Углублённый курс ACI 03 — «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы» Мастера Шантидевы: обмен себя на других (2004, Нью-Йорк), занятие 3

[Говорящий 1]
I'd like to do a little meditation first. So sit up, close your eyes, and watch your breath. Out-breath is the first half, in-breath is the second half.

Personally, I'd like to do OM on the outside, a slow OM, and then one on the in-breath, and then OM, and then two on the in-breath, and then OM, and then three on the... Okay? Try it like that, hearing OM.

The first step in the meditation is to ask Master Shantideva to come and be with us. And tradition, to picture him about three, four inches high, and he's sitting in meditation posture on the top of your head, very gently. Don't try to imagine it.

If you ask he has come, just try to see him because he's there. So you're not trying to imagine him there. He is there, and you're just trying to see that he's there.

He's in this beautiful saffron robe, the old style robe, yogicolor, like a skirt around the waist. I think it looks almost like a sari, a skirt around the waist, and then a piece of cloth coming up over his left shoulder, right shoulder's bare, thin Indian cotton cloth. He's a West Bengali, an Indian.

He's a thin, strong yogi. For some reason, I always see poonsok, okay? I don't know.

[Говорящий 2]
Or you can feel the warmth of his body on the top of your head.

[Говорящий 1]
And the sweet smell like sandalwood, which comes from being a good person. His face is calm, quiet, happy, peaceful, eyes closed, like a Buddha statue. Just be silent, be still with him.

Let him bless you with his touch. Then he comes, shrinks to about the size of a pea and sinks into the top of your head, comes down your backbone like an elevator shaft to your heart and stays there to bless us during this class that we not only understand the class, but we could learn to give up ourselves to take care of other people. Okay, that was the...

Did you guys get a reading? Okay, sorry. By the way, I'd like to give a hand for somebody who has been working all night.

They get them at the last minute from me and Christy and then they work all night on them. You get them hot off the Xerox machine and that's Aura. Thank you.

Also from the Yoga Sutra, she did all of them in her spare time. Also, if you didn't make Aura's class today, there's still another one tomorrow at the Three Jewels. Where is the Three Jewels?

61 4th Avenue? 63 4th Avenue? 61 4th Avenue.

At what? Third floor.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
9th Street and 4th Avenue. Third floor. 61.

12 o'clock tomorrow? 12 o'clock. Tomorrow, right?

Okay. They're doing heart yoga, Tibetan style yoga. Very beautiful.

And I heard it was a fun class today. So you got to catch it tomorrow. Today we reached the third section out of ten in a text.

This is called in Tibetan, dak shen nyam je. Say dak shen. Nyam je.

Dak means me. Shen means other people. Nyam means treat each other equally.

And then je means go beyond that and switch you and me. Reverse you and me. So that's dak shen nyam je.

And we've been going through it. If you don't come to the breakout groups I think you might lose the flow a little bit. So I really encourage you to come to the breakout groups because they don't repeat what I did.

They do the next section. So if you only come in the evening you're getting every other section. There's a flow.

There's a logical flow. Because Master Shantideva says let's treat other people like ourselves. And then there's this other guy.

In Tibetan they say ka chig. Ka chig means the other guy. And there's this other guy which just represents your own mind.

And he keeps making objections. He's like this nude nude in the class. And he's like, but what about this?

And we make those objections. If I say, for example, the pain of others is something you should take responsibility for just because it's pain. Then your natural reaction is that doesn't really make sense.

It doesn't hurt me. The reason we don't get more active about the war in Iraq is that there's no cruise missile landing on my house. I saw a video clip from Baghdad from the first Gulf War.

I was at Art Engel's house, I remember. I never watched TV, but I was at his house. He was watching the news and I was looking at his Sanskrit books.

And then the bombing started. And then there was this crazy American journalist who I later met from CNN. He was standing on top of the hotel on the roof filming cruise missiles coming in and sending it out by cell phone.

Then he ran and interviewed the lady whose house got bombed. She was mad. She said, I'm not a soldier.

I just live here. You pull up my house and where am I going to stay? What do you think I am, an animal?

I'm just a dog? What do you think I am? She knew English.

And it was like, what do you think? I have a house. I have a house like you.

I live in a house. You just bombed my house. I don't have a house anymore.

What am I going to do now? She was mad. We don't mind because it's not my house.

It's not like I have to sleep tonight on the street. Master Shantideva has been saying all along, you should worry as much about them as you do about yourself. You should be as outraged about the last house that was blown up as you would be as if the city of New York came and demolished your house while you were in class.

You should be outraged. You should feel like this is not acceptable. You should just jump up and do something.

And then the other guy says, yeah, that's very noble and everything, but after all, it doesn't hurt me. It's not my house. I don't even know all the houses that got bombed.

I don't even know those people. It doesn't hurt me. So that's what we're picking up.

And he's been giving arguments, and Master Shantideva's been giving counter-arguments, and we're like a third of the way through it. Now there comes this argument. Master Shantideva said, so other people's pain is not your pain, right?

Yeah. So you don't have to worry about their pain. Right.

So why do you take care of your pain? And there's some logic to that, which eludes me, but anyway. Then, no.

