha. The
Buddha knows how to convey the way to get out of this defective
end here (laughs) okay, (re wa kong wa sung). Okay. Then (ma lu
she jya ju shin jik pa tu)
(ma lu she jya ju shin sik pe tu) means "the the quality of that
Buddha's mind is that it can see all existing objects at once."
It means everything in the past, everything in the future and
everything that exists now on every single planet and every
detail, like every single thought you're having right now or ever
will have or ever did have, a a Buddha can see at this one
moment. The Buddha sees all of those objects in one moment.

(student: Simultaneously?)

Simultaneously. Also all the emptinesses of all those objects
which we can not see, you know, if we ever do reach a point where
you can see emptiness directly, you can't focus on other objects.
 They are totally different realities. The Buddha's vision can
encompass both realities simultaneously. Sees all those objects
simultaneously. What drives what drives that ability, you know,
why did the Buddha get that ability, where did it come from,
what's the karma that's forcing the Buddha to see his or her own
mind that way, it's compassion. It's caring for those living
beings. If if the person could see every existing object, if the
person could see into every person's mind and if that person
could see the future of each person in this room as clearly as
you see this pen, then then they would know exactly what to say
to you. And and how to move you along. So it's that it's that
motivation they have. The the motivation is that that they could
look into your mind and see what you need at any given moment to
push you along as quickly as possible to to getting to a better
life and mind, body and mind, before you die. I mean,
that's...the (shakya tuppa) was one of the only Buddha's in
history which taught (tantra), who taught (tantra). It's very
rare. Not all Buddhas teach the secret teachings, I mean, it's
extremely rare, I mean Buddhas are extremely rare, you know you
know how long it takes a Buddha to get to be a Buddha. Among
those there's only very few that teach the secret teachings.
There's only very few worlds and very few planets and very few
kinds of beings who who can learn them, who can relate to them,
and and you have that capacity. Most people have that capacity,
if it if it's cultivated to the right way, you can enter those
teachings. And and in the this life you can reach those goals.
So that's the...the Buddha's mind has the ability to to to
recognize those beings and then to give them exactly the right
teachings at the right time to push them into that and get them
to do that before they die. (unclear) (Shakya tso wa den la guk
chak tso. (Shakya tso wa) means "Shakyamuni"; (den la guk chak
tso) means Tsongkapa at the very beginning of his text is saying,
you know, I'm so lucky, I met a Buddha like you...I mean a lot of
his writing is like love letters to Buddha (laughs) you know. He
wrote a very famous (Den drup tuppa). It's a love letter to the
Buddha Shakyamuni because...not because he's so sexy, you know,
it's because he taught dependent origination (laughs), you know,
like "oh man, you're so" (laughs) you know, (laughter) you know,
cause you...why do I love you so, oh you taught dependent
origination (laughs), you know (laughter) and it's a whole
beautiful book on emptiness. It's a it's incredible book on
emptiness but it's this love letter to to Shakyamuni. It's a
very weird to to to read a a Lama writing...it it feels just like
a love letter to to Shakyamuni Buddha, I mean, we kinda see
Shakyamuni Buddha as this ancient historical figure, you know,
with the weird head and everything, and sits strange and seems
very cold (laughs) and you know, and and here to Tsongkapa,
Shakyamuni Buddhe is is is like a girlfriend or something, and
really, and when you read it it's like somebody gushing about
their about their their lover, you know, it's it's something,
it's really beautiful, it's really touching. So you get this
feeling of Shakyamuni Buddha being a real, you know, being who's
who's there, waiting for you and loving you and waiting for you
to be able to see him and and like that. It's very very
beautiful.



So, (Shakya tuppa) is the beginning of the lineage of the (lam
rim). This is where it all starts. And those are the qualities
of the Buddha that that come down through the lineage and are
transmitted through the lineage. Yeah.

(student: (unclear))

