ACI 9 «Этическая жизнь», занятие 10

Class Ten: Description of the Medium and Lesser Scopes
8/26/96

123a.txt
transcribed by Joe Weston
Proofread by: Summer Moore

And these are the Pretas, the hungry spirits, and these are animal... and this goes
on forever and goes back forever. Actually, there’s an end somewhere over
there, with... relative to any one person, but it goes back this way forever, and
your mind has been, you know, this is human realm, and your mind has been
traveling like this, you know? Really, through different realms. And it‘s just
projections, you know?, but because it’s projections, it’s very easy to move
between realms. So, if you think of the most chaotic time in your life, you know,
and how you move into chaotic depressions, and stuff like that. I mean, imagine
the mind going even deeper, I mean, like the history of our mind so far in this
life has been, you know, you feel better and then you feel worse, or you get
really sick, and you almost feel like an animal. I mean the mind state almost
goes to an animal. Like if you were in a really bad war, and fighting for your
survival with bayonets, face to face, you know... Or if you were really, really
depressed, uh, or, you know, you have really bad cancer or something, and your
mind state was just getting down to something super-depressed and manic and
chaotic, your mind would be getting close to this. And then according to
Buddhism, it doesn’t take much time, it doesn’t take much for it to slip down
under that line and become an animal state of mind, when you see yourself as an
animal, and you think like an animal, and your life is very, very crazy. It’s like a
super-hallucinogenic thing, where your whole existence is just fear and terror at
everything that moves, you know? And that’s how you spend your life. And
then if a human gets a hold of you, it’s like the worst thing that can happen.
They just strip your skin off you and eat you, or they steal your fur or your coat,
or they hook you up to some machine and make you do work or they milk you
or they shave you, or, you know... most animals end up, many end up, being
used by humans ‘cause humans are smarter. They can outwit them, and lock
them up and use them and kill them for what they want. Uh, and then, so your
mind, it doesn’t take a lot for your mind to slip down. Apparently, according to
all the scriptures, it can slip down really easy. And then, this is just a... this is just
a chart of the state of your mind, you know. Your mind, it’s not restricted to
these boundaries. You shouldn’t think of it anymore that way, you know, your
mind is not restricted to the boundaries of a human state, you know. It can slip
down very easily. It doesn’t take a lot. It just takes a few breaths. It takes a few
exhalations and inhalations to become an animal. So, you know, don’t think it’s
like impossible. It’s just the mind slipping to another state, and it can go down
really fast. Um, and the purpose of the Lam Rim, if you think about the Lam
Rim, um, it has three great divisions. They are called The Person of Lesser
Capacity, Person of Medium Capacity, and Person of Great Capacity. And each,
those three are defined by their spiritual goals. Okay? And the people of lesser
capacity, all they want to do is draw some kind of a... in computer programming,
what do they call it, a fire wall? They want to draw a fire wall here. ‘Fire wall’ is
what you do to your computer that hackers can’t get into it. It’s some kind of a,
like a wall that you put between your computer and these crazy kids who like to
blow up your computer. Like calling in and figuring out the passwords, and
stuff. And so they want to, I mean... {kibu chung}, which means, people of lesser
capacity. They want to create a wall here, where their mind can no longer slip
under that line. Okay? And if you chart the five paths, you know, here’s... this is
pre-path, and this is when you start getting interested in Buddhism, and you can
actually at this point already have, be practicing the three training’s. So you
don’t have to have reached the first Buddhist path to be practicing the three
training’s. You can practice an ethical way of life. You can practice concentration.
You can practice an elementary form of wisdom, uh, even before you reach the
first path.     Then how do you get to path number one which is called,
accumulation?

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah, it’s when you truly get set up with life. So you could say the path of
accumulation starts here and goes up to here and that whole period there is
called path of accumulation. It can take millions of years. So you’re accumulating
energy to become, to reach the next path, which is what? So, by the way, how
you get from pre-path to first path... this is path number one.. is you truly, truly
get fed up with this mode of living, you know. And it doesn’t mean like you
have to be like a St. Francis, or something like that. I mean, you don’t have to go
into... you know... you can be quite easily disgusted with life and still be working
in an office and still be eating and walking around New York City, and you
know, I mean, the feeling of renunciation can be, can be with you, and will be
with you as you walk through your life. And it’s just that you don’t want to be
unhappy. It’s very simple. It’s when you get tired of being unhappy. And it’ll
start. It’ll start to happen wherever you are. It’s not like there’ll be a big change
in your life and you’ll run away to somewhere, or something like that. You’ll just
get tired of being unhappy. You’ll get tired of this up and down, up and down,
up and down, and they’ll get some kind of just tired of it. I’m trying to find a pen
that works. How about this one. I’m tired of these pens. Number two. Number
two is called path of preparation. And during that path, you are... it is marked
by reaching certain levels of an intellectual understanding of emptiness. Okay?
You are understanding emptiness intellectually. Number three is called path of
seeing. This is the big time. This is when you see emptiness directly for the first
time. A big, a big milestone. Take a couple of zillion years to get there. Path
number three. Uh, path number four, habituation. Getting used to what you
saw. Using what you saw to remove what? Your mental afflictions. Okay? Using
what you saw to start removing your mental afflictions. Path number five is
called no more learning. No more learning. There’s a point here... it’s right
about here... into the path of preparation, where you achieve a cessation for
taking a lower birth. You can never again take a... you can never again go below
this line, this human line, if you reach this point. Okay? If you reach a certain
point in the path of preparation. Which implies that you’ve reached a certain
understanding about emptiness, and a certain level of virtue, uh, you can no
longer, ever go below this line. And that is the goal of what they call {keba
chung}, the lesser capacity.       Okay? Sometimes they call it lesser scope.
Sometimes they call it smaller person. There’s all these different words for it.
{Theg-pa chung} in Tibetan means smaller person. It means their scope is not as
wide. All they want to do is definitely draw a line in the sand here and not go
under here any more. That’s... their whole practice is aimed at that. All they want
to do is prevent that mind stream from slipping below this line. That’s their goal.
And we’ve finished that. The teachings we’ve had so far in the lam rim, like
going for refuge and studying karma... karma sometimes goes either way, but...
are basically directed at keeping yourself out of these three lower realms. Okay?
Those are {lam ki rimba}’s. Those are steps that are used by people of lesser
capacity. Yeah?

[student: Does that also mean that you couldn’t come back, say, as Hitler, or
something?]

Nope, Nope. The only cessation is for going below this line.

[students: [unclear]]

Well, he could do the four powers and be fine. [laughter] Unlikely. Extremely
unlikely. In fact., I think it’s probably impossible by that point. You know.
Maybe it’s [unclear], but I’ve never seen in a text that you achieve a cessation for
being a bad person. You achieve a cessation for ever becoming an animal,
{preta}, or hell birth. Yeah...