You have to be in a breakout group for that. But then where I get to talk, where my part starts, is the other guy says, look, it's all very noble. I like what you say.

It sounds really good, but it's just too much pain. You see? And I've met, you meet people.

There are kinds of compassionate people who overdo it, and they burn out. Like every New York City high school teacher you've ever met. No, they burn out.

It's like they try to take care of other people's pain. They try to take on other people's pain, and it's just too much. And the other guy here, Kacig, he says, look, I'd like to do that, it's just too much.

I can hardly handle my own pain. I can hardly take care of my own pain. But you tell me I should take care of two, three other people, or a thousand other people, it's too much.

It's just too much. That's where we're going to pick up. I don't think I have the English.

I'll read you the Tibetan, and you'll get it during the break. NING RJE'I SDUG BSNGAL MANG BSGYUR PA CI PHYIR NENG DE SKYE MCHED NA Look, if I'd be compassionate, NING RJE, the SDUG BSNGAL, the suffering is just too much of other people. CI PHYIR NENG DE SKYE MCHED NA Why should I give myself a headache?

Why should I purposely take other people's trouble? I mean, why do I need extra trouble? That's what the other guy says.

Then Master Shantideva says, SDUG BSNGAL SDUG BSNGAL SANG PHYIR NA CI PHYIR NING RJE'I SDUG BSNGAL MANG And this is a beautiful meditation you can do. If you put your mind on all the pain in the world, all the pain in the world, even just in Iraq and Israel and places like that, even just that, just put your mind on it. Thousands and thousands of people, it's not that they're hungry, it's not that they didn't get the Starbucks latte that they wanted today, it's that their house got blown up and their children were killed and things like that.

Put your mind on all that suffering. All the AIDS in the world, put your mind on all that suffering. Then what the other guy says is, it's too much.

I could never take that on. And what Master Shantideva says, well look, if one person could suffer so that many other people could be saved from suffering, then wouldn't you want to do that? You see, if you put your mind on all that pain and it overwhelms you, you should look at it a slightly different way.

You should just turn it around a bit. Look at it this way. If you work hard, if you take some pain on yourself, sacrifice yourself, if you could eliminate other people's pain, well, wouldn't that be happiness?

Wouldn't that be a kind of happiness for you? You wouldn't feel bad. You're just thinking about it the wrong way.

You see? Yeah, there is too much pain in the world. And yeah, it's hard.

But to imagine that if you took it and everybody else could be freed from it, then you'd just be happy to take it. So look at it that way. Sacrifice.

My main thing tonight, I wanted to talk about sacrifice. Not the kind of animal sacrifice. I mean sacrificing yourself for other people.

And that was a big deal when I was very young. My father served in the Second World War. He was 15.

He lied about his age. He went and signed up. They put him on a submarine in the Pacific.

there was this big thing that you sacrificed. His thing was sacrifice myself for my country, for all my people. Then I grew up in the Vietnam era and we said all war is stupid.

And it is stupid. It's wrong. War is wrong.

But the idea that my father's generation went to war with, World War II, was I'll give up my life so that other people can be free. And it was a wrong idea to fight, to have war. But the motivation was very beautiful and pure.

I don't see it that much nowadays. I think that feeling has died out. Along with maybe a lot of the religions that I grew up with.

You see what I mean? I found out recently that the church I grew up in, which was the Episcopal Church, the membership is only half now. And Christy and I were in England and the Church of England is almost extinct.

It's almost gone. This is the church of an entire nation. It's almost gone.

Almost no one goes to church anymore. Almost nobody. And so in a way that idea of sacrificing yourself for other people has just slowly dissolved in our world.

And I think we should resurrect it. You see? Ego emi he anastasis.

The resurrection. We should bring that back. That's a good thing.

And I'll say it again. The idea that if you could suffer to prevent the pain of many other people, then you should do it. And then Master Shantideva is going to go one more step tonight.

He's going to say, and that's true happiness for you. That's how to get really happy. And we just don't think like that.

The idea that say like, there's going to be refreshments tonight. And they need one person to go out and get them. And they're not going to get refreshments.

You see? And to think, well, I'll go get the refreshments. And I'll run back and make sure everybody else gets refreshments even though I don't get refreshments.

Because you see, that's happiness. That makes you happy. Much happier than eating the refreshments.

And you just have to think like that. That's sacrifice of your own desires, immediate desires. And then when you do it, you feel just infinitely happier.

You didn't get a cookie. But everybody else got a cookie because of you. Everybody else got a cookie because you didn't get a cookie.

And that's sacrifice. And if you live like that every day, all the time, you'll just be happy all the time. And then you won't even think about the cookies.

You see? You're just happy because you made other people happy by taking on all the trouble yourself. I'll be the one guy who doesn't get cookies.

I'll run out and get them for other people. And that's the point of these verses tonight. And you should think about that.

Everybody wants to be happy. We had that in the breakout groups, right? We hit the two verses, that is holiness and dharma, always closed.

Everybody's the same. Why? Everybody wants to be happy.

Everybody you've met today in New York City, even the people who commit suicide, see? Even sadomasochists. They want to be happy.

You see? They want to be happy. And no one wants to hurt.