It...how they...how a Buddha teaches is really beautiful, and and
they teach, they have...the way they teach has six dif sixty
different qualities. The most famous of the sixty is that no
matter what language they speak, they speak Sanscrit, but as they
speak Sanscrit, each being hears their own language. Including
other beings, so they do teach in other realms, but very rarely
because they can not relate to a Buddha, they can't hear a
Buddha, you know, like in the hell realms it's pretty famous
that...we don't in our tradition ever...and it is not in the
vinaya, any custom of drawing the Buddha in the hell realm in the
wheel of life, for example. There are wheel of life paintings
that you'll see where the Buddha is, you know, looks like he's
teachings in the hell realms, and and we think that's really
inauspicious, you know. He's outside of the whole circle, he's
standing outside because he's not in there any more, and they say
"well, he's compassionate so he's taking birth in the hells to
to help those beings." But but in the (b: Abhidharma) and all
the scriptures it says your mind is, you know...just
imagine...Nagajuna says, imagine someone stripping you naked,
tying you to a pole and like a thousand people running at you and
stabbing spears into your body and and your whole existence in
the hell is spent with that kind of feelings...he says much
greater pain then that, so you can't even frame a thought in
hell. You can't frame a thought a straight thought, you can not.
 You can't have a straight thought in hell. Just suffering.
Just pain. Agony. And and so they can't like consider the
benefits of Dharma or something like that, they're not...there's
no such thought, no being in the hell realms is able to to frame
a thought like that. They're just suffering. And and animals
can not normally frame a straight thought either. They their
minds are like water compared to cream or something, you know,
they're just, they can't hold up a straight thought. They're
just mainly running on instinct and and trying to prevent
themselves from being eaten. And that's their main life. That's
their whole...and then pretas you can't see them but they're just
consumed by by the search of food and drink. Their whole life is
spend trying to search for food and drink. You can't study
Dharma if you, if you're starving (laughs), you know, or you
can't get something to drink. And then beings in the in the
deity realms are like people in the East Village (laughter)
enjoying a cafe outside at night, and if you could enjoy a nice
cafe on a wonderful fall day, you know, all all evening with good
friends and beautiful friends people, you know, it'd be very hard
to to think about a Dharma class, extremely hard. But they're
they're even more extreme. I mean their experiences are are even
more extreme. So they they can't do it. So they do try and
there are...they have been instances where Buddha's taught in
other realms, but very difficult, and there's this beautiful
presentation in the (b: Prajnaparamita) of all the different ways
in which they can teach. Like a wind blowing through a tree, or
or like a flower just opening up for you and teaching you
something, I mean it's Buddhas are not restricted to the (cho kyi
 trul ku) which means "the ultimate nirmanakaya". They have all
these other nirmanakayas that you know, it's not impossible at
all for a wave...for the moonlight on the wave in at on the beach
at night to be an emanation of the Buddha and and teaching you
something as the wave rolls and as those little diamonds sprinkle
through the wave, you know, there's something it's it's a it's a
quite possible that that's an emanation of the Buddha and that
there's something they're teaching you right then. It's not
impossible at all. And there's this beautiful, you know, outline
of all the different bodies they can emanate, it's really cool,
and there's names for all them and we'll study it someday. Okay.
 So by the way, in the homework, you're gonna have to have five
of these. That's num...that's level number one. That's great
great great great grandfather, okay. Say (jet sun) (repeat)
(jampa) (repeat) (jet sun) (repeat) (jampa) (repeat). In
Sanscrit, Maitreya, and Jampa and Maitreya means "love". (Jampa)
is in fact a special kind of love. There's two kinds of love in
in Buddhism. One where you want to remove peoples' suffering and
the other where you want to give people a good time. This is the
second kind. This is the kind where you want people to reach
nice things. The other kind of love is the kind that wants to
remove all the suffering of beings, but (jampa) is the kind, it's
like a party love, and it (laughs) it wants to spread happiness.
It's like this very Santa Clause kind of love, you know, and
wants to give things to people, wants to make people happy.
That's (jam pa). You met him out in New Jersey, right.
(laughter) And then (jam pay yang) is Manjushri, also called
Manjugosha. (Jam pay yang) means "Manjugosha". And (jam pel)
means Manjushri. (Jampa) means "very gentle and soft." And
(yang) means...(yang) is a beautiful word that means like "a a
melody or a song". So sometimes we call him Gentle Voice. Okay.
 (Jet sun Jampa), Maitreya, has another name, which is (Mipham).
(Mipham) meaning "undefeatable". The undefeatable one. So
sometimes you see (Mipham). I used to get really really confused
about these two dudes, okay? You you read sutras and they are
bodhisattvas and they are studying with the Buddha and the Buddha
is teaching them, and they are involved in all these wonderful
events around the historical Buddha. And then you read other
scriptures and there's this guy named Maitreya in a in a Buddha
paradise, teaching Asanga and who's going to come as the next
Buddha, and then you you get really confused, you know, and then
sometimes they say Maitreya is a Buddha and sometimes they say
he's not a Buddha yet, and then sometimes but but then you look
in the kang, in the (tengyur), his works are in the commentaries,
they're not in the (kangyur). (Kangyur) is the wor...the books
that are spoken by an enlightened being, and then you find
Maitreya's books in the (tengyur) which means he's not enlighted
yet. These are the commentaries by unenlightened beings, and and
 you get really confused, you're wondering "who are these guys
really", you know, and then in the in the monastery...this was my
pre-Geshe debate, you do you do two pre-Geshe debates, it's like
you have to pass BA and then MA and then Geshe. And and the
debate for for the pre-Geshe is sometimes, there's a debate about
Jampa, you know. Is he a bodhisattva or is he a Buddha. And
it's a huge debate, it's a great debate. The bottom line is...do
I tell you or not? (laughter) (laughs) The bottom line in the
in the secret teachings, okay, is that he is already a Buddha,
okay. And the same for Manjushri. And in fact there are
branches of the secret teachings devoted to these two beings.
You have to have initiations and then you get a special
instructions on how to how to meet them, and how to get to their
level, so that's really the the highest interpretation, okay, in
the secret teachings they are already Buddhas. And they are
masquarading as bodhisattvas. They have come to this planet,
they are pretending to be plain old students of the Buddha, and
they are asking stupid questions of the Buddha and the Buddha is
pretending to give them enlightening answers and and then the
Buddha is teachings sutras and tantras, because these two
bodhisattvas are asking him questions and there's situations and
like that. But in in the ultimate interpretation they've been
enlightened a long time and and they are total Buddhas who are
pretending to be bodhisattvas. And that's why the confusion,
okay. You can boil down all of Buddhism into two things. I mean
if if you really had only five minutes to tell somebody about
Buddhism, then all you'd have to tell them would take about two
minutes which would be, all you really need is two different
things. I mean you need the bodhisattva ideals, okay. On one
hand you need the bodhisattva ideal which is...I I'm in the mood
'cause I'm gonna do it tomorrow night at the Open Center, I've
been reading this mental training, right, and it and it's this
crazy bodhisattva wisdom, you know, I don't know what to call
it...bodhisattva behavior which is which is, according to the
world, crazy, you know, which is like...just spending your whole
life thinking about other people, like Jampa out in New Jersey,
you know, "can I give you so, another tea", you know, And and
just totally thinking about the other person all the time, you
know, and and and forgetting about yourself and dedicating your
life to taking care of other people and watching out for what
other people need, and and and and thinking only about other
people, and and it's it's a great great great medicine to the
mind, I mean if you, the the more you can do it the happier you
are, it's just automatic happiness, tot...automatic instant
happiness, you know, forget about yourself and and dedicate
yourself to other people and watch out and give up the things you
want, make sure everyone around you is happy, make sure everyone
gets exactly what they want, you know, spend your whole life
acting like that. And it's instant happiness. It's instant
gratification, you know. It's really cool, I mean, that's fifty
percent of Buddhism, is a bodhisattva behavior and it's totally
unnatural for human beings. You have to, you have to get into it
and and you have to learn about it and and if you had only five
minutes to teach somebody you would really want to press on them
this cool behavior called bodhisattva behavior and how happy it
would make them, you know, immediately, if they would just break
through that obstacle of thinking about themself. Just think
about other people. That's bodhisattva behavior, and and in
Buddhism that great branch is represented by Maitreya. There's a
code word for it, and I don't know what you want to call it, I
mean, it means like (laughter) (laughs) you know, like that, I
don't know, it's it's called (gyal chen, gyal chen chu pa), I
don't know how to...it it means like, you know, just something, I
don't know...it's like (laughter) (gyal chen) it's a (gyal chen)
is like United States, you know, big, wide, wide, it it's wide
spreading, literally, but I I don't think it gives the meaning,
maybe you can come up with a better word.