[student: Say that you become a {deva}, then you don’t have [unclear]]

Right. After this point, if you ever again become a {deva}, which is unlikely, you
would never have that almost natural roller coaster down. Okay? You just...You
can’t. You can’t take birth below that line again. Which means that your mind
can’t slip below that line again. I prefer to think of it that way. It’s very easy for
me to imagine pure chaos. I mean, I had a bad day a work. That’s medium chaos.
You know, I’ve been in airplanes that were gonna crash and stuff like that. I’ve
been... had guns pointed at me, shot at, my mind was in like near chaos, you
know. And I can imagine total chaos, like being in a car-wreck and fire, and stuff
like that. You know, you can imagine it. But this is where your mind slips a little
lower, and you enter a realm of complete chaos, pure chaos, and I can... I think
you can imagine it. It’s a mental state. It’s the mind dipping lower and lower.
And you’ve had those moments of chaos in your life. You know. Think of the
worst one and then double it, and that’s your mind going below this line. And
it’s not such a big deal. It’s not so impossible. Um...It’s a mental state, and your
mind can slip below that line. People you meet, people who are not much
different from animals, like in extraordinary circumstances. I’ve seen it, you
know. They just turn into like an animal, and they look like an animal and
they’re probably thinking like an animal. And then for the mind to go below that
line is not such a big deal. You have to believe that to be a {gewa chumu}, to be a
person of small capacity, you have to really be worried about that. And it’s
extremely difficult to reach this path. It’s very hard to get to path number one.
It’s a great spiritual achievement to be worried about your mind slipping below
this line. Most people never get there. Most Buddhists never get there, in this life.
They never get to this first path. They never really believe that their mind could
slip below here. They’re not really worried about it, you know. In fact, you’re
not a, you’re not a Buddhist until you’re worried about it. You’re not practicing,
strictly speaking, Buddhism until you’re afraid and you’re taking refuge. It’s very
interesting. If your reason for being a buddhist is connected with some kind of
this life going well, you’re not a buddhist. It’s not Buddhist practice. It’s like some
kind of a better form of desire, or something. It’s very hard to be a Buddhist. It’s
very hard to reach this step where you really are worried that your mind might
slip below this point. Uh, those are the path of seeing. Now, you can cruise
through here, and you have all those sufferings that we talked about. We talked
about the six sufferings in the last course. Uh, there are certain mental sufferings
that you are always undergoing. We talked about, for example, that the human
mind can not be contented. In it’s present form, the human mind can not be
contented. You know, you get something, and then you want more, and you
keep wanting more and more and more. Your mind cannot be contented. Your
and my mind is of a nature that it cannot be contented. And there’s five other
sufferings like that. There’s six sufferings which are pretty much mental. And
they’re just... they force you to be unhappy, you know. They force us to be
unhappy. You can decide, I’m not gonna be discontented anymore, and then
like two days later, you’re, you’re discontented, you know. It’s, it’s really funny,
you know. You say, I’d like to meet a buddhist... I’d like to get into buddhist
class. You get into a buddhist class, and then you like... after a couple of classes,
you’re like, I wonder if they could like spice it up a little bit, you know. And
then, and then, they say, Okay, you’re gonna be the leader of the class. And
then you get interested again for a couple of weeks, and then you’re thinking,
well I’d rather do that, and your mind just goes on and on, and wants more and
more, and there’s no end to it, you know. Your mind will make you... I’ve heard
people go up to Rinpoche and say, Why do you teach this {lam rim} stuff, you
know, could you do something more interesting, you know? Uh, and, [laughs],
no really, and I’ve thought it myself, you know. I’ve said, Yeah, gee, I wish he
would teach some advanced logic, or something. I’ve heard this before. You
know. And, you just get used to it, you know. And here he is, you know, the
abbot of Sera Mey, he’s the... in the year that he graduated, he was the highest
monk in Tibet to graduate, uh, and you want more. You know, it’s like, Well
maybe I can find someone even more interesting. You know. And you... your
mind wants more and more, and that’s, that’s our condition. So, there’s a point
where you want to overcome those mental afflictions, and that happens
around... it depends. Normally, here, okay? That’s called, what?

[students: Nirvana.]

Nirvana. This is a point where you get no more lower birth.

[student: [unclear]]

Um, we’re gonna talk about it. We’re gonna talk about it. But, nirvana implies no
more coming back to the, to the samsara. You will never be born into samsara
again, okay? Uh, so, a person who reaches nirvana has gone like this, and is out
for the first time. You know, you can think of this whole area here as suffering,
you know. And this whole area here is extreme suffering. And, so, you have to
conceive of the {lam rim} as being three different states of mind. This... from here
up to here is, is, is the lesser capacity. You know, from there up to there is...
that’s a person of lesser capacity. From entering buddhism and starting to study,
up to the point on the path of preparation where you have no more lower
births, you are, what we call, a person of lesser capacity. If that’s your goal. If
your goal is just to stop here. That’s a person of lesser...All... That person, at that
point, all they understand is that they don’t want to go under this line. That’s
their goal. After that point, a person figures out that even if they stay above that
line, things are not happy. And the main suffering is your own mind makes you
unhappy. Your own mind drives you to be discontented. You cannot be happy.
We don’t have the capacity to be contented. You just can’t do it. You can go sit
on the beach and watch the sunset, and after two hours you want to go do
something else. You can’t, you can’t be satisfied. It just doesn’t work. Um, you
can go have an excellent, ultimate dinner, and, and then it’s not an ultimate
dinner cause you want another one. You know. And you go, try to go back to
the same restaurant, and the same thing doesn’t happen cause you meet a
different waiter and they yell at you, and, you know, this is...This person here,
who reaches here, has decided that they want to get out of it altogether, and that
would be nirvana, okay. So, they, they work really hard and they get out of it.
So, you can call up here, you know, like nirvana. And that... from here to here,
you’re working on the motivation of a medium motivation. This person, this
person wants to reach happiness. This person wants to reach contentment. This
person wants to overcome their mental afflictions, and not, and not live this kind
of existence anymore. What happens beyond that? Um. If you reach nirvana,
under the influence of bodhichitta, which is the wish to help other beings, it turns
into enlightenment, okay. In fact, in the text, Tsongkapa talks about it as a
{tsirgyur gitsig}. Say {tsirgyur}      {repeat}, {gitsig} {repeat}. {Tsirgyur gitsig}
means... uh, there’s a thing in alchemy, uh... you take a piece of steel, iron, and
you put certain things on it. In Tibet, they believed it was related with quick
silver, with, uh, mercury. Something to do with mercury, and there’s all these
other things. There’s like, uh, twelve different substances, and you mix them
together. Nagarjuna was good at it. He got kicked out of Nalanda for doing it.
Um, cause it’s not a proper monk way to make a living. He was trying to raise
money for a monastery [laughs]. And, you do this special thing and the iron
turns into gold. Uh, and they say that bodhichitta is like that. Like the wish to...
that wish that all other beings should reach happiness and stop suffering. I
mean... and again, I... the way it helps me to imagine it is... I mean, I’ve been in
Hong Kong, and I think about New York and Hong Kong usually. When I think
about suffering, mental suffering, and then think of, you know, in Hong Kong
it’s maybe six or, six to eight million people, and when I think of New York, it’s
about eight million people. And I imagine eight million mind streams driven by
eight million inabilities to be contented, you know. Eight million separate
instances of discontentment driving eight million people to wear out their bodies
on things that are worthless, you know. And it’s called human commerce, you
know. It’s called, it’s called the economy, you know. And eight million minds
driving eight million poor, tired bodies, you know, to run around this city and
try to make a buck, you know, or try to do something that is gonna, it, it’s
without question, it must be lost, you know. If you think for five minutes
without any kind of, uh, without any kind of, uh, doubt, whatever they’re
working for, they must lose it. And there’s no question about it, there’s no
debate about it. There’s no other career path for them, except to wear out the
body. The mind is hyperactive, and it wears out the body and the body dies and
then the body loses all the things that the mind wanted. And that’s human life.
And if you just think about it for a while, you... that’s bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is
like thinking, you know, eight million poor bodies being driven by eight million
unsatisfied minds into the ground, you know. It’s just sad. There’s no future for
anybody. There’s no future for all eight million people, except to have their body
wear out. And then they’re in a hospital somewhere, and, and that’s it. And
that’s just the only future. So, if you think about it that way, that kind of thought
is called alchemical elixir in Je Tsongkapa’s text. You know, you can do good
deeds, you can provide people with homes. You know, like we do for the monks
in India. Nine hundred monks. We’re feeding them and clothing them, we’re
making sure they have a place to stay, um, but if you don’t do it, with, uh, the, in
the back of your mind with the idea that you would like to see these people
reach enlightenment, you know, that you would like to see them get out of this
suffering. Monks in the monastery suffer as much as anybody. I mean, a
thousand minds running a thousand bodies around a monastery. Maybe many
of them just in a worldly way. You know, and there bodies are being run into
the ground also. And, and to... if you feed them and clothe them and if that is all
you think about, it’s like iron. The only karma that can come out of that is, is that
you yourself will have certain material things in the future. And they will wear
out. The karma will wear out. The things will wear out, and the whole thing was
a wasted exercise, you know. But if you do it with the intention that, I want to
provide things for them so that I reach my own paradise, my own
enlightenment, and then knowing how to do it, I will turn around and help
everyone else do it -- that has to be at the back of your mind, that turns the
action into, into goal -- is bodhichitta. How does that work as you understand
projection right now? What’s the way it works? How does it work? I mean,
what’s the difference between way the future projections of a person who
doesn’t... who feeds and clothes a lot of monks and doesn’t think about
enlightenment, and then a person who feeds and clothes a lot of monks and does
wish they get enlightened, or wishes that he gets enlightenment, or she, so they
can achieve... what’s the difference, what’s happening...