No one wants suffering. Really. So when you sacrifice your own happiness for others, you get real happiness.

And you just have to think about that. And you have to try to find ways that you can do it. The meditation in this homework is just go home, sit down and meditate about ways you can sacrifice your own happiness to give other people happiness.

And then you'll find very gradually that it makes you happy all the time. And then you know what happens. You feel like you're almost cheating.

It's like nobody else guessed how to be happy, and you figured it out. I'll go get the cookies so you can have the cookies. They all think they're happy, but you've got this higher happiness.

And it lasts and lasts, and you're happy all the time. Then you almost feel guilty to go out and get the cookies. But that's another thing.

Okay. I'm going to do the Tibetan anyway where I'm not, but we'll... maybe if we get to it.

Let's see. Oh, so... Yeah, so sacrificing for others is not...

It's just a way to be happy. You don't have to think that taking on all the pain of all the people who need a cookie is going to overwhelm you. You don't have to worry like that.

When you look at it compared to your lack of a cookie, if you weigh everybody else against me, then you should be working for them and forget me because they outnumber you. The Dalai Lama is always saying that, right? If we took a vote, should me get a cookie or should everybody else get a cookie?

Well, in this room, it would be 200 to one or something. I would be outvoted. You would get the cookies.

And life is like that. That's democratic. The Dalai Lama says it's democratic.

If we had a vote today between you and everybody else, they would outvote you. So, you should take care of them. You should take care of what they want if you're democratic-minded.

Get it? Anyway, I'm going to read the next verse. ,GAL TE SDUG BSNGAL GCIG GIS NI, ,SDUG BSNGAL MANG PO MED YON NA, ,TSE DANG LDAN PA'I SDUG BSNGAL TE, ,RANG DANG GZHAN LA SKYE BYA NI, ,GAL TE SDUG BSNGAL GCIG GIS NI, ,SDUG BSNGAL MANG PO MED YON NA, If one person...

going through pain could prevent the pain of many people, ,TSE DANG LDAN PA'I SDUG BSNGAL TE, ,RANG DANG GZHAN LA SKYE BYA NI, then people who have love would take on that pain for themselves and others. Those of you who know Tibetan, it's a little tricky here. It looks like I should give myself and others pain.

It's not that. The law is like a conjunction and not a... Anyway.

How do you say? It's not just that you'll be happier if you take all the trouble on behalf of everybody else. If you're the one who has to go out and get the cookies and not get the cookies.

The Dalai Lama... I don't know if you know. I was brought up in a temple in Nhau, right?

My Buddhist career. For years, we asked the Dalai Lama to come to America. The American government refused the visa because of the Chinese.

They refused the visa to the Dalai Lama so they wouldn't anger communist China. For many years, I think 10, 15 years, we couldn't get a visa. We kept asking.

Then I think 1979 or something, we asked again. It came. Actually, Ken Rinpoche was the first person to ever get His Holiness to America.

The first lecture in America was paid for by Ken Rinpoche and his students. It was very cool. But anyway, we got news.

I remember I was at somebody else's house and they said, we just got the news, the Dalai Lama is coming. I said, oh great. They said, you don't look so happy.

I said, no, I'm not so happy. Isn't he coming to our temple? He's coming to home.

He's coming to our temple. So why are you happy? Because I won't get to meet him.

Why not? I'll be cooking momos in the kitchen. Everybody else will get to meet him and I'll be out cooking.

I know. I already know. I already know it's going to happen.

Then like six weeks later, all the elder comics came to my room. All the elder Mongolians in New Jersey. They said, Michael, we have a question to ask you.

I'm like, it dawned on me they're going to ask me to translate for the Dalai Lama. I was like, wow. They said, we need you to do something.

I said, yes. They said, in conjunction with the Dalai Lama's visit. I said, that's okay.

They said, nobody knows how to make Tibetan momos like you. I'm like, huh? They said, we need someone to cook.

I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. I knew that was going to happen. I don't know.

Art got to do it instead, as usual. But anyway, so anyway, it's like that. You see, I'm going to sacrifice my time with the Dalai Lama so that everybody else can be happy.

You see? And what Master Shantideva is saying in this verse is that when you give up your time with the Dalai Lama, and you make, momo is this dumpling, delicious Mongolian-Tibetan dumpling. It involves cutting 100 pounds of meat into hamburger by hand with a chopped knife.

And even if you're a vegetarian. But anyway, so I did it. And the point is that you will feel happy.

Because, okay, one person didn't get to meet him. But then several hundred other people didn't have to work in the kitchen. You see, I mean, somebody else didn't have to work in the kitchen.

So I sacrificed my meeting with His Holiness so that other people could meet him. Now the next step here is that you just achieved the happiness of both. Get it?

Get it? You didn't give up your happiness to make other people happy. You just made yourself and other people happy.

Get it? So it's more efficient. If one person sacrifices themselves, it's more efficient.

Because then everybody gets happy. Why? Well, they get momos and they get to meet the Dalai Lama.

I get to be the cause for them to have momos and meet the Dalai Lama. I'm actually happier than them. Okay?

So both of us get happy. So sacrifice. And you have to find...