(student: (unclear))

It's just this Santa Clause, you know, giving of your whole
heart, you know, but the the word in Tibetan is "vast" or
something like that, something like vast behavior, but I don't
think it really, it's vast giving behavior, okay. Call it "vast
giving behavior" (laughs), I don't know, you know. We need a a
consultant. Very...it's just some kind of very very, I don't
know, generous heart, wide-spreading heart that just goes out and
spreads all over everybody and gives them everything. That's
(gyal chen chu pa). And that's this whole wing of Buddhism
represented by Maitreya. Is that. Okay. And then on the other
side, you must have what we call the vision of emptiness, and
that's the other great wing of Buddhism, and and you know you
meet people who who only have bodhisattva behavior. They are
very very generous and compassionate and giving and and it
overflows with you, you know, you you feel it, you you sense it,
they are very very generous people, but but they lack the the
knowledge of emptiness. Emptiness is a very very special idea.
It did not reach it to the east...to the west, I think, in our in
our spiritual development of the western world, I don't
believe...I mean in...as I know from my spiritual development as
a child, you know, going to church, and I loved church, and I and
I loved all the things that they taught, but I think you'll maybe
agree that that the...what we call the explicit teachings on
emptiness where somebody actually sits down and explains it in
detail, are missing. We don't have it. It's some like great gap
in the western spiritual life. You can say that maybe it's been
implied in different traditions, or maybe it's been experimented
with in different traditions, but what we call the explicit
outright, clear, detailed presentation of emptiness, I think is
is is a lack, and like you could be...if you're a very very good
person in the in the western spiritual sense you can be this
giving person, you know, this vast giving mind, you know, you can
do that, but I I believe, I mean, personally, what I found in
Buddhism that most helped me that I felt a lack of before was
this understanding of emptiness, I mean, and together they're an
unbeatable combination. Buddhism is saying that if you only had
five minutes to explain to somebody the essence of Buddhism, it
would be these two ideas. I mean, one is, just give up
see...living for yourself and start to live for others, and then
understand emptiness at the same time. As you live for others
and as you go through that crazy bodhisattva behavior of of just
taking care of other people first, do it with an understanding of
emptiness and then the results are are like gasoline and fire,
you know, I mean, then they the results are explosive. The the
results are something extraordinary. And either one by itself, I
mean you also meet people who intellectually have spent much of
their life on the concept of emptiness but you can feel a real
dryness in them because they don't have this, you know, and and
you can sense it and you smell it and and you can sense what it
would be if you had that without that. And in fact
Chandrakirti...I mean they get into, he gets into this huge thing
of Buddhism is like this this great beautiful bird and and these
two wings are like the two wings of the bird and if you took one
wing and broke it, if you broke the bone and the bone was
sticking out, you know, then what the bird would be would be
useless, I mean the bird could walk around maybe (laughs) but
couldn't soar and couldn't go to the moon or whatever, you know,
he says you need both of them. You have to have both sides. So,
obviously Manjushri knew about love and taught a lot about love,
but the essence, the the emphasis of Manjushi's lineage is
emptiness. And the essence of Maitreya's lineage is is love.
Yeah.