[student: The motivation.]

The motivation is different, but how does that change the result? I mean, one
person gets a house, a big house and nice clothes in samsara, in the future, and
they wear out, and they end up with a net zero. And the other person is doing it
so they get enlightened, and then they are starting to have, if they did it with a
real strong motivation, tantric experiences in this life. They are, they are starting
to... I mean, getting to a Buddhist paradise, which means your projection’s
shifting, doesn’t happen all at once. I mean, you start getting experiences. You
know, they start to accumulate. And, so what’s the difference between these two
people? What’s the difference? The result is quite different. You know, one
person’s getting something which wears out, and they end up back where they
were. And the other person is getting...

[student: They’re getting further along that line.]

Is getting to a Buddhist paradise. But what’s... is it... what’s the difference?

[students: Perception?]

Yeah, it’s the perception that’s going on while they’re doing it. For some reason,
okay, focusing on other’s needs as you do a good deed, and dedicating it to the
ultimate benefit of them completely transforms the karma. So, that’s what the
text means. You know, think about doing any good deed as steel. And if you do
the good deed with a certain motivation, like, I would like this to help me
become enlightened, I want this to help me reach my own Buddha paradise so
that I can show people how to get there. If that’s your motivation, for some
reason it totally changes the experience. You, you think about it. I’m just
throwing it out to you. It’s a homework question, okay? What is it about being
concerned for others that changes an activity from what we call a simple good
deed to what we call a perfection? A {paramita}, you know? What’s the
difference, you know? What is it in the emptiness, in the karma of it that’s
different? You know? You think about it. You have to think about it. It has
something to do with focusing on the other people while it happens. And...

[student: [unclear]]
Yeah, bodhichitta is being driven by a concern for their ultimate welfare. Like, as
you give someone clothes and food, you’re thinking, okay, I’m paying for this
guy’s room, but I’m not... I don’t want it to be...I’m not just doing it to pay for
the guy’s room. I want this guy to, to reach a... I want to reach a Buddhist
paradise for myself out of this, so that I can take this person there. Something
like that. This... you have to think about... think about, that is the dependent
origination of the event. It’s very interesting, you know. It’s going to lead to a
certain projection in the future. You’re gonna collect a karma in your mind, a
karmic seed, and it’s gonna flower in the future and make you see yourself as an
enlightened being. As opposed to see yourself as a person who just got a big
house and a big car. The action is the same. You’re giving something to
somebody. But there’s something about it that transforms the steel into gold. So,
you have to think about it, okay? Yeah...

[student:[unclear]]

Exactly. That, that’s part of the key. But we won’t go into it much. She’s talking
about the... as you do a good deed, seeing the emptiness of the giver, the gift,
and the, and the giving itself, and like that, uh... it seems to be something about
the perception while you’re doing it, that you are concerned for their ultimate
benefit. Having that thought in your mind changes the karmic collection. It
changes the planting of the seed into a planting of a seed for ultimate nirvana,
ultimate enlightenment, rather than planting a seed for a temporary result, like a
big car or a big house, or that kind... So, that’s the key to that verse. In that
verse, he’s saying, this motivation can change a normal good deed into a cause
for your own paradise. But think about it.

[student:[unclear]]

Uh, we’re gonna talk about it at the end of the class, okay? But, I... think about it
in terms of the highest school’s explanation of dependent origination, which is
what? Things are dependently originating because...?

[student:[unclear]]

That’s the lowest school’s. If you say because they are caused, that’s the lowest
school’s presentation.

[student: Because they are your projections?]
Because they are your projections, forced on you by your past karma. That’s the
meaning of dependent origination. So, if on your homework, it says, connect
dependent origination and Je Tsongkapa’s statement that bodhichitta turns a
deed from steel into gold. You know, you have to work on it. It’s a koan, okay?
Fran Perla will like this one [laughs]. Bonsai [laughs]. Think about it. I think it’s
better not to give you any answers. You have to think about it. But just
remember, that the Prasangyika presentation of what dependent origination
means is that all things are dependent on your projections. Somehow, that’s got
something to do with bodhichitta turning a good deed from steel into gold.
Okay? Think about that. Why did I get into this? Oh. Okay. Um. We talked about
taking refuge, and taking refuge is the main {lam rim} that prevents you from
going below this line. Now, we’ve reached the medium person’s capacity. What
do they want to do?

[student: [unclear]]

They want to get out of all these lives. They don’t want to be at any strata. They
don’t want to be at any [unclear]. They want to be out of the music, okay. They
want to get out completely to a place called nirvana. Because they perceive that
no matter where you are in... no matter where your mind goes up and down
here, it’s all suffering, okay. And to do that, the classic instruction for the
medium capacity person is {Pakba denpa shi}. Say {Pakba} [repeat], {denpa}
[repeat], {shi} [repeat], {Pakba} [repeat], {denpa} [repeat], {shi} [repeat]. {Pakpa} is
what? Arya, okay, an Arya. What’s an Arya? Master race? Yeah, okay [laughs]. It
means anyone who’s perceived emptiness directly is an Arya. So, {pakpa}, which
was mistranslated, like everything else practically by the early Buddhist scholars,
who were pioneers and did a great job but we’re lucky that the Chinese pushed
the Tibetans out and we got better teaching. How did they translate {Pakba
denpa shi}? {Denpa} means truth. {Shi} means for. They said what? They said
four noble truths, and we’re stuck with this. Arya doesn’t mean noble. It means
Arya, meaning someone who’s seen emptiness directly because you perceive
these four truths directly in the aftermath of seeing emptiness directly. On the
day that you see emptiness directly, after you come out of that experience which
takes like fifteen to twenty minutes, for the rest of the day you have all these
spiritual realizations. They can be grouped into four groups, called the four Arya
truths because they can only be perceived by...

[students: Aryas.]

People who have just become Aryas, okay. And then nothing to do with noble,
okay? And I’m gonna talk to you... we’re gonna go over the four noble truths,
which is the method for people of medium capacity to do what they want to do,
which is what?