The point about this teaching, that we're doing this two weeks, you have to meditate on this. Like, I came to New York two months ago. Krishnadevaraya and I, we had a flight out to Europe.

And we were just going to fly over to Europe for some study and some retreat. And then a mistake happened with the ticket. We were supposed to stop in New York and teach the senior teachers here for the breakout groups.

And then there was a mistake with the airline ticket. It was a 24-hour mistake. And we call them up.

We say, we made a mistake. We're sorry. We just got to change the ticket.

They're like, no, no. We called like 14 times. I tried nice guy.

I tried nasty guy. I tried, let me talk to your supervisor. I went to three supervisors.

And they just said no. And it's like $1,500. And you should know, all of you should know, the senior teachers heard about that and they just paid it.

They just did it. So when you take a teaching here these two weekends, they paid to teach you. And you should know that when you're taking these classes.

And they just did it. So like they sacrificed something for us. And then both people get happy.

Now, you know the ending of the story. I'm standing in the kitchen, over 400 momo pots to be washed. Like I'm all sweaty, soaked with sweat.

Everyone's like burping. And I'm looking at these pots and they're all going to leave. And then it's time for the private audiences.

And there's like 400 Mongolians crowding around. Remember the staircase there? And we get word that Dalai Lama wants to meet the cook.

Dalai Lama says that the cook should come first. And so, that's how it happens. True story.

That's a great meaning. Okay, I'm going to do the next verse. Then MED THOB BDAG SRED KYIS RGYAL PO NUS PA SHES KYANG MI BDAG GIS SDUG BSNGAL MA SOGS TE MANG PO'I SDUG BSNGAL ZAS GYUR CHUD Then he says it's just like the story of Lovely Flower of the Moon.

MED THOB BDAG SRED in Tibetan. SU BUS PA CHANDRA in Sanskrit. Lovely Flower of the Moon.

And then he doesn't tell you what the story is. He just says, oh, it's just like the story of Lovely Flower of the Moon. And then I dug around and found the story.

It's in Prajnaparamiti's commentary. And it comes from the THING NGEN ZIN GYI RGYAL PO Say THING NGEN ZIN GYI RGYAL PO which means Samadhi Raja in Sanskrit. The King of Concentration.

The King of Meditation. It's a sutra about meditation. That sutra became the basis of all meditation in Buddhism.

And all meditation in Tibet is based on the explanation of that sutra by a guru, a master called Kamalashina who lived in the 800s. And he brought meditation to Tibet. He brought those teachings to Tibet about how to meditate.

And we found them in Sanskrit. And Kristi La has translated almost all of it. And it'll be published.

And she's going to teach it at Diamond Mountain next... It's a plug, okay, in September. It's extraordinary.

It's just extraordinary. And it became the basis for all meditation in Tibet. All sects, all the groups in Tibet all their meditation practices come from this book.

So we found it, the original, in Sanskrit. The first page is missing. But we supplied it from a Tibetan version.

So you have to learn that. But anyway, The King of Concentration, The King of Meditation Sutra is the source of this story. So this is how it goes.

Supusvachandra was a monk, a bodhisattva. And he lived in the time of one of the former Buddhas. We believe this Buddha is only one of countless Buddhas.

He's just another bus coming by. And there's 400 buses behind him and there's 400 buses in front. He's just another Buddha.

You see? And in the time of a former Buddha, that Buddha came to this world in the way that you're going to after you get this. And then he did his shtick in this world.

And then the Buddhists always leave. Why? Why does your toothpaste run out?

Yeah. The seed for the toothpaste wears out in your mind. What made it wear out?

It started. Okay? It started.

What makes toothpaste run out? You bought it. Okay?

The minute you have toothpaste, the karma starts to wear out. The minute you're born, you start getting old. You see?

Because the seed is wearing out. Nothing's happening outside. The seed in your mind is wearing out.

So people didn't have enough good seeds and the Buddha passed from this world. Didn't stay in this world. And then there was a monastery in India and a lovely flower of the moon was the abbot.

He was a monk and he was the abbot. And the local king, the Raja, he started to get this bad attitude about monks and monasteries and Buddhism in general. And he decided that they should repress Dharma.

And this has happened throughout history. Why? Seeds.

Not enough seeds. So, he started to close the monasteries, kill the monks, and all the monks from the monastery of lovely flower, he was the abbot, they all ran out into the forest to escape. And they were living out in the forest.

And then lovely flower said, you know, it's not a good thing that the king has affected all these people in the palace, in the court. There are thousands of retainers at court, people who live in the court. So he said, I think I should go at least talk to those people.

And the other monks, are you crazy? He's going to kill you. The king is going to kill you.

And the verse here says, how's it go? He knew that the king might hurt him, but he didn't try to escape his own suffering. He went out because it would stop the suffering of others.

And what he did was, he did go back to the palace. He went to the palace, and he tried, he talked to all the other people in the palace. And every king in India had like 50 queens, you know, like a harem, right?

And all of these helpers. And so slowly he talked to each one of them, and he convinced them that it was the wrong thing to do. And they believed him.

And so they started to come out to the monastery to have teachings, like this one. And then the king didn't mind for a while, but when all the queens left together one day, it was a little too much. And he sent out an order that lovely flower's eyes should be gouged out.