(student: (unclear))

There are like thousands of beings like this

(student: Right)

who are who are bodhi...who are masquerading as bodhisattvas in
the Buddha's time and Avalokiteshvara is another one, and who's
really a a tantric deity, and each each of them has their own
specialty, you know, and for for Chenresig, for Avalokiteshvara
it's also compassion. It's (nying je) which is the the other
form of love that he talks about, which is the love which which
wishes to remove suffering from the object, like a mother who
wants to...the child is cutting itself with a knife or something
and you want to get the knife away or something, that's that's
Avelokit...and each one there's hundreds and they form the four
great classes of Tantra. And and they're each have their own
place in one of the four great classes of tantra and you have to
study that and you have to meet them and you have to become them.
 That's another story. Yeah?

(student: Is this related to what we were talking about last
week when we were saying that somebody who had the absence of
kleishas, you know, and that they were in a place of total peace,
they're able to empathize with somebody else's sadness but it
doesn't upset them to the point where they're not (unclear)

Yeah, yeah.
(student: So I would think that what you're saying here,
(unclear) to correct me, that you can't really have that true
benevolence, that true generosity unless you're in a place where,
you know, you have your own, you know, stuff together)

Yeah

(student: You know, and so it cou...it it has to happen
simultaneously. If you're in a state of peace and tranquility
then of course you can give in this, you know, very benevolent
way, so it's simultaneous. Otherwise you're just doing it
because you want to be nice, you want (unclear)

Yeah.

(student: You want (unclear) you know, you're not doing it from
a place where it's comfortable (unclear)

Yeah. Like that. So that's how it starts. That's in the time of
the Buddha, five hundred b.c. Then historically there's a point
at which there comes a being who's not a Buddha, okay, and and
who comes into this world and the function, you know, their job,
of coming into this planet is to begin the process of of of
explaining what these people said to other people, you know.
These are these are called the (shing de sul je). (Shing) means
"word", (de) means "horse". What's a (shing da)? A wooden
horse, which means "a carriage". A wagon. Okay, which was a big
deal in ancient India. I mean whoever thought up the first wagon
was really smart (laughter). And if you look at the Indian
wagons, even nowadays, they're extremely simple and extremely
efficient. They're like a work of art. They're a wonder, you
know, I mean they haven't changed I don't know how many thousand
years, but but they're just cool. They work extremely well,
they're made with simple things, and and they they get people and
things all over India. And it's it they're still as the same as
it is thousand years, but nothing has changed, and just they're
so cool and they're all made of wood and there's nothing fancy
and it just works. That's a (shing da). (Sul je) means "the
person who thought it up", okay. The person who introduced this
idea for the first time. So historically...this is a an
expression in the (b:Prajnaparamita) and it's used to describe
two beings who came into this planet and thought up a way to
present this information and and and and give it to people in a
in a in a presentation that they could follow in a more easy way.
 If you try to study the sutras, forget it, you know. I mean if
you go and try to read sutras, forget it. It'll go over your
head. You won't get anything out of it. I mean, you could study
Tibetan...by the way, if you study Tibetan, this Tibetan, you can
read sutras. Tibetan has not changed in in a thousand years. If
you, you can read a newspaper, and you can read the early sutras,
 The same. Tibetan has not changed. The the Tibetan that you're
learning you can use to debate in modern Tibet and you can use to
read ancient sutras. Same thing. But if you read those sutras
it'll go...you'll say I I don't get it, you know, it's deep. So
you have to have these commentators. These are the two great
commentators that came into this planet, and that, and usually
there's only one, for each for each side of the lineage, there's
only one, okay. On this side, it's Nagarjuna, on the emptiness
side. Did Nagarjuna teach about love? Of of course (laughs) but
but what did he emphasize, you know, what did he teach
explicitly? What was his explicit teachings? Mostly on
emptiness, okay. You know, over here is Asanga. They're called
(dzom ling gen nye), the two jewels in our planet. They're like
precious jewels who who appeared in this planet. And they they
begin the commentarial tradition. They begin the practice of
explaining in words that we can understand. As your Tibetan gets
better, you'll find that you can't understand what they wrote
either. (laughter) (laughs) and you have to read the early Indian
commentaries, which come...they go from about the sixth century
to the ninth century and and you'll try to read those and you
won't be able to understand those either (laughter) and then you
go to the Kadampa readings, the writing, and they're very brief
and very deep and you won't be able to understand those either,
and then you go to up (unclear) Rinpoche's time, just before
Tsongkapa, and to the great Sakya-Kag kagyu masters, before
Tsongkapa and you won't be able to understand them either and
then you get to Je Tsongkapa in 1357 and you can read that too
but you won't be able to understand him either. And then you'll
read the commentaries by the first Dalai Lama and by
his...Gyaltsup Je, Kedrup Je, by his disciples...and they are
deep, and you can not get them. And then you go to the to the
monastic textbooks written by Choney Drakpa Shedrup, people like
that, by Choney Lama, and and you begin to read the textbooks
that were written in the eighteen hundreds, the seventeen
hundreds and you can you can understand those. If you if you
have a good teacher, so you have to work backwards. And it's
very very cool. You you learn the monastic textbooks, they open
up Tsongkapa's era, which opens up the great early Sakya-Kagyu
masters, which opens up the first Indians who came to Tibet,
which opens up the earlier Indians which opens up Nagarjuna,
finally, which opens up the sutras. And it's just like doors
opening, you know, like that, and then you then you could pick up
a sutra and say "oh I get it". You know, but but you have to go
through that process, so that's their place. Asanga and
Nagarjuna are starting that process. They're starting to help
people to understand the sutras. How many levels we've got?
Two?