[students: [unclear]]

They just want to get out of those six births, they want to reach nirvana, okay.
Reaching nirvana and getting out of the six births is the same thing, or not? Is
reaching nirvana and getting out of those six lousy births the same thing?

[student: No.]

What’s the definition of nirvana?

[students: [unclear]]

Through...

[students: [unclear]]

Through the realizations that follow seeing emptiness directly.

[student: [unclear]]

Uh, there is ultimate nirvana, and that’s Buddhahood, but we’re... forget that
one. Yeah? You had a question? So, is nirvana... is getting out of the six realms
and nirvana the same thing? Cause I mean, it’s... it gets pretty much... it gets
blurred, right? I mean, Arhats are getting into nirvana, nirvana’s no more
suffering, they’re out of the six realms...

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah. There’s two flavors of nirvana. One is called {fak che}. Say {fak che}
[repeat]. One is called {pag ne} [repeat]. {Fak che} means you’re still stuck with an
old body, okay. You’re still encased in this doomed flesh, okay. I mean you’ve
reached nirvana, which means you’ve finished off your mental afflictions
forever. But you’re still stuck in this body. That’s called {fak che}. That’s called
nirvana with a remainder, with something left over. And then when that body
dies off, when that body wears out, you reach nirvana which is {nyang de}, and
you don’t... and that means you no longer have any impure body left, okay. And
then you take on a different body. Yeah?.

[student: [unclear]]

It is hinayana. This is a hinayana motivation.

[student: [unclear]]

Um, it’s possible... there’s a whole huge subject in the Prajna Paramita about that,
and it’s a huge flow chart called {genden nishu}, the twenty permetions. Okay?
But, basically, a person who’s on a lower track... there’s three tracks, right, of five
paths each, and these two are hinayana number one and hinayana number two,
okay. And you can start out here and then go to here and then go to here, you
know? You can get to here and then degenerate, you know? Stuff like that.
There’s a lot of movement between them. You can even get to here on this tract
and have to start it back here again, okay. Yeah, all of those are possible. And it’s
quite possible for a hinayana person to see emptiness. Now up until the lower
half of the Madyamika school, they believe that they perceive a different
emptiness then they perceive on the bodhisattva track. But the higher school
says that’s not true because emptiness is emptiness. It’s either emptiness or it’s
not emptiness. It’s not like there’s three flavors of emptiness, you know. It’s
either pure emptiness of not. And they say these people can see emptiness
directly. And they can reach nirvana, a lower nirvana, in which they personally
don’t have any more bad thoughts and they have gotten out of suffering and
that’s what a lower... that’s what a medium capacity person is working for. One
of these two lower nirvanas, okay, that’s all they’re working for. Yeah.

[student: But before you said if you get between path two and path three, like
between preparation and seeing, you…[unclear]]

No, that was a lower track of the five paths. There’s three tracks, two of them
are hinayana, one of them is bodhisattva, and you can get all the way to the end
of track, of the hinayana track and reach hinayana nirvana. And then you might
have to go back up to here on the bodhisattvas track to start over again. That’s
why they say don’t waste your time, you might as well start here. You’ve gotta
come back here anyway. And there’s a huge debate about whether these two
tracks end there, or whether ultimately they both come back up here. And the
answer is, yeah, that ultimately, you have to come back and start up here, so you
might as well start here from the beginning.
[student: [unclear]]

Um, you can roughly say that. I’m not gonna get into it tonight because we’ve
got places to go. Okay, four Arya truths, which is the teachings by which
medium capacity people get their rear ends out of samsara, okay.

[silence]

Say {duk ngel} [repeat], {denpa} [repeat], {duk ngel denpa} [repeat]. Now, you
can teach the four noble truths in two different ways. And this is from the [B:
Perfection of wisdom sutras]. You can teach them in the way that they happen in
reality. So, if I tell you that the four Arya truths are suffering, where suffering
comes from, end of suffering, and how you get to the end of suffering, I mean...
Which of those comes first, logically, in the way things really happen?

[students: The cause of suffering.]

The cause of suffering. First something causes it. If you’re gonna teach the four
Arya truths in the order in which they actually occur, you’d have to teach the
truth of the source of suffering first, the cause of suffering first. Then you would
teach suffering. And then you would teach...

[students: Path.]

The path, and then you would teach cessation. If you were gonna do what we
call {gyunde gyi rigpa}, which means cause and effect order. But that ain’t the
way it’s normally taught. I mean, there’s two different ways. It is taught both
ways. This is the order in which a normal person figures it out. It’s called {numba
torpe rimpa}. Which means the order in which a person figures it out. Because
first they bump into...

[students: Suffering.]

Suffering. And then they start to wonder...

[students: [unclear]]

Where did that come from, okay. And this is called the order in which a person
understands this, you know, ultimately, okay. So, the first one is {duk ngel
denpa}. The first noble truth, Arya truth, that you ever bump into is suffering,
okay. There’s two flavors of this suffering, okay. I’m giving you four groups...
I’m giving you four pairs of divisions, just cause it looks nice. You can do it a lot
of different ways. But, on your homework, it’s like two, two, two, two, okay.
This first one is called... say {magdag pe} [repeat], {nyurki} [repeat], {jigten}
[repeat], {magdag pe} [repeat], {nyurki} [repeat], {jigten} [repeat]. {Mag dag pe}
means impure. {Ne} is a difficult word to translate. It means any kind of vessel’
like a frying pan, a vase, a cup, a pot, any... a kettle. Those are all {ne}’s, okay. So,
I’ll say vessel. Of the world. The place in which the second half is all contained.
Okay, who’s the contents? What are the contents? Say {magdag pe} [repeat],
{cho} [repeat], {ki semchen} [repeat]. {Cho} means contents. {Semchen} means...

[student: [unclear]]

Living beings, okay. Those six kinds of beings, okay. Beings. Living beings. By
the way, when we say living beings, it’s a code word in Buddhism. It does not
refer to enlightened beings, okay. They are living. Yes. But when I say living
beings, I mean suffering living beings, okay. So, you can divide {duk ngel denpa}
into two things: The world in which you live, and the living beings who live
there, all the living beings who live there. Those are both the truth of suffering.
It’s very interesting. I don’t like the name truth, and there’s a huge debate about
it in scripture. And I ask you, is this eraser the truth of suffering? It is the truth of
suffering. See, truth, in this context, means fact, okay. It does not mean, oh, this
is true or false. It doesn’t have to do with that. It means fact. If I were gonna re-
translate Buddhism and start it all over again in English, I would have said the
four Arya facts, or something, okay. This is {duk ngel denpa}. This eraser is {duk
ngel denpa}, okay. Excuse me?

[student: [unclear]]

It’s part of the world which, in which those suffering beings inhabit, and it is the
truth of suffering. This is the truth of suffering. This eraser is the truth of
suffering.