And they sent soldiers, and they tied him down, and they gouged out his eyes. And then they slowly cut off his other ears, nose, and then his fingers, and then his legs, and he died. Then this huge, beautiful sunlight bursts out of his body, for like a week, like the corpse.

And there's this beautiful, huge sunlight just bursting out of his body. And sooner or later the king hears about it, and he goes and checks it out. And then he's like, uh-oh.

By the way, the king's name is suradhatta, which means gift of the warrior. Warrior's gift, or something like that. So, he realized that this had been a great bodhisattva, and that he had made a mistake.

So he collected all this special sandalwood, and he did the traditional fire to burn the body, and then he built a huge stupa around it, a huge temple. And then for the rest of his life he tried to do good deeds to make up for it, but he wasn't able to erase the karma. And then after that he went to the hell realms.

And we call it narmé. Say narmé? Avici, hell.

Avici means pain with no break. You just have pain constantly. There's no break.

You just suffer for thousands of years in fire. And you know, modern people don't believe in hells. And you can say it's just something made up by the Catholic Church or whatever.

But it's also, in all the Buddhist scriptures, exactly the same as Dante described it, which is either a big coincidence or what. And it's like modern man is too sophisticated for the idea of hell, but hells exist. It's naive to think this is the only world.

It's naive to think there's not other places. I mean, they call it frog in the well complex in Tibetan. You tell a frog there's other water, there's other bodies of water in the world.

They say, no, no, just my well. That's all. Just where I live, that's the only place there is.

And then there's a story, they took a frog like that to the Pacific Ocean and his head blew up. Which in Asia means he couldn't take it. Not only are there other places than what you know, but they are unbelievable.

You can't imagine what's going on in those places. Like billions of people being burned together. And there are places like that.

And you get there by hurting people. You see? It's not that some construction company went and built those places.

Who made those places? It's just a perception. It's just a perception.

It's like this room. You made this room. I like it.

You did a good job. And you made this room. And then you make any place you go.

When you walk out of here, you made the West Side Highway. When you get to Eighth Avenue, you created the Eighth Avenue. You see?

It's your mind. It's throwing it out in front of you as you walk. So anyway, we're not supposed to talk about hell today because Americans get nervous.

They don't believe in it. But he went to hell. Now how do we know this story is true?

Lord Buddha is, this is a sutra, right? Samadhi Raja Sutra, which means Lord Buddha is speaking this sutra. And he's describing to his monks why they should be nice people.

This is a teaching that was given in India under a tree somewhere. Lord Buddha spoke to some monks. And you know what the punchline is always at the end?

They say, how do you know about all this stuff? He says, I was the king. I know.

And I know what happened to me afterward. When you read these stories, which haven't been translated yet. I think Brian Smith wants to work on some of these.

But he's like, you get this weird feeling. You get a chill. Because the last word in the story is always, they say, how do you know?

How do you know this story? He says, I was the king. Don't do it.

And it's very beautiful for the leader of a world religion to say, look, I was the schmuck in this story. And I did the mistake. And I'm just telling you because I don't want you to do the same mistake.

I like that. He's not always this infallible, perfect guy. All of the jataka tales are stories about his failures in his past lives.

And he's just saying, don't do what I did. Nga da ngan jawa shen gyi tsul suma mi jate nyamur gyur tar ne Famous story about judging other people. We talked about it many times.

So anyway, that's the story of Subhushba Chandra. He gave up his life so that other people wouldn't make bad karma. He sacrificed himself.

And you can do it in your own way. I know there's a lot of people here. I see some good faces from the Jiva Mukti teachers from the Yoga Sutra.

And say David and Sharon, holy teachers there, my holy teachers, they basically sacrificed their life for other people. We just go there, we hang out, we mess up the place we live. And they have many times been in financial trouble.

I know they have gone to the bank to pay the salaries. They've put up every penny they have and then borrowed money to pay all the people there. And this is repeated over and over again in places like that.

Or Ken Rinpoche, same thing. He's given up every penny he has to build houses for the refugee monks. And it's repeated over and over again.

And you should know that two brave people, when yoga wasn't so popular, and they were in this little dirty little hole on what avenue? Second Avenue. And they couldn't make the rent and they didn't have enough food stuff.

And they kept hanging in there. And now we can enjoy that place. We can use that place.

We can have teachings there. Where are they? They're up making another place for us.

You have to look at that example and say, I'll sacrifice my comfort for other people. So other people can have teachings or do yoga or things like that. And you should take an example.

It's sacrifice. It's not fun to own Jiva Mukti. It's a pain in the rear end.

It's just trouble. It'd be much nicer just to go and hang out at other yoga studios. Pay your 15 bucks and get out after an hour.

Really, it's such a trouble to own those places and to run those places. They are sacrificing. And we don't think about it.

We don't think about it. We just take it for granted. They are sacrificing their time of their life, which cannot be replaced, and their money, and their happiness, in a way, to make a place for other people.

And now you have to take that example and you have to think, how can I do something like that? How can I do something like that? You always have to think like that.

You have to take the example of someone who sacrificed their own happiness so that other people could have a place to study or do yoga or things like that. You have to think. It's not impossible, right?