(students: three)

Three, this goes up to about...there was a a great Indian master
named?

(student: Atisha?)

Atisha. Do you have his dates with you? It's nine eighty two to
ten fifty two?

(student: (unclear))

Is that it?

(student: Nine eighty two to ten fifty two.)

Nine eighty two to ten fifty two. Yeah. Af...there's a long
story about Atisha, he he was studying in India, he was a great
great master, he knew about these two lineages and he went to
seek out Lamas who could teach him these lineages in India,
Indian pandits, great Indian masters, and he met on the wisdom
side, someone named Vidyakokila, which you don't have to know,
okay, (rik de ku chu) in Tibetan, and and this in Indian Buddhist
master taught him the emptiness stuff, totally, mastered it.
Then he went all around India looking for someone to teach him
the?...you know, bodhisattva behavior type, and he could not find
a person who who really held the lineage perfectly. Then he
heard there was somebody over in Indonesia, Sumatra, who who knew
of, who had that lineage, and so he goes to, gets on a sh...on a
wooden sailing boat and goes twelve months journey to Sumatra, to
Indonesia, and and goes looking for Serlingpa. (Serling) means
"the golden isle", and from him he learned the bodhisattva
behavior, that lineage. It's very famous that when he got there,
he did not go to Serlingpa. He went to check him out, like a
private eye, and and he actually spent a long time trying to
determine whether or not this was an authentic teacher, and it
tells you something, you know, he he spent all these years
looking around India for someone, he got on a boat, went twelve
months on a very dangerous sea voyage, got to Sumatra and didn't
go to see Serlingpa. He went to che...he checked him out first.
And he spent a long time checking him out and then finally he
decided this is an authentic teacher and he and he went and
learned from him. So Atisha combines the two lineages for the
first time in in this total way, after that time, and and he
wrote the first (lam rim) text as we know it. It's called (b:
The Lamp on the Path). (b: Bodhi pata pradi pa). Okay. Lamp on
the Path. So that's really...Je Tsongkapa, you'll see in the
reading, he's bowing down to each member of this lineage. And
then number five...and then we'll take a break...number five is
all the lineage Lamas up to you. Down to you. Down to Khen
Rinpoche, okay. So if you go back from Khen Rinpoche, you can go
backwards, you know, there's Khen Rinpoche, and then there's
Trijang Rinpoche, and with him Pabongka Rinpoche, and then you
can go back, you can go back like that, you can go back to Je
Tsongkapa and from Je Tsongkapa it's very easy to get back to
Atisha, Lord Atisha. You can go back through the whole lineage.
The point is this. Why does Je Tsongkapa spend five whole verses
of his extremely short book (laughs), you know, he spends a...he
he wastes, I mean it looks like he wasting, five verses on on
going through this lineage. Why does he go through this lineage
like that? The point is this. The point is really that you have
to get in the mood of this being an unbroken lineage, of of
wisdom, okay, being poured from one being into the oth, the next
being and that it has not been broken, up to the present time, up
to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, up to Khen Rinoche, up to Trijang
Rinpoche, it has never been broken, this this transmission of of
of this kind of wacky behavior where you're where you are
devoting your life to other beings. I mean the whole idea is so
unnatural for a human being. And then this, I mean unheard
of...if someone didn't mention it to you, could you ever come up
with it on your own? Impossible. I mean, the point is to
recognize that these are two very very very precious knowledges
that are being passed on from being to being and that they're
very fragile in a sense, you know, I mean how many people in this
room, and how many people in this room will pass it on to another
person, so it's very very fragile, it's very very...especially
after Tibet was lost, it became extremely fragile, the the
connection, the thread it's in great danger at this moment, you
know. It looks like we're having a nice Buddhism class on Sixth
Street in New York City. What's really happening is, I mean, im
immense historical events are being decided at this moment, you
know. Will the thread go on, you know. Will this knowledge be
passed on, especially in another, in another culture. It's
really every person here is is the next link and it's not a small
responsibility, you know, if you if you lose it at this point
it'll be lost forever. Essentially. I mean, I get up and give
this lecture to the monks in the monastery every time I go
through, you know, they...it looks like a lot of monks, there's a
thousand monks in Sera Mey, you know,...it looks like a lot of
monks. It's nothing. You're talking in a in...I don't know how
many billion people are...three billion, I don't know what is it?
 Five and a half billion people, you're talking about a thousand
people holding this water, you know, holding the the wisdom in
their hearts and it's very very very close to breaking, it's
extremely danger right now and it...these are historical moments.
 I mean people will either look back and say this was the days it
was lost or they'll look back and say, oh those those great
Americans, you know, they did it again (laughs) (laughter) you
know, they, you know, finally (unclear) they did something right
and they they captured Buddhism and passed it down and it wasn't
lost, I mean according to the to the, what do you call it,
according to the prophecies of the ancient scriptures, Buddhism
will last another two and a half thousand years. We're only half
way through and it will be passed on by by you people, according
to the prophecies, it will come to this land and this is in the
sutras and I've shown it to people and it's in, you know, you can
read it, but it will come to this land. I mean, the story is
that we succeed. Now it doesn't mean that you don't have to try.