[student: unclear]

huh… [unclear] It’s very interesting. Every object in your world is the truth of
suffering. Except, you know, some spiritual realizations you have, or anything
like that. Your eyeball is the truth of suffering, your ear is the truth of suffering,
your watch is the truth of suffering, your car is the truth of suffering, your job is
the truth of suffering. I didn’t have to say that, right? [laughter] Everything is the
truth of suffering. Everything around you is the truth of suffering. We’ll see why
later. I mean, basically, it’s gonna make you suffer, you know. This thing will
wear out. If you like it, you will lose it, okay. You can not relate to this object
without losing it. Period. And that’s suffering, okay. If it’s useful to you, and if it
performs a function for you, and if it makes your life a little easier, it’s the truth
of suffering because you must lose it. You will be... someday, me and this eraser
will separate, okay. It’s, it’s indubitable. It’s undebatable, it’s uncontestable. I will
have to lose this eraser. I will have to lose all of you, you know. I will have to
lose this place, you know. We must disburse on some occasion. There will be the
last class with us, and that’s that’s the truth of the suffering. You must lose your
body. Your body... this arm. I must lose this arm. It must happen. I mean,
normally speaking. Not if we do some special things, okay. Anyway, impure
vessel of the world and impure contents, living beings. And we’ll see why later. I
mean, there’s an innate defect which makes me lose everything. There’s
something wrong. There’s some kind of corrupt energy behind all these objects
which makes me lose them. And there’s some kind of corrupt energy even
behind my own mind which prevents me from ever being contented in this life,
okay. There’s some energy driving my mind and my world and my body which
is defective. And I must lose them. And they must make me unhappy, okay.
That’s the nature of it. So, that’s {duk ngel denpa}. It’s everything around you.
{Sak che lang}... uh. [B: [B: Abhidhamakosha]], opening line. {[unclear]}

[cut] ...good it seems to start out. And you may have noticed. Something will
happen. And it’s not their fault and it’s not your fault. There’s a defective energy
running the thing. It could never have been perfect. Don’t feel guilty, okay. It’s
not your fault. It’s samsara. It’s the energy that’s running the show. Even if it
goes smoothly between you and somebody else, you’ll get ripped apart by some
events. It has to. It will. And that’s {duk ngel denpa}, okay. Next one is what?... in
the order in which you figure them out? Yeah, what caused it? Say {kunjung}
[repeat], {denpa} [repeat], {kunjung} [repeat], {denpa} [repeat]. Okay, two
[unclear] here. {Kunjung}, {kun} means everything. {Jun} means can come.
{Kunjung } is a word in Tibetan that means where everything can come. The
thought, the sense of suffering. {Denpa} means that truth or that fact.

[silence]

Say {le} [repeat], {le} [repeat]. {Le} means what? Karma,        okay. The first
troublemaker, okay. Then our old friend and intimate acquaintance... Say {nyon
mong} [repeat], {nyon mong} [repeat]. Mental afflictions. Jealousy, hatred,
desire, anger, eighty four thousand assorted flavors, okay. {Ledang nyon mong}.
Is this pen {kunjung denpa}?

{student: [unclear]]

Yeah, I mean, that’s a pretty good answer. It’s not really mental. I mean, {le}, {le}
is an action, right? Of body, speech or mind. Karma is an action of body, speech
or mind. It’s a thought, or a word that you said to somebody, or some kind of
thing you do with your body. {Nyon mong} is just a bad thought. But, this {nyon
mong} is a little tricky. When it’s part of {kunjung denpa}, it’s {nyon mong pa}.
Okay, we have to change it, we have to fix it. We have to add a {pa}. {Nyon
mong pa}. That changes it completely. Those of you who are aspiring to be
translators, be aware of this distinction. It’s a huge difference between {nyon
mong} and {nyon mong pa}. {Nyon mong} is a mental affliction. {Nyon mong
pa} means a mentally afflicted thing.
Now, {[unclear]}, [B: Abhidhamakosha]. Because you get mental afflictions
towards this object. Then there’s a huge debate: well, is an Arhat {nyon mong
pa}? Cause isn’t it possible for someone to get mad at an Arhat? I mean, it gets
very tricky. We won’t go into it. But in a monastery, when you debate it, if you
debate it for a long time, you come out with this thing where anything that’s
Arya truth number one is also Arya truth number two. Anything that is
suffering is also causing suffering. And you gotta think about it. It’s difficult. It’s a
huge debate. But the bottom line is that. Yeah? Yeah. One is the contents... the
world that holds the beings, and the other is the beings who are held in that
world, who inhabit that world, yeah, okay. So, those are the two parts of
{kunjung denpa}. So, {Kunjung denpa} is all around you also. Everything in your
life is {kunjung denpa}, except for the few good moments in your meditations, or
something, or if you’re able to do {tong len} while you’re walking down the
street, but I’d say for me, from nine to five thirty, you know, I don’t think there’s
a single event of non-the first... that’s not the first two noble truth. Except, unless
I hold my anger at work, or, you know, unless I have some opportunity to
practice Dharma at work, if my mind is on the business, it’s all samsara. It’s all
suffering. Everything is suffering. The thought, the object, the activity,
everything is suffering. And it’s causing more suffering. Maybe I shouldn’t do
that. I gotta eat, right? By the way, there’s no reading for tonight because we
couldn’t finish it. Cause it was too hard. It was too long. And we’ll try to give it
out at the review, which will be on Monday, okay. Say {gok den} [repeat], {gok
den} [repeat]. {Gok} means cessation. I’ll give you all the... {gok} means choke,
aaah... that’s {gok}. {Gok} means constipation. {Gok} means, you know, stuck at
the border, the guards won’t let you through. You know, {gok} has all these
meanings of obstruction and stopped up and stopped, you know. And that’s
what {gok}... Cessation, is like... I don’t like the word so much cause I don’t think
it’s ever used in normal English, you know. You don’t say, I have a cessation of
my boss, he finally left, you know. You know, or I have a cessation of income
because I got unemployed, you know, or something like that. You know, I
mean, you don’t... But, anyway, I think we’re stuck with it. {Den} means truth,
which means fact, okay. You remember what {gakja} is? Oh, by the way, how
do you translate that, the end of suffering? Okay, the end of suffering. I mean,
the first thing you think... first you think about suffering, then you think where
did this come from, and then you think, how could I stop. I’m sorry, I’d like to
stop. Okay, which implies cutting off number two, which is what?

[students: Cause.]

The cause of suffering. Okay, number three is related to number two because
number three is cutting off number two.

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah, {gakja}, say {gakja} [repeat], {gakja} [repeat]. {Gakja}, sounds like got ya,
right? {Gakja} is the thing that we deny, okay. It’s the thing that we deny. It’s the
thing we would like to prove doesn’t exist, okay? Now, there’s two very, very
different flavors of {gakja} and they are gonna be here. They’re gonna be gulped
in part one and gulped in part two. What do you want to call {gakja} cause I
don’t... I don’t... translators fight with each other about this one. Let’s say {gakja},
how’s that? [laughs] Uh... there’s two {gakja’s} and they’re very, very different,
and most people never figure it out. okay. There’s the {gakja} which is stopped
by the path. For example, is believing that things are self-existent something you
would like to stop?

[student: No.]

Excuse me? [laughter] Yeah, no, I’ll say it again. Is believing that things are self-
existent something you would like to stop?

[student: Yes.]

Of course. [laughter]

[student: But...]
Does believing that things are self-existent itself exist?

[student: Yes.]

Of course, it’s the source of all suffering. It’s dependent origination, link number
one. Go down and look at the painting. It’s the blind guy. Believing that things
are self-existent. So, of course, it’s something we would like to stop. It’s the
source of all evil. And that’s not money, but it’s related maybe, okay, so, the
{gakja} is stopped by the path. A good example of that kind of {gakja} would be
believing that things are self-existent. And that {gakja} exists, okay. That {gakja}
really does exist. That belief in self-existence, it exists. And causes all our trouble.
When you stop it... now, I’ll put here is stopped, that is {gokden}. That is the
third noble truth. When you stop the belief that things are self-existent, you have
reached {gokden}. Yeah...