You can see that they're doing it. You know that it's doable. And now you have training.

You have yoga sutra training. You have heart yoga training. You have ashtanga yoga training.

You should start thinking like that. What can I do? How can I sacrifice my time, my life, to give other people a chance to learn these things?

You should think like that. It's a very... It makes you really happy.

There's no greater happiness than that. It will make you really happy. So think.

Everybody has different skills. Not everybody can do accounting and jiva mukti. But you have some kind of kam.

Say kam. Kam means you have some karma. How do you call it?

You have a karmic seed about what you can do well. Everybody has a kam. Everybody here has a kam.

It's something that you're really good at. You know? If you set your mind to it, you could do this thing for other people.

You all have a kam. Some people like to nerd out on a computer. Some people like pasta hops or dogs.

Whatever. Is there a way you could turn your particular skill or talent into a way that you could sacrifice to help other people? Give other people something.

In the way that so many people have given us things and we just take it for granted. Go out and look for something you can sacrifice yourself to. It's the nicest, it's the funnest thing in the world.

He's going to get into that. About how much pleasure it is to sacrifice yourself. We hesitate.

We take, oh, it would hurt to give up my time, my life for other people. But there's nothing that makes you happy. There's nothing more sexy than giving up what you want.

And nothing makes you feel better your whole life. That's why the Dalai Lama walks around with this big grin all the time. Almost nobody walks around with a big grin all the time.

Because he's doing it all the time. Take a nice break. Smile over your dessert.

Refreshments. We have refreshments, right? We have to have them.

We have? Yeah? Do we?

Yeah? Ah, that's funny. Oh, we should have refreshments every night, okay?

In the cafeteria? Are there munchies and stuff? Yeah?

Yeah? Are there? Don't know?

Huh? No, I don't believe that. Okay.

Are we allowed to eat in here, Michael? Only in the cafeteria? Okay.

There's a big pile of munchies back here. So you guys have to transport them to the cafeteria, okay? Not much, but we'll do the bread and fish thing.

And then Kristi and I will be down here. We'll sit right here. If you just want to come up and say hi, if we haven't seen you.

Some people here I haven't seen for four years since I retreated. We'll be sitting up here. We'll take a 20 minute break and then James will bring you back with some kind of horn or something.

Do you want us to sit over there? We'll sit over here. Is that okay?

Okay. See you in about 20 minutes, okay? Have a nice break.

[Говорящий 2]
And just one quick announcement. The readings aren't going to be available today or yesterday.

[Говорящий 1]
You can take your reading now. Where's 107? Do you have it?

Where is it? I thought it was something about a duck.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes, there's a duck.

[Говорящий 1]
If you want, we can do the same thing. That's what we'll do.

[Говорящий 2]
If we gradually train our minds like this, then we learn to take joy in ending the pain that others feel. We find ourselves capable of entering even the hell of torment without rescue, like a duck diving into a lotus pond.

[Говорящий 1]
I think this verse is pretty self-explanatory, right? Except for the thing about the Tibetan poem, right? So, if you get used to it, you can do anything.

And my experience... I try something new every year or two. What I've found in my life is if you just do something for an hour and a half a day, you can do anything.

Like this summer, Christy and I went and learned the ancient Greek, just for fun. And, just most of us are not disciplined enough, but if you do an hour and a half of anything for, I don't know, a couple weeks, eight weeks, something, you get really good at it. You see?

If you just think about sacrificing what you want so that other people can have what they want, and if you keep up at least just meditating on it, you see, in Sanskrit, meditation is called bhavana. Bhavana means, bhava means to be, or become, and na means to make it happen. So bhavana, meditation means make it happen.

Make yourself turn into something. What I mean is, if you go home and fantasize about being the person who sacrifices themselves for others, just in your mind, okay? You don't have to do anything, all right?

Just fantasize about different ways maybe I could do it. Like maybe I could do this thing at work, or maybe I could do this thing at Jiva Mukti, or maybe I could do this thing at Three Jewels, or, just fantasize about it. What you'll find is that you'll be doing it in about six weeks, okay?

That's the power of the mind, okay? The power of getting used to something. That's why meditation is called making it happen.

Bhavana, okay? And that's the power. And what he's saying, Master Shantideva is big on that.

He says, just fantasize about it for a while, and you'll do it. It's like in high school, you know? You fantasize about this pretty girl in the class, and you fantasize long enough, you finally ask her out.

Now whether she says yes or no is up to your karma. But the fantasy, you see, fantasizing, wanting, just dreaming about it. If you just dream about becoming someone who could serve thousands of other people, it will happen, you see?

So that's meditation. That's the meaning of the word meditation. That's what meditation means, okay?

Okay, we're going to do verse 108. Jigme, you ready? Any language you want.

Some English in there, somewhere.

[Говорящий 2]
Jigme. Jigme.

[Говорящий 1]
Jigme. Jigme.

[Говорящий 2]
Jigme. Jigme. Jigme.

Jigme. Jigme. Think what an ocean of joy it would be if every living being were liberated completely.

Wouldn't that in itself be enough for you? Why would you ever want freedom?

[Говорящий 1]
Now, there's usually some kind of problem in each verse, and that's why I'm here, you know, because I get to do that. The last line is a problem. Why would you ever want freedom?