Okay, but the prophecy is that is that it will be passed on and
it will continue for another two and a half thousand years.
Through through our our through through the western people it
will be passed down and and this is about the time that it's
supposed to be. This is exactly the time it's supposed to be
transmitted. This is the time. So it's very cool. So, think
about it. Think about the lineage. Appreciate the lineage and
and think about yourself as being a conduit through which this
knowledge is is is...it's a historical moment and and that's it.
The (lam rim)...those two great currents of of wisdom are are
passing down through us and and we have to take care to to hand
it on nicely...you know, very beautifully and perfectly and not
corrupting it and understanding it well and passing it on, okay.
Now pass on some tea and coffee (laughter) and we'll do a little
bit more, okay.

(cut)

to Je Tsongkapa's little (lam rim) that was written by Choney
Lama Drakpa Shedrup. Okay. Say (Choney ) (repeat) (Lama)
(repeat) (Drakpa) (repeat) (Shedrup) (repeat). I think some of
you already know, but Choney Lama Drakpa Shedrup who lived 1675
to 1748.

(cut)

As I mentioned you you really do need the the monastic textbooks
in order to get back to the earlier books. They open a door back
to the earlier books, and in our monastery, Sera Mey monastery,
we have two sets of text books. One was written by Kedrup Denpa
Dargye and then another set was written by Choney Lama.
Sometimes we just call him Choney Lama. Those books...twelve
volumes with maybe a few hundred works in them, were closely
guarded in the in Sera Mey's library in Tibet and and we kept
them very jealously. If other colleges get a hold of your text
books they can debate you much more effectively (laughter) so
it's like carefully kept in your monastery library. That library
took a direct hit by Chinese artillery in 1959 and all of those
copies were destroyed and it took us thirty years to locate
another copy. We found a partial copy in Beijing, somebody
photocopied it and really bad photocopy and then we found a
beautiful copy in St. Petersburg library, where we have a couple
of monks working to catalog those books. So, so you're very
lucky. The commentary you have is has been missing up until now
and we just discovered this about two years ago in St.
Petersburg. So you're studying Drakpa Shedrup's commentary. His
commentary is called (Nying mo) say (nying mo) (repeat) (dor du)
(repeat) (sel wa) (repeat) (nying mo) (repeat) (dor du) (repeat)
(sel wa) (repeat). (Sel wa) means "illumination" like shedding
light on something. (Dor du) means "brief" and you can see the
the name of Je Tsongkapa's book is there...brief, and (nying mo)
means "the essence", so his book means (b:"The Illumination of
the the Briefer Essence" or something like that. (b:
Illumination of the Essence). And that's the commentary you'll
be studying. And that's been translated by students from the
Tibetan track class. They almost finished the whole text now, so
you'll be studying you'll be studying the commentary that they've
translated, okay. And and I think that dream of of students
being able to translate is...we have now five six students
translating commentaries and stuff, and so it's cool, you...some
of them thought they weren't gonna be learning Tibetan, so you
never know. Okay. Okay. We went through the lineage. I'm not
gonna answer...there's a question on the homework about why is
the (lam rim) like a wishing jewel and why is it like the ocean,
and I'm gonna leave that...you you read your the reading and
you'll find out, okay. I'm gonna just do finally on this four
special qualities of the (lam rim) teachings. I mean the most
obvious one, which is not one of the four, okay, the obvious one
about about having a class about (lam rim) is that since the (lam
rim) incorporates every major Buddhist subject, you know, every
part of the engine that you really really need, then if you just
have one brief class on the (lam rim) and if you cover the whole
(lam rim) then you've covered all the Buddha's teachings. I mean
I I can tell you that if you do one good (lam rim) course you
have covered the essence of everything I can teach you in five
six years, you know, that's that's the quality of the (lam rim)
So the virtue is also like that. If you go through a (lam rim)
you cover every major point and you get the virtue of going
through the whole kangyur and tengyur, you know, thirty five
hundred works you can cover like that, just in in one session, in
three nights of studying (lam rim) we will cover the essence of
Buddhist teachings, you know, so it's kind of cool, and you get
that effect, the virtue of it is that. Okay. We'll talk about
it more. So here are the four qualities. (den pa tum den
(unclear). When you get close to the end of the Geshe course in
the monastery...you know you've been studying all these different
subjects and then you get close to the end and you suddenly, as I
mentioned, you you see you stop to realize that this is one like
big...I want to say plot...what's the word? (laughter) What's
another word? There's another word for that.

(student: Conspiracy?)