[student: [unclear]]

Not yet. Not yet. Okay? We’ll get into it. We’re gonna get into it . You know
what {gakja} is from California. I’m expanding on your knowledge of {gakja},
okay. I’m introducing you to another {gakja}. There’s actually two {gakja’s}. I’ve
never told you about the second one, okay. {Gakja} is stopped by the path, is
stopped, which means you are able to stop the intellectual belief in self-existence.
You never again believe that it’s the right thing to think that it’s self-existent.
What path stops that?

[student: Path of seeing.]

Yeah. The path of seeing, right here. Okay. The first time you see emptiness
directly, at the path of seeing, and you come out of it, when you come out of that
experience, you can... you begin... you start again to see things as self-existent.
But you know you’re wrong, okay. So, the intellectual belief in self-existence has
been stopped forever. You will never again believe yourself when you think
things as self-existent. Even though you can’t stop yourself from thinking things
are self-existent, okay. But at least you know you’re wrong, okay. At that point,
you have reached {gokden} for the intellectual belief in self-existence. So, that is
an example of the truth of cessation. That’s one example of the truth of cessation.
Now, I’ll give you another one. If there was a two-headed, pink elephant, full-
sized, two-headed, pink elephant in this room, and I’m not counting Leon’s part,
okay, would he or she be behind this blackboard of in front of this black... I
mean, are those the two choices? Either behind the blackboard or in front of the
blackboard? If there was, I’m saying. If there was a two-headed, full-sized pink
elephant in this room, not counting Leon’s area, would he or she either have to
be behind the blackboard or in front of the blackboard?

[students: [unclear]]

Well, or on, okay, but kinda... I’m saying a full-sized couldn’t probably sit on it,
okay. But, I mean, it’s reasonable to say that they’re either in front of this line or
in front of this line. And if you look in front of this line, and they’re not there,
and then you look behind the line, and they’re not there, you can safely say
there’s no two-headed, pink, full-sized elephants in this room. That is
Madyamika reasoning. Madyamika reasoning works the same way. Exactly the
same way. Madyamika reasoning defines an area, splits it into two or three
places, you know, sub-areas, and says let’s go look for what?

[students: [unclear]]

[Geshe Michael: [unclear]]

I’m gonna go look for a so-called, self-existent thing in the front of the
blackboard and behind the blackboard. Those are the two choices. Let’s see. Any
self-existent things in front of the blackboard? By the way, they don’t exist, right,
anyway. They are exactly like a pink, two-headed, full-sized elephant. So, I look
around. No self-existent things here. None behind here. I guess it doesn’t exist.
That’s exactly how Madyamika reason works. Madyamika reasoning is seeking
to prove the non-existence of something that never could have existed, and
never did exist, and never will exist, by looking for it in all the places it could
have been if it did exist. I mean, you’ve gotta think of it that way, okay. This
{gakja} is one of those, quote, so-called self-existent things which never existed
anyway. That’s this {gakja}. {Gakja} number two, okay. Can you stop that
{gakja}? No. How can you stop something that was never there anyway. I mean,
how can you kill a pink elephant, full-sized with two heads, in Leon’s classroom?
You know? You can’t. I mean, that’s why you have to say stopped in quotation
marks here. And then middle path reasoning proves that that thing that never
was isn’t there, okay. But you are grasping to that thing in every instant of your
existence. You are grasping to that thing.

[student: Did you ever see a pink elephant?]

Uh, the imagination of a pink elephant exists.
{student: Yeah, but did you ever see a pink elephant?]

Nope

[student: How can you be sure that it’s not here [unclear]]

Full-sized, meaning six feet tall.

[student: [unclear]]

Because I can imagine what it would look like if it did exist. And you can imagine
what the self would be like if it did exist. And that’s...you see, the imagination
exists. That’s the {gakja} here. The imagination of the self does exist. To believe in
it, does exist. But the thing you believe in doesn’t exist, and never did, and never
will, okay. But somehow believing in it causes you trouble. These are both called
{gopden}. Very interesting. Number two is equivalent to what? When you stop
it. And I’ll state it differently. When you establish the non-existence of a self-
existent thing, you have established emptiness itself. Number two is exactly the
same as... the absence of a self-existent thing is called emptiness. That’s
{shunyata}. So, {gokden} number two, the truth of cessation number two, is
emptiness itself. It’s the fact that that thing that was never there, ain’t there.
Emptiness itself is the second part of {gok}... that’s very subtle, okay. And when
you reach {gokden}, a certain part of you is {gokden}. Which is called by another
word. When you’re enlightened, it’s called what? Dharmakaya, okay. That’s kind
of cool, okay. Okay, number four, and then we’ll take a break. It’s getting a little
heavy, right? This is the easy part. Truth of the {lam}. Which is path. Truth of the
path, number four. It’s a very natural progression. You become aware of
suffering, your first reaction is you know, nobody asked where did this raise
come from, but the minute they don’t give you a raise, you’re like, why? , you
know. I’m very familiar with this. So, first you have suffering, and the natural
reaction to suffering is to ask yourself why me? , you know, why me? And then
you want to stop it. And then you figure out how to stop it. And that’s the truth
of the path. You can divide into two, for convenience’s sake. It really consists of
five different paths. Have you ever seen them written down somewhere? The
five paths? Sound familiar? Oh, right there, okay [laughs] Right here. These five
paths, okay. If you want to divide them into two, you could put number one and
number two together, and you could put three through five together, on the
basis of what?
[student: [unclear]]

Has this dude or dudess seen emptiness directly or not, okay? If they have not
yet on a single track, cause there’s possible weird things, but if they’re on a
bodhisattva track, and they haven’t seen emptiness yet, you can group them into
paths one and two. And then all the people up here who have seen emptiness
directly, you can group them into three, four and five, okay. So, the first part of
the path, the truth of the path, consists of the first two paths. Accumulation and
preparation. The second part consists of the last three paths. In reality, if all you
want to do is get out of suffering, if all you want to do is get out of this kind of
unhappy life, you have go through these four truths. You have to understand
them, okay. You have to go through this process up here. First... the first thing
to do is to recognize what suffering is. It’s extremely difficult, you know. We are
suffering, and everything in our world is suffering, so it’s very hard to recognize
it. It’s very weird, you know. But basically, just think of your own unhappiness,
you know. In fact, if you’re... your own unhappiness, okay. Your lack of bliss,
okay. And that’s... that’s really all it takes. And then you go through
understanding emptiness, and you see emptiness directly, and then you use that
knowledge in your day to day life to wipe out your mental afflictions. That’s it.
That’s the four noble truths, okay. And if you study those well, and if you master
them, you will reach nirvana. Nirvana being like a golden porthole out there in
space. Sometimes I think that’s the meaning of a halo. And once your mind
reaches that place, you can never again be unhappy. You can not be jealous, you
can not have desire, you can not be irritated, you can not be stressed, you can’t
be anxiety... you can’t have anxiety, you can’t have low self-esteem. You can’t
have any of those things. They’re out of the question for you. You can not even
have those thoughts. And your mind can never be budged out of that light. Your
mind is in that light and nothing, no external event can budge it out. When I say
external event, is it still possible for that person who has reached that golden
light state in their mind to have a lousy day? Absolutely. And you will, okay.
They don’t... they’re not unhappy, and they are not disturbed by the lousy day.
Their mind is totally free of any kind of irritation, or sadness, or upset, or not
capable of being budged out of that state of happiness. But they can still get hit
by a car, they can still have the boss yell at them, they can still, you know, not
have enough money, you know, stuff like that. Totally possible. For a while. But
if you stay in that place for a reasonable amount of time, those other things wear
out, and they don’t come back. They never come back. You’re out. And it will...
before you die, you’re out. I mean, that’s the limit. Your body. Then your body
goes into a different body. Take a break, five, ten minutes. We’ll cover
Mahayana in ten minutes. [laughs]
[cut] Freedom from fear. I mean, helping people out of depression, anxiety,
helping people getting mugged. Helping countries who are getting eaten up by
other countries. Stuff like that. Teaching people how to get out of their suffering.
The best kind of giving. I see... I meet some people who say, I’m just gonna do
number three so I don’t have to do the other two, and it’s very suspicious
[laughs]. So, I think, normally, bodhisattvas are doing all three. If you took secret
vows, you’re actually supposed to do a fourth one, which I’m sure you know
about. So I don’t have to go over it. That’s the perfection of giving. I don’t have
to do the morality one cause you learned about it in the first part of this course.
All I have to add is that it includes bodhisattva morality and tantric morality, if
you have those vows, okay. What’s perfection number three? By the way, are
they perfections? Nobody who went to California can answer.

[student: No.]

No, they’re not. You’re not perfect at giving. You’re not perfect... We can
practice the perfections, by the way, but they’re not perfections for us, right? So,
technically, the real perfections are had by an enlightened being, okay. We have
what is called, making perfections, making perfect-tions, okay. And what we do
is those. So, they’re called perfections, but they’re not really perfections. They are
trying to become perfect. They’re called {paro tu chinche} instead of {paro tu
chinsin}., Making you perfect instead of getting... instead of being perfect. Did
you have a question?

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah, a Buddha has perfected all six. In the mental stream of a Buddha, those six
are true perfections. We call them {paro tu chinsin}, which means gone to the
other shore. Gone. And then in ours, {paro tu chinche} which means getting us
to the other shore. And so there’s a big argument about the scriptures, and they
finally come up with that. Technically, for it to be {paro tu chinche}, it has to be
done with a pretty good understanding of emptiness, but, if you’re really doing
it for the benefit of others and to reach Buddhahood, even just in a rough,
conceptual way, it’s already a perfection. So, the bottom line is that you and me
can practice perfections if we have even a little idea as we do it that I’m doing this
so that I can become a Buddha so I can help other people, okay. Alright.
Perfection number three is called what?

[students: [unclear]]
Yeah, I like to call it not getting angry. They call it patience. I don’t know. For
me, patience doesn’t quite do it. Patience means not getting antsy in the dentist’s
office. I don’t know what, but... Anyway, it means not getting angry. It can also
be at inanimate objects, like if you stub your toe and you curse.

[student: [unclear]]

It’s not getting angry about anything. And I’m not gonna go in to much more
detail about it. Our dream is that in nineteen ninety seven, this class will have
four courses on the [B: Bodhicharyavatara. On the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s
Way of Life], which is extraordinary. And we are gonna use the best
commentary ever written, never been translated, by Je Tsongkapa’s main
student, Gyeltsup Je, who’s on the left up there, under his right knee. So, we’ll
cover it then, if we’re still here. Next perfection, what?

[students: Joyful effort.}

Joyful effort. All I have to say about that is have a good time with your Dharma.
You know, there’s a certain point in your practice that you can reach where it’s
just fun. And that’s the whole idea. It’s where you’re really having a good time
doing your Dharma practice. And you get to a certain point, and we can help
each other do that, you know. I think there’s been times when we really got into
it, and I think it’d be cool if we try to stay in that, you know. I know in
California, I just felt this joy the whole time and we were all just... we knew we
were being really good, and it felt really good, and we were really happy being
good. So, I think, it’s just being happy about Dharma, you know, instead of
resisting it or something. Just throw yourself into it, have a good time being
good. That’s the definition. {Somkan drela dro o}. That’s the chapter from
Shantideva. What is the fourth perfection? It is to have a good time doing virtue,
okay. That’s number four. I want to talk a little bit about five and six, and then
we’ll stop. We didn’t touch Je Tsongkapa’s... I mean, you know, we didn’t scratch
it. Maybe we have to do it again. I don’t know. But that’s... I just wanted you to
get the {lam rim} feeling a couple of times every year, okay. I’d like to talk about
the advanced forms of last two perfections, okay. What’s the fifth perfection?

[students: Concentration.]

Concentration or meditation. The ultimate form of it is called... People put an H
here and call it shamatha because the Sanskrit is aspirated. It doesn’t make any
sense in English. It’s not tha, it’s ta. English is fine. It’s a real English T. No
reason to put an H there. Some people leave out the H here because there used
to be a diacritic there, and they left it out when someone printed it, and they call
it samatha. Samantha. This is the correct pronunciation. So, we say {shamata}
[repeat], {shamata} [repeat]. In Tibetan, {shiney}. I’m gonna give you the
definition of {shamata}. {shamata} is like, {shamata} is like the ultimate evolution
of the fifth perfection, okay. And I’ll give you the definition. People are always
talking, {shamata}, {shamata}, {shamata}, and they don’t know any idea what it
is. This is the definition from scripture: meditative concentration, which is infused
with the extraordinary pleasure of agility, and I’ll talk about that, brought on by
being in deep one-pointed meditation upon the particular object of focus, upon
the particular object of focus. That’s the definition of {shamata}. So, what are the
elements there? It’s a kind of meditative concentration, okay, first of all. It’s fixed
one-pointedly on its object, secondly. And it leads to what we call agility. It
causes what we call agility. And that agility brings you some kind of deep
pleasure. And those are all the elements of {shamata}. That’s what distinguishes
{shamata} from other kinds of meditations. What does it imply? You’re so good
at keeping your mind on one object, that you reach agility... it’s called agility of
mind and body. The body part means that you could sit for very, very long
periods of time and your body is totally used to it. Agility here means your
body, and Je Tsongkapa says it very strongly in his {lam rim}, in this {lam rim},
he says, your body is like totally under your control. If you want to keep it
there, sitting without moving for two, three hours, no problem. It’s totally... you
have mastered your body. And your body... you’ve been in meditation so much,
that you can make your body do whatever you want, okay. You’re so used to
meditating, that... it’s called agility of body. You can tell your body, okay, now
listen body, we’re gonna sit here for three hours and you’re not gonna move.
and you’re so good at it, and you’re so used to it, that it just does it. And then
you have this mental agility. Mental agility in this case means you decide to fix
your mind on an object, and you can keep it there at will, you know. At will. It
means, it means, I don’t know, like some kind of total mastery over your mind
and body. You say, mister body, we’re gonna sit here for three hours. You’re
not gonna move. Mister mind, you’re gonna focus on this thing, and you’re not
gonna think of another thing. And they do it. And as a result of that, you get
some very, very pleasant sensations. It brings on a bliss of body and mind. That
bliss is not a goal, and, in fact, in the bodhisattva vows, it says...

[student: [unclear]

{[unclear]}. Do not get attached to this, to this elation of body and mind. It is not
a Buddhist goal. But it’s cool [laughs]. And, you know, you can enjoy it. You can
enjoy it. Don’t get attached to it. Don’t mistake it for any kind of spiritual goal.
It’s not. But it’s a very nice side effect. And that’s {shamata}, okay. Now, I’ll go on
to the ultimate form of wisdom, and then I’m gonna stop. Which is called what?

[student: [unclear]]

Uh, that’s the object. Pali is a corruption of Sanskrit, and in Pali it comes out
{Vipashayana}. Okay. This is the Sanskrit form, this is the original form of the
word, {Vipashayana}, okay. In Tibetan, it’s {hlak tong}. {Hlak} means special, or
extraordinary. {Tong} means to see. I like to call it the vision of emptiness, or
something like that. Some people call it insight. I’m not quite sure about that
translation because insight to me implies some kind of thinking. Like I have
insight into that problem, or something. So, it’s not restricted to that. It can be a
kind of analytical thinking, but it also refers to the direct perception of emptiness,
okay. So, I feel a little uncomfortable about insight. Vision to me like means it
could be either one. A deep understanding of something. Something like that. I’ll
give you the definition, okay? This is one of my pet peeves in Buddhism, along
with, you know, noble truths and stuff like that. There are schools in America
that do {Vipashayana} retreats, and they, I believe that they understand
{Vipashayana} to mean the meditation part, which it’s not at all. That’s the
{shamata} part. {Vipashayana} is the other half, which is the... Well, you’ll
understand it from the definition from scripture, okay? A state of wisdom which
is infused with the extraordinary pleasure of agility brought on by analyzing its
particular object of focus, all based upon a platform of quietude. Quietude
meaning {shamata}, okay. What are the elements here? I mean, I’ll go through
the elements. First of all, you’ve already established a platform of {shamata}. In
other words, you are able to put your mind up to a certain level of
concentration, and stay there. That’s the first element here. Then you are taking
a particular object, and you are analyzing it. Is this self-existent or not? You
know. Did this come from karma or not? You know. Is this a projection or not?
You know, it’s analyzing that , that... its object of focus. And that analysis brings
on a kind of again agility of mind and body. Meaning that you are able to tell
your mind and body what to do perfectly. You know, Okay, mister mind, you
focus on this thing and you think about its nature for twenty minutes. Mister
body... In the mean time, you stay still, okay. And you have the absolute ability
to tell them what to do. That’s agility. It’s called {shinjyam}. You’re able to tell
your body and mind what to do, and they will listen to you. And that brings on
again a state of bliss. You know, a state of mental and physical well-being, which
is a byproduct and not to be something to be attached... But the point here is that
your mind is analyzing the real nature of a thing, and it does not have to be a...
what do you call it... discursive analyzing. It can be the analyzing of perceiving
emptiness directly in this case, okay. There is {Vipashayana} going on during the
first part of the path of seeing, for example, okay. And you must have these two
together. And it has to come in the following order. And now I’ll refer to the
direct perception of emptiness. The first time that you see emptiness directly.
Path number five, right here. So, I’m talking about here, okay? And this is the
whole point of these two perfections. These two perfections, meditation number
five and wisdom number six, these two, {shamata} and {Vipashayana}, are their
ultimate evolution. These are the ultimate forms of those two perfections. With
regard to the direct perception of emptiness, and I’ve said it many times before
but I’ll just tie it again, you must be able to reach up to a platform of perfect
concentration, called {shamata}. You must be able to get there. Your mind is not
in the desire realm any more. It’s actually at a different level. Your mind is at a
totally different level. Your sense consciousness’ are totally shut down. You
cannot be aware of seeing anything, hearing anything, tasting anything, feeling
anything. So, your mind must be able to get to that point. And I repeat that you
cannot get to that level if you don’t practice an hour or two a day without fail.
You cannot. You will not be able to get there. People say, well, what am I gonna
do. I only have forty five minutes before work. Go find yourself another job,
okay. What’s more important, you know. What’s more important as you’re
dying, you know? That you got that extra half hour of pay? Or what? Go find a
job where you can spend an hour or two a day. You must. And where you’re
not exhausted the next morning, that you can’t do it. You must. There’s no
choice. There’s really no choice. As a Buddhist you’re required to have a good
livelihood, an honest livelihood, and not to grub off other people. You’re
required not to impinge on other people. But you must find a livelihood where
you can meditate an hour or two every day. You must find a livelihood like that.
You have to decide. If you don’t, you won’t be able to see emptiness, okay. You
just won’t be able to do it. And if your job exhausts you, that you can’t really
meditate properly, then find another job. Find another occupation, you know.
There’s no question of what’s more important. So, you have to be able to reach
that platform, and stay on it at will, and that’s {shamata}. And then based on that
platform, you start to gain the ability to see the emptiness of an object. And very
typically, it comes from a lot of classroom hours. That’s a requirement. A lot of
classroom hours, and specifically you have to study the subjects of Madyamika,
and the perfection of wisdom. You must study those. You must spend many
hours learning them. And then it has some effect on your brain. If you just do it
once or twice, nothing will happen. So, you must have these two combined. And
that’s the whole point of the last part of Je Tsongkapa’s {lam rim}. And that’s all I
have to say about his {lam rim}, okay. At the end, he says, you must find a union
of these two. You must come to the union of these two. You must gain that
platform, and then you must, based on that platform, you must perceive
emptiness. Okay, you must. Very important. Last thing, he gets into a little bit of
the secret teachings. And what he says is, once you’ve studied the paths which
are common to the secret and open teachings, which refers to... What paths are
used in both the secret teachings and the open teachings? What particular
teaching is used in both the study of the secret Buddhism...

[students: [unclear]]

{Lam rim}, okay, what you just learned is indispensable in both the open
teachings and the secret teachings. When you get to the secret teachings, they
will not work unless you are a master of lam rim, okay. You can take all the
initiations you want, you can keep all the weird ritual objects you want, you can
have all the weird rituals you want, you know, you can have all the holy
substances you want, you can wear any kind of weird costume you want, and
nothing will happen. Guaranteed. You must have {lam rim}. You must have
everything we just talked about. And then it says, {dorje…[unclear]}, find a
diamond master, and then enter the secret path, okay. And then you will achieve
the goals in this life. But you must have lam rim. Did you have a question?

[student: Yeah. The ability to just command your mind and your body...]

I like that word, that’s cool. Yes?

[student: I remember speaking to somebody who was a hatha yoga practitioner,
and they did some study in Hinduism, and they said that originally hatha yoga
practice... the word yoga means union, and you used the word union before,
and originally the hatha yoga practice was a way to tame the body so that
people could sit quietly in meditation. There was a need to do those practices so
that people could sit for meditation purposes, and they would fidget, [unclear],
and that was an off-shoot of that. I was wondering [unclear]]

Nope [laughter]. No, I don’t know. In meditation, it’s very common to get... we
talked about it last Saturday. If there’s a disruption of the breath, that affects... if
the mind is disturbed, it affects the inner winds, which subject is secret, and I
can’t describe it much. But if the inner winds are affected, the breathing is then
affected. So, it’s like, if mind affects wind, winds affects breath, and then the... so,
when you’re excited, your breath is faster. When you’re agitated or stressed,
your breath is un... it’s not smooth. It’s jerky. And that’s just a sign that your
mind is agitated. The opposite also happens. If you are trying to meditate hard,
and you’re working on your breath, for example, it can affect your mind. It
screws up the inner winds, and then the inner winds affect the mind. And you
start to get what we call {lung}. {Lung} means inner wind, but in meditation, it
means a problem of the inner wind. And you start to get... people go crazy, or
get nervous, or... you know, can’t sleep and they have to stop their retreat, or
something. Very, very common, okay. In order to prevent that, there are certain
diets you can follow, and some kinds of exercises. So, there is a place for that,
particularly when you are trying to develop {shamata}. Like even if you go on a
special retreat [unclear], and, in that case, it’s important to ... if you start to have
that problem, ...
Course 9
The Ethical Life