This you have to read the commentaries, and we have some ancient commentaries, especially Prajnakaramati, who was Naropa's sidekick, okay? If you know Naropa. But he says, freedom here means what we call nirvana, or lower nirvana.

You see, nirvana is not the same thing as enlightenment, right? Nirvana is where you stop your own bad thoughts forever. Like, cannot get angry ever again.

That's nirvana. Like, maybe you achieved nirvana last night at Jiva Mukti, when Lady Ruth finished the second chapter. You wouldn't look any different to us, you see?

Your own anger has stopped completely. Some kind of powerful thing happens in your own mind, and then you can't get angry again. That's nirvana.

So you don't have to change, or go away, or do anything. You don't disappear. You just stop your bad thoughts forever.

Then enlightenment is a different thing. Enlightenment is where you become this person who can stand on a billion planets at once and help everybody. So what he's saying is, if you had a chance to do the billion planets thing, why would you ever want to do the other thing?

Okay? Why would you ever want to stop at just being happy for yourself? Because you can't get angry anymore.

You see? Why would you want to stop there? Who'd want that kind of freedom?

We've got to go higher. We've got to go further. You can...

And that's what yoga is for. That's why yoga is so interesting. You work on the outside of the body to change the inner body into light.

You turn into light. And then you can stand on a billion planets at once and help other people. That's the beautiful marriage between meditation on the inside and yoga on the outside.

And this is the ancient method used by all the yogis of our lineage, Dalai Lama's lineage. Okay? Also Master Prajnaparamita says RO CHOG.

RO CHOG means if you compare the feeling you get from helping a lot of people to the feeling you get from being in deep meditation and not getting angry again, the feeling you get from helping other people, RO CHOG means ultimate delicious. Okay? RO CHOG RNAMS. It's in the Abhisamankara. Ultimate delicious. Once you've tasted that, you'll never go back to just trying to make yourself happy. You see, once you've had a taste of ultimate delicious, which is helping other people, sacrificing the one for the many, once you've tasted that sweetness, you won't go back.

You won't want the lower one anymore. Once you've had a maple-covered donut, you wouldn't be satisfied. You wouldn't be satisfied with a chips ahoy.

Okay? Something like that. That's ultimate delicious.

Then once you get your tongue on that, once you've tasted it, you won't go back to just sitting in meditation for yourself. You'll want to sacrifice yourself for other people. That's the point.

I mean, that's my perception. Verse 109. Anitama?

Are you up for that? We can hand that down if you want.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay. As such, they feel no pride or wonder over what they do, even if it's all for others, since the only thing that makes them happy is working for others. They never hope for some karmic reward.

[Говорящий 1]
Master Prajnaparamita says, once you get in, once you get that taste of taking care of everybody, then he says this cool thing. He says, people who get that taste get wrapped up in it like you get stuck in it. Once you've learned, once you've had a few experiences, like I gave the example of David and Sharon.

Once you've sacrificed your weekend so that other people can come and have some classes. Once you've done it three, four, five times and you get a taste of ultimate delicious, you just start doing it all the time. You won't want to go back to anything else.

You won't want to go back to anything else. And he says, you get so wrapped up into it, it makes you enlightened, but you don't notice. That's kind of cute.

It's like, you're so into it that you don't notice even when you get enlightened. So the body changes into light, but you're just worried about how you're going to get Jigme Mukti open this weekend. You see what I mean?

Everything you ever dreamed of is happening, but you don't even notice because you're caught up in ultimate delicious. Then Gyaltsabje, the Tibetan commentator, he says, and that's because they are your mom. He adds that.

He says, that's because they are your mom. What that means is that you've been born countless times, over and over and over. You've been everything there is.

You've been a dog countless times. You've been a bug countless times. You have been Miss America and the president countless times.

Countless times. You can't count. There's no beginning to that.

Countless times you've been that. So, everybody in this room has been everything to you. Everybody in this room has been everything to you.

Everybody in this room has been your mom. Everybody in this room has held you up to their breast and fed you countless times. They say if you counted up the milk that the person next to you has given you from their breast, you could fill the Pacific Ocean and it would overflow.

You see what I mean? And that's not an exaggeration. Not an exaggeration.

So, working for them, sacrificing a day for them or a weekend for them, it's just like, thank you. It's like saying thank you. It's no big deal.

You're not going to get conceited, he says here. You don't have to think you're some kind of miracle worker. You're just paying somebody back for what they did for you thousands, millions of times.

And you have to think like that. You have to think like that. There's a really sick thought that comes up some people.

Yeah, but that means they've also murdered me countless times. We're going to have a cute little debate. It comes from a book that was written two, three hundred years ago.

Thich Nhat Hanh, if you know her, she's working on it right now. We're going to have it out for you, right, Nanette? At the fundraising dinner, which is next Sunday night after this class.

You've got to go to that. It's a really beautiful thing where a sick mind debates a healthy mind. Sick mind says, yeah, but he's murdered me countless times too.

Then they debate. It's this beautiful ancient book. They're going to do some kind of skit about it, I hope, if they finish it.