Conspiracy, yeah. It's one big conspiracy, I mean, all these
different things, you know, you saw it when you're like thirteen
years old, they start teaching you formal...syllogisms...what is
a good logical reason and it's like for a thirteen year old it's
pretty boring stuff and and then they go through all this stuff
about outline of existence, causation, the idea of negation and
positives, then they get into Buddhist psychology, then they go
into this long long long things about all these other subjects,
Prajnaparamita, then all these subjects about Madyamika, all
these non-Buddhist schools, then they go through the other three
lower schools, they go through the three third and a half school,
they go through all these years and years and years of study and
you're getting all these seemingly unrelated teachings, and then
suddenly after about fifteen years it's like boom, something hits
you in your mind and you say "oh my god, it's all a big
conspiracy", you know, it's all it's all connected, everything is
connected, you know, everything is totally interconnected and
they all have their own place and they're all complimenting each
other, and and you see that there's not a single teaching that
you ever had in fifteen years which in the slightest way doesn't
totally fit like a crossword puzzle in with all the other
teachings, and they and they all...some genius has set up this
monastic course and it all like...basically it was Je Tsongkapa,
and they all just fit like this very very intricate puzzle and
then you suddenly see the whole picture for the first time and
it's just incredible what it happens in your mind is you gained
this appreciation. It doesn't mean that, for example, the lower
schools don't say things which the higher schools don't accept.
They do say things which the higher schools don't accept. But
who taught them? The Buddha taught them all. Why does the
Buddha teach a lower school that says things that the higher
schools don't accept? It's to get you along a little bit
further. You will find in your career when you start teaching
people that, for example, when you teach emptiness certain people
won't be able to...you can't lay the Diamond Cutter Sutra on for
ten days on someone who's just fresh. You can't do it. It'll
it'll it won't help them, they won't get it, they'll be
frustrated, something will happen wrong, you know you you need to
start, you know, doing these talk about causation and how things
are interconnected, and things like that, you have to start like
that. That's the idea of the four schools. But once you master
the four schools you'll see that they all they're they're all
consistent with each other, totally totally perfect interlocking
puzzle that is all designed to get anyone to the goal of
enlightenment. And you and you really appreciate that. If you
study the (lam rim) you, it'll come to you how the how the (lam
rim) has all of that in it. There's no subject that we've
studied in the last four five years that you won't find in the
(lam rim), that doesn't have it's place somewhere in that ladder
called the (lam rim) and you'll you'll you'll suddenly it'll dawn
on you, oh man, you know, this is all, this whole five year thing
and it, each rung on the ladder is all interconnected and they
all, it all has a place, it has it's own place, okay. We've been
typing in Buddhist books in the computer in India with a couple,
you know, in fifteen monasteries now for ten years, and we've
input like a hundred thousand pages now, we have finished eleven
percent of the canon. We have not finished any percent of the
Tibetan commentaries. I don't think we've finished one percent
yet. It'll take another hundred years or two hundred years, to
to input all of the sacred texts, but you can take that data base
as it exists now in the laptop and you can search for some idea
or you can just almost type something in at random and you can
let it do the search program go through and it'll make hits
through the hundred thousand pages and depending how rare what
you're hitting is it might hit five times in a hundred thousand
pages. It hits like five times. And you can take that sentence,
if that's all you see, you can take that sentence and and if you
reach a certain point in your study which you can either go
through a Geshe course for fifteen sixteen years, or study (lam
rim) and you will immediately see, oh oh yeah, that's that's
that's that place in my practice, you know. I'm supposed to do
that in that part of my practice. That relates to that part of
my personal practice, you know, and and it's incredible, once you
get to that point which you can do if you just learn the (lam
rim) well for the next three, two and a half classes, it'll
immediately...you say, oh yeah yeah, I know where that fits into
my practice. I know where I, I know that fits into meditation
number four that I'm supposed to do. That's (lam rim) number
four. That fits in right there. And what I'm saying is that
once you get a a good grasp of the (lam rim), the whole structure
of Buddhism, you could take a search program, you could hit any
sentence in a hundred thousand pages and you would immediately
know where it relates to your personal meditation. It's very
cool. That's a quality of the (lam rim). Once you study (lam
rim) you have that, you have that overview of the whole Buddhist
teachings. 'Cause otherwise it's kind of frustrating, I mean,
you can sit with Khen Rinpoche and learn for thirty years and you
don't see any kind of...he's not slowing down, you know, I mean
what he knows and and there's nothing...there's this joke...Steve
Foster came to him 1974 and said, you know, how long is it gonna
take, Rinpoche, and he says twenty years. Ask me in twenty
years, okay? And Steve says, yeah right, you know. So twenty
years later this joke Steve Foster came to him and said, "how
much farther are we gonna be going (laughs) 'cause he's not even
slowing down, you know, I mean, the things that you've never
heard of that he knows he's still reviewing things, you know,
and still hasn't gotten to a lot of things, and you're like, you
know, the Buddha's teachings are vast and very profound, but but
if you study the (lam rim) well, there isn't one sentence that
you'll ever learn that you won't know exactly where it fits into
your into your personal meditations. And that's a quality of the
(lam rim). There's also this quality that that if if the if the
relationship with the Lama is going well and if it's clicking,
then the thing that you most need next and the thing that you
were wondering about comes up in the next class or something, you
know, I mean that's a sign that the relationship is going well
and and, you know, exactly what you were curious about and
exactly what you needed to know and exactly what you needed for
your own practice came to you personally in the next moment, you
know. It's just a quality...if the (lam rim) is flowing the
right way, it happens like that. Okay. Number three. (Gyalwa
gom pa de la nyepa dong) And and this this las third one, easily
grasp the intent of the Buddhas, you know, as you go through
Buddhist scripture and as you read different subjects and as as
you get different teachings, if you've studied the (lam rim)
well, if you have a good basis in (lam rim)...and (b:Lam Rim Du
Dun) is enough, you know, this little (lam rim) is enough, you'll
know exactly, it'll you'll you'll be able to figure out very very
easily, why did the Buddha teach this particular teeching, you
know, why did the Buddha get into this? You know, why does the
Buddha go through twenty four kinds of syllogisms, you know. I
mean, what's the point. And it's you'll you'll immediately be
able to grasp why, you know. For example, the whole purpose of
Buddhist logic is very interesting. It's to learn not to judge
others. I mean, you have to study syllogisms for like six years
to figure out that you don't know what other people are thinking
when they act the way they do. You know, it takes six years of
studying syllogisms to really grasp that you don't know why other
people are doing what they do. They could have all sorts of
sacred thoughts in their mind when they do things. How do you
know? I mean, you you come to a place where you know by studying
every kind of corner of logic that exists in the world that you
can not logically know. You can't judge other people. Period.
You know, I could prove it to you logically. You know, and and
you can go through all this logic and suddenly you realize, oh,
that's why the Buddha taught logic and the opening lines of these
incredibly detailed intricate logic to books are (la da lan dau
me imba shing gyi tsu su mei ja de nyem ba gye ta le). "Don't
judge other people if you're not like me". This is the Buddha,
'cause you will screw up, you know (laughs) okay? He's very
adamant, you know, and that's the opening of the logic text. In
other words every little thing you study will...you'll understand
easily where...why did the Buddha teach that. I mean, you'll
grasp all these things. Very easily. It's a virtue of the (lam
rim). If you really study (lam rim) well, any scripture you ever
study will just blow your mind. And you'll just suddenly see,
oh, yeah, that's the point, that's how it relates to my personal
practice. And that's why the Buddha taught it, okay. Nothing
will seem to you to be a waste of time, nothing will seem to you
to be something that's not very important, okay. That's exactly
what the Tibetan says. (nei chi chim pa yel sang we gang sung)
okay, saves you from the great abyss. The great abyss is this.
It's to say, "that particular Buddhist teaching is stupid", you
know. "That particular part of the of Buddhism, of Buddhist
scripture, I don't see any point to it, it, I don't see that it's
true, I don't see that it has any relevance to modern man, you
know, I I think it's kind of superfluous, I don't know why
they're spending so much time on that right now, that doesn't
strike me as very cool". We had a classic example. We sent
Nagarjuna's (b: So le ka)...we translated it and we sent it to a
very major publisher on the west coast, and we got this letter
back saying, "could you spice up the emptiness and cut the
morality part?" You know, (laughter) (laughs), so like we're
supposed to improve on Nagarjuna, you know. We're supposed to
edit Nagarjuna for modern times 'cause the morality part doesn't
seem to be relevant, you know. That's the (ya sa chen mo),
that's the great abyss. And if you study the (lam rim)
nicely...like if we studied the Diamond Cutter sutra, the way we
studied it, you you really really see why an ethical way of life
is is is totally perfectly helpful and useful and necessary
because what? Because things are empty, okay. I mean and and
that's a great insight and that takes (lam rim). You have to
know the (lam rim), you know. And and to think that you must act
like a crazy bodhisattva, you must, your life must be totally
irrationally giving and loving and taking care of other people
first, because things are empty, you know, I mean, you have to
appreciate every single corner of the Buddha's teachings. They
all have a place, they're all helping each other, they're all
supporting each other. Doesn't mean that you're supposed to
accept things that you can't accept right now. Absolutely not,
we've been through that many times. As a Buddhist you're not
allowed to accept something just because the guy got up there and
said it. You are not allowed to do that. You're a lousy
Buddhist if you do that. You're a stupid Buddhist. There's even
a word for it (de be ge rang). You're a stupid Buddhist. If you
just accept it because the person up there said it, because then
if the guy gets up tomorrow and says the opposite you'll do that
to. So it has to be reasonable to you, it has to be acceptable
to you, it has to make sense to you. But the point here is, if
it doesn't make sense right now, don't reject it. Just shelve
it. There's a beautiful line from Maitreya where he says, "I
know that you can't accept everything I say, so take the thing
you can't buy yet and just leave it, but don't make the great
mistake of rejecting it. Don't say "I don't like this part, or
this part's not written so well, or this part's not so
interesting, or this part seems irrelevant, or this part is okay
for historical India, we don't need to act like that nowadays, he
was just writing that for ancient India", you know. I mean things
like that, ideas like that. If you if you hold that kind of
viewpoint, you've fallen into the great abyss. If you study the
(lam rim)...even just a three class (lam rim)...even the shortest
(lam rim) ever written, you won't make that mistake. Sometimes
they call it the "great mistake", you know. You won't reject off-
hand, you know, something. You'll see that everything has it's
own place in that beautiful...think of it as a big ball of light
made up of pins of light, pinpoints of light and each one of them
has it's place in the whole structure. You by the time you reach
your end of Buddhist study, you'll start to see the whole set up
like that as one huge network of light, and and every teaching
you ever got...by the way, there's a place in the path of
preparation, (jor lam) where you reach a kind of samadhi, where
you remember every single teaching you ever had, as direct as
day, you know, every every single teaching you've ever had, you
know, comes back to you, and and takes it's place in this
huge...it's called (chu ding nen ting ying dzin), you remember
the the stream of your memory goes back infinitely far and you
remember all the teachings you ever had and they all take their
place in this huge beautiful ball of light, you know, and it'll
it'll come like that, so the the (lam rim) gives you a taste of
that, and if you study the (lam rim) it keeps you out of making
the mistake of of rejecting some of those lights. Just because
you can't see the connection yet. The the vision of the
connection is made by studying the (lam rim). And those are the
qualities of the (lam rim). Those are the four qualities of the
(lam rim). That's about it.
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