Okay. I got nervous because they came up to us today and said, will you play sitar? Does that mean they're not going to finish that thing?

Okay, anyway, we probably will, right? You have to come to find out. Now this verse says you shouldn't hope for any karmic reward.

And that's not true. You should hope for a karmic reward. There's this teaching that you shouldn't...

NAM IN BDE BU DE BA MED in the Tibetan. Don't hope for any reward. You should hope for a reward.

What's your reward? If you keep being nice to other people, your body will turn into light, and then you can stand on a billion planets and take care of billions of people at the same time. It's your ultimate fantasy, is to do that.

You will be Jesus on countless planets, personally. You will be. That's what you were meant to do, and that's what you're going to do.

And this is just another step in that process. You should hope for that. You are going to get that.

That is your karmic result. So why does he say, don't hope for any karmic reward? What do you guess he means?

Huh? Yeah, the attitude for yourself. Just for yourself.

You have to add the words here. What? For yourself.

Don't give away things thinking, I will get something back. Is that bad or good? Could be bad, could be good.

I'll give you the bad version. I'm going to give away all these chocolate chip cookies so I can get more tomorrow, for myself, and eat all of them. I tried.

She wouldn't let me. You can get sick that way. But anyway, that's the bad version.

What's the good version? I'm going to give away all these chocolate chip cookies. Tomorrow I'll get a whole pile of them.

And then I'll give them those away. You see? I'll take a couple.

And then I'll give them all away. And then the next day, oh man, the next day. And frankly, I did this.

I mean, I'll brag, okay? I did it in business. I wanted to raise money for Tibetans.

Refugees. We started with a loan, $50,000. And we started this little company.

I'm having dinner in negative five minutes with the owner of the company. And now it's a quarter billion dollars a year. You see?

Why? Because we just kept giving it away. So how much money do I have?

Nothing. Nothing. Trust me.

And we just give it away. And it just keeps getting bigger. It's really cool.

It just keeps getting bigger. We keep giving it away. Just give it away.

And that's the thing. Do I hope for karmic reward? Yeah, that's how I should do.

What? I want the money to get bigger. Why?

So we can help more people. You see? It's not for me.

If you think about it for you, that's the wrong kind. If you think about, I'm going to put this thing in a snowball. Roll.

Money roll. And it's going to feed people. That's great.

That's wonderful. Nothing wrong with that. So you have to know the difference.

Last, first, I think. Am I right? Yeah.

We'll get there. Okay. Who's...Marie? Don't give me that look. Just give it. And so we must think to protect others and have thoughts of compassion for them in the very same way we protect ourselves for even the slightest unkind word. This is a summary.

Of what? Of the first half of the practice we are learning in these two weekends. It's a summary.

What are the two practices we are learning? Number one. I will learn to treat other people the way I treat myself.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And then number two is, I'll go you one better. I'll do unto you as...

How many did we say? I guess that's the I'll do unto you as I do unto myself. No, first one is, I'll do unto you as good as I do unto myself.

Second one is, you will be me and I'll take care of you. We'll talk about it. Don't worry.

Don't get a headache. Anyway, this is the end. This is a summary of the idea that I will learn to treat other people as well as I treat myself.

So, people are getting blown up in Iraq. Probably right now. And we're not so worried about it, but if one person in this room walks out of here mumbling about that guy who gave the talk, like, I didn't quite like the way he did that, or I don't quite like the way he did that.

You see? Then I will get upset. So, here's the balance.

Somebody's dying in Iraq and their house is being blown up and their sons and children are dying. Over here, somebody said a little bad thing about Geshe Michael. Now, which one am I concerned about?

No, I'm concerned about the little thing about Geshe Michael. That one disturbed me. I got used to the thing in Iraq.

It doesn't disturb me. And he says, you should switch it around. Switch it around.

Not only should you be so worried about someone losing their life, but if you really learn to treat others the way you treat yourself, you would be worried that someone would say the smallest unkind thing about the people in Iraq. You see what I mean? You would be worried about them that way.

That's hard. That's really hard. Can you do it?

With practice, you can do anything. If I can do yoga, I remember the first day I did mudra. They almost threw me out.

Okay, anyway. She said, touch your toes. And I kind of laughed.

And then she said, well, touch your ankles. I'm like, well, could you touch your shins? And I'm like, try your knees.

And he's like, just hold your hands down straight. It's okay. No, but if you keep doing it every day, every day, then it changes.

You get used to it. You get used to anything. And you can do it.

You can learn to treat other people that way. So that's the idea in this verse. I had something else to tell you and I forgot, which is lucky for you.

So we'll see you tomorrow. Don't forget there's a class at... Oh, our class here at 2.30. Class at Three Jewels at 12? 10. 10. God...

Anyway, 10 o'clock. I always go two hours late to yoga because then I get to do the shavasana with everybody. Anyway.

It's probably that. We'll see you tomorrow. Did I say anything else?

I forgot something. I'll think of it later. Okay, Christy and I are just going to run out because we've got to go somewhere.

And we'll see you tomorrow. Come for the class at 2.30, right? In the evening.

Okay, see you then. Oh, we'll do a mandala. Chikki Da, you ready?

You up for that?

[Говорящий 2]
Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting