Углублённый курс ACI 03 — «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы» Мастера Шантидевы: обмен себя на других (2004, Нью-Йорк), занятие 5

[Говорящий 1]
I think we'll just start, okay? Because we're kind of running late. Which is very unusual.

Christian and me went to a restaurant, and well, we had to go to two or three because they were all closed, and then we couldn't find the waiter, and finally we dragged him out of the kitchen, and then he said, we're not open yet, and he said he'll cook, and then then at the end of the dinner, we were like rushing him, he said he said, Jesse Michael, you don't have to rush. I went to one of your classes, you always have to rush, right?

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
Busted. Busted.

[Говорящий 2]
Christian and me.

[Говорящий 1]
Anyone who really wants to quickly reach some shelter for themselves and every other being must exchange themselves and others. Must carry out the very highest of every secret practice. So, Master Shantideva, all he says is that if you really want to help people, you should carry out the highest secret practice.

But he doesn't mention what that practice is, okay? And then every commentary has a comment on it, and we're using Prajnaparamita's commentary, the oldest commentary. And what it says is, the highest secret practice here is exchanging yourself and others.

And so now we're already on to exchanging yourself and others, like switching places. When you call in English, you say, I'll put myself in your shoes. I'll put myself in your place.

I'll put myself in your shoes. You say that in English. And those of you who were in the afternoon breakout groups, you saw the great switch that he did, right?

And I'm just going to repeat it, because it's so beautiful. I heard Kristilan do it in her class. And it comes like this, you know.

You keep telling this guy that he should treat other people the way he treats himself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Separate but equal, okay?

Dak-shen-nyam-pa. But not je-pa yet, okay? And then the other guy gets overwhelmed.

He says, look, I just can't handle it. Like if I had to switch places with her, I could switch with Ellie and Nanette, maybe. I could switch with two people, looking at Geshe Michael, wishing he would take a break already.

I could do that. But now you say, I have to take care of everybody in the room, equal to myself? I have to worry about everybody in this room, equal to myself?

It's just too much. It's just too much for me to do. And then there's this point in the reading you had in the afternoon.

And Master Shantideva says, you know what? It's too much to do. You know?

It's impossible. Like you can't take care of everybody the way you take care of yourself. You just can't.

There's too many people to take care of everybody else the way you take care of yourself. So I had an idea. Let's just change yourself, okay?

Like instead of fighting this tendency to cherish yourself instead of cherishing other people, you keep that tendency. That's fine. You just watch out for number one.

Forget about other people, okay? He changes his whole story, like halfway through the chapter. He says, you know what?

There's so many people to worry about. Let's just drop it, you know? Go ahead.

Take care of number one. Forget the other people. But, then there's a but, right?

This is in contracts I used to do in the business. But, you have to kind of wrap your idea of me around everybody else, okay? Alright.

And then you just move on, okay? So now, instead of separate but equal, it's just me. You just take care of me.

And it's a two-step process. It's a two-step dance. First, try to treat other people as you would have them treat you or as you would treat yourself.

But, then he does Jesus one better. Then he says, you know what? It's just really hard.

Just take care of yourself. But, wrap me around the other people this way. And then the guy, you know, he's going to say, I can't do that.

You know, I'm not somebody else. You know, I stop at my skin. Yeah, so if you have a child, your me doesn't extend to them, you see?

If you buy a new car, your me doesn't extend to your new car. If someone scratches your car instead of everybody else's car, you don't get upset. You see?

And he's saying, you define your me. Do you have a 401k? Do you have a 401k?

The guy says, yeah, I have a 401k. I have a retirement fund. Well, why?

It's not going to help you. You know? Like, you're 62.

You're not going to get that money back now. It's not like the guy at 62 is going to send the guy at 40 the money. Okay?

He's separate. But in your mind, you extend yourself to him. And even this afternoon, right?

Like, in the morning, you eat breakfast. Why? So the guy in the afternoon won't be hungry.

But that hunger doesn't affect you in the morning. It doesn't touch you. You're untouchable in the morning by the guy in the afternoon.

So why are you taking care of him? Because I extended my idea of me to the afternoon. Oh, well, so extend it to Ellie.

Extend it to the men. Then just watch out for number one. It's a lot easier than trying to treat everybody else the way you treat yourself.

Okay? Got it? It's really sexy.

And, you know, it sounds funny. It sounds like, oh, you know, it's just a semantics. But it's not like that.

Try it. I'll tell you the difference. Me and Christy go into the ice cream store.

And then I say, I want mint chocolate sherbet with lots of fat in it. And no. And then she's like, I would like the sherbet.

You know? And then, you know, if I make sure she gets her ice cream. Right?

That's dak shen nyan pan. That's treating me and the other person equally. Separate but equal.

She gets her sherbet. I get my chocolate milk. Okay?

Like that. That's separate but equal. Now, when you're doing the new thing, dak shen jian pan, switching myself and others.

You're like, we would like a cup with one scoop of chocolate mint and one scoop of sherbet in it. And then we eat it together. Because we are one.

You see? And that's a very nice practice. And later, if you want to try it, we do that actually with everything.

It's hard sometimes. But it's a good practice. Now it's not separate but equal anymore.

You see? It's we would like one cup of ice cream. Okay?

Got it? And I'm still watching out for me. Just that me has two stomachs, though.

And me has two separate tastes, you know. But I take care of me. You see?

So it's a lot easier than struggling to take care of other people. So instead of thinking of other people as other, you think of them as you. And you just take care of yourself.

Okay? Alright? It's very interesting.

It's very profound. Maybe this could change the whole world. You see?

It's a very interesting thing. You see? So we have three choices.

Ignore other people. This is what we already do. Or separate good people.

You know, make sure everybody gets an ice cream. What they like. Or, order one cup of ice cream with anything in it, and we all eat it together.

You see? And we're all just one person. You see?

That's kind of cool. By the way, as part of the switching thing, like I'm you, you're me, we're going to be doing that in a while. I think next weekend.

Okay? And that's a heavy meditation. That's like, when I say exchange self and other, and you hear it in the announcement or on the postcard or something, I say, you have to switch places with other people.

Now you're sitting looking at Geshe Michael, and you're wondering if he's going to go over tonight. You see what I mean? So then, if I switch myself with you, I won't go over tonight.

You see what I mean? Like that. Okay?

But there's going to be a dark side switching too. Okay? There's going to be a dark side switching.

And those of you who've studied it already, like I switch, like usually I'm jealous of somebody who's done it. Like Nanette can dance better than me. Okay?

And so I would normally be jealous of her. So there's this practice where I put my mind in her body and I, then now I look at Geshe Michael and I practice being jealous. I practice being jealous.

And I say, yeah, yeah, he gets to stand up there. I don't get to stand up there. Yeah, yeah, you know it's better.

I don't know if it's better. You know? And you practice being jealous.

You practice how you really think, easily. And it's kind of depressing, because it's so easy to do. Because it's what we do.

You know? And then there's this big debate, but I'm not going to cover that, because that's covered in the next Saturday. So I have to cover my own stuff, because the teachers are getting mad at me.

Okay. I can't switch. Okay.

This last verse, the first verse that we read, it said, this is the highest secret practice. And there's this big debate in the scriptures. It said, what secret practice?

This practice of making me you. And then the question comes up, what? What would you guess?

Is this Tantra? Why is it secret? I mean, this is an open book.

This is not secret teaching. This is an old, open teaching. Tantra means you can't tell anybody about teaching.

This is called sutra teaching. Sutra means you shouldn't tell everybody. So why does he call it a secret practice?

And then Master Prajnaparamita Naropa, the psychic, he gives the answer. He says, look, first of all, it will scare people. It will make people uncomfortable.

I expect you to put yourself in Kristi's body. And every time you go to the 31st, 32nd, and 3rd, you have to eat sugar. And there's a certain number of people who say, why should I do that?

I mean, that's noble and everything. So first of all, it might turn people. They might get nervous.

I have to put myself in that Iraqi person's body? Well, that means I'd have to go out and actually really work against that war instead of just complaining about it. You know what I mean?

Like I might even have to go to jail or something. I'm trying to stop it. Something like that, you see?

And then you get nervous. You say, well, I've got to stop with the person next to me that I kind of like. You know what I mean?

You don't really want to switch it. So Master Prajnaparamita says, first of all, we keep it a little quiet because it would freak some people out. Secondly, people might disrespect it.

It's a very holy idea. It's a sacred idea. And then we believe that if a person disrespects a very important spiritual idea, that's a very bad karma for them.

So a lot of times we don't tell people secret things that happen to us. If they don't believe you, you see, they won't believe you. And they might disrespect it.

Then you keep it secret. You keep it quiet. Then they don't get in trouble.

It's not that you didn't have some amazing thing happen to you. It's not that it's not true. It's not that it wouldn't help them if they believed you.

But if you know they wouldn't believe you, and if you know they would just disrespect you, then you don't advertise what has happened to you. For example, that's a custom. It's a custom in a lot of places.

We memorized part of the Mahatma Yoga Padipika. This is the second most famous yoga book. After what?

Yoga Sitra. Yeah. Actually, we're going to do it after we do Yoga Sitra.

So it will be like, it's going to be a while. That's a longer book. And that book is interesting because it has the yoga exercises in it.

Then it goes into the pranayama and the cleansing exercises. Then it goes into emptiness in the last one. Very beautiful text.

But I'm going to quote a verse from the first chapter. This is almost at the beginning of the book. And I just love this verse.

It says, which means, means, we keep our yoga practice secret. If a yogi or a yogini wants to succeed at yoga, you have to keep it secret. If you keep it secret, it won't have power.

If you show it off, it will lose its power. So that's like, it doesn't mean you shouldn't do yoga exercises in front of people. It doesn't mean that.

It means, whatever your practice is or your attainment is, you don't advertise it. You don't advertise it. And unless you specifically want to help somebody, you don't advertise what you're doing or something like that.

If you think they would like to know, you tell them. But if you think they might disrespect it, you don't tell them. Because if they disrespect it, it's a very bad karma.

We say that karma can make you go to hell. If someone disrespected a holy practice, they leave you. So that's one big reason why tantra is secret.

That's one big reason why we don't talk about it. By tradition, the word tantra means secret. Sung up into them.

And we don't tell people about it because they might not respect it. They might think it's weird or something like that. And then they make very bad karma for themselves.

I'll give you another one. I'll show off. We studied Greek this summer.

New Testament. Jesus. He said, what did he say?

Hore te me des. Dinos kito. Say it.

Let's go. Hore te.

[Говорящий 2]
Hore te.

[Говорящий 1]
Me des. Me des. Dinos kito.

[Говорящий 2]
Dinos kito.

[Говорящий 1]
He says, don't tell anybody. It is Matthew 9.30. Don't tell anybody. When did he say that?

Do you know? Do you know? Say it.

Right after he cured some blind people. He cured some blind people. By just touching them.

And he cured their blindness. And then he says, don't tell anybody. And he's often saying that.

And it's the same idea. It's more powerful. Beauty about being.

It's more powerful if you don't advertise it. Except in special cases. Unless you know the person that's listening has a lot of faith.

A lot of times Jesus says, what's the piste resitita? Do you believe? Somebody says, do me a miracle.

He says, piste resitita? Do you really believe? Because it's the belief that makes it happen.

It's that common. So he's always asking somebody. He says, okay, I'll do a miracle.

But piste resitita, do you believe? And then he does the miracle. If they believe.

The people that didn't believe aren't in the Bible. They didn't read it. Okay.

Next verse. Who's up? Jake?

This body that I'm so attached to makes me afraid even of things that are not very frightening. Since the body is then what threatens us, who wouldn't hate it like a foe? Here he's getting into the problems that are caused by watching out for number one.

Say, Ron. Ron. Chen-Tin.

[Говорящий 2]
Chen-Tin.

[Говорящий 1]
Ron Chen-Tin. Ron Chen-Tin. Ron Chen-Tin means to watch out for number one.

Ron means to me. Chen-Tin means to cherish yourself. Just to love yourself.

Cherish yourself. And it's to watch out just for yourself. And he's going to start going through all the problems that comes.

And Ron says, look, what's the definition of an enemy?

[Говорящий 2]
How would you define an enemy?

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, well, he's done anything to teach you the definition of an enemy. But I mean just in general. In the world.

Like if I went to the Republican convention in London. He said, what defines an enemy? Yeah, someone who wants to hurt you.

And someone you're scared of, therefore. Someone that you're scared of because they want to hurt you. That's what an enemy is.

So he says, look, you walk around the desert in Arizona this morning. And you see a snake. A rattlesnake.

And they're like up in the air. You know. And then you get scared.

And he says, why do you get scared?

[Говорящий 2]
Why do you get scared? You might bite me.

[Говорящий 1]
And hurt your body. You see? So you have this attachment to your body.

Therefore, you're afraid of the snake. Get it? Okay?

You're afraid of the snake because you're attached to the body. If he bites my body, I'll have to go to the hospital. Psych.

An hour away. We've got to send him something. You know.

Fine. It's going to be a problem. We had one of the three retreats to this trip, right?

And, you know. So because you're attached to your body, you're afraid of the snake. So if you think about it, the snake is making you afraid.

We can call the snake source of fear, number one. But it's the body that makes you afraid of the snake. So we should consider the body the source of all these fears.

You see? It's the attachment to the body. And the body itself, which creates fear.

Now, if the definition of an enemy is someone who scares you, then who's the real enemy? You see? Your own body.

Get it? It's kind of cool. He's in the van, right?

He brings you there. He says, let's see. How do you fight?

This is how you do it in the monastery. You just wander into the debate ground. It's like, oh yeah, what's an enemy?

Something that gets you scared. Oh yeah. So does the snake scare you?

Yeah, yeah. It scares you. Oh yeah, because you're attached to your body, right?

Yeah, yeah. And you're afraid that they hurt your body, right? Yeah, yeah.

So really it's your body that's causing all the things you're scared of, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's the body that's really scaring you, right?

Right? Yeah, yeah. So your body's your enemy, right?

You see? And then the guy's like, no. And then, you see, that's what you do in the monastery.

You're like, just, oh yeah. And then you hit him with a checkmate.

[Говорящий 2]
You know?

[Говорящий 1]
No, and then he has to say, yeah, my body's my enemy. And you're trying to take care of it. You wash it and you do, you know.

Later he says, people say, look, I can't keep track of all the other people in my life. I'm not supposed to be making happy. It's too many.

It's too many people. I can't take care of all the needs at once. I can't do it.

He says, no, you can. You already take care of a lot of people. You're like, no.

Yeah, you do. You take care of every part of your body. You clip your fingernails.

You clip your toenails. You watch out for your hair. You know?

You brush your teeth. You wear a shirt. Then you take care of the bottom part.

Then you put on socks. Then you go out and get shoes. Then you go beat the belly.

Then there's some kind of problem with when you take the x-ray, right? Just so many parts. You don't even think about it anymore.

You're watching thousands of parts. You're taking care of thousands of parts. So just add a few more.

What's the big deal? You know? No, you're already.

You don't think of it that way. You're taking care of your right ear. You're taking care of your left ear.

You're taking care of your nose. You're taking care of each nostril, especially if you're a yogi. You know?

Stuff like that. There's just no more. You already got a hundred people on this list that you take care of.

Nose. Tongue. Teeth.

Liver. Stomach. Especially stomach.

You know? You got all these things. Just add a few more on the list.

What's the big deal? Okay? So anyway, that's the deal about your body.

Your body is just... It's you anyway. You shouldn't be attached to yourself.

This body is like... Anyway, it's a lost cause. There's a joke in Tibetan.

You start dying when you're born. You start dying when you're born. Your body's just going to let you down.

Now the homework says, in what sense is the body not the enemy? Those of you who were asked in your own sutras.

[Говорящий 2]
Chidam Tantra for a day. What?

[Говорящий 1]
What? Yeah. It's a secret teaching.

It's tantra. Use the outer methods and the inner methods. What's the outer method?

Oh, inner method is meditation. And study. Swadhyaya.

What's the inner method? Sorry, outer method. Do yoga.

Do the asanas. You can reach your mind through your body. Because the body has inside of it these channels.

Special channels. And prana. Wind moving through the body.

Your thoughts are tied to that prana. When you're happy, prana is moving in the central channel. When you're angry, prana is moving in the right hand channel.

When you want a donut and somebody else is getting the last word, that desire is moving through the left hand channel. And the side channels twist around the main channel. Here.

And they choke it. So, getting angry is not just bad, it's preventing you from having nice thoughts. You can't have both at the same time.

Because all the prana rushes over to the right side and you can't get it into the middle anymore. Then if you feel out the middle, you can't get angry anymore. You see what I mean?

So, there's only so much prana. You can only have one of them running at a time. Basically.

Like that. So, in that sense, if you know the secrets of yoga, how to affect the right hand channel, when you do a left twist, seated left twist, Matsyendra or Marichyasana, either one, when you do a twist to the left, you're stretching and making healthy the right hand channel. And you'll be less likely to get angry after class.

And that's why you feel some kind of euphoria after class, after yoga. It doesn't last, okay? It doesn't last.

You get in a traffic jam, anger starts, prana begins moving again in this channel. But right after yoga class, for maybe half an hour, you feel just friendly, happy towards other people. If you have a good teacher, if they teach you yoga.

Why? Because you've used the body to reach the heart. So, you can reach the heart from the inside by studying these books.

You can reach the heart from the inside by meditating. But yoga was designed in ancient times to reach your heart from just your dumb, stupid, gross body. You know, turkish elephant to the left.

And prana will move through the channel more gracefully. And you won't get angry for a while. Okay?

And that's what yoga was for. So, let me ask you. Should you use the alchemy or the alchemy?

Should you... Oh, they said both. Okay, I tried to do a diamond dealer thing on you.

But that's good. Yeah, use both. Ching dang kappa tsoy.

Use both. Go to yoga class or whatever. Okay, ballet, tai chi, anything.

Yoga was designed for that. Now, ballet may have been. That's secret.

Anyway, when you turn to the left, you're opening this channel. So, in this case, it's the body you're in. Now, you can say the body is a temple, the body is a vehicle, the body is like a very useful tool.

I can't do yoga without a good body. I need a body. It'll help me.

You know, if I understand how the body works, I can use it to reach my enlightenment. So, you have to get this idea about your body. You can relate to your body as a lot of trouble, and that's true, and you shouldn't be attached to the body in that way.

But you can use it for very important spiritual needs. I made a joke in yoga sutra class. I said, when I went to church when I was a kid, or when you went to synagogue when you were a kid, they didn't say, Johnny, come up to the front, to the altar.

Do 20 push-ups. Why? It's going to make you more spiritual.

You see, we don't have this idea in America. But the great thing in yoga, that great teaching, it's secret. In the monastery, you don't learn it for 20 years.

They say you can affect your heart if you know the ways of affecting your channels. And in that case, the body is a very great opportunity, holy thing. So you have to see it both ways, okay?

And I think it's good, especially for people who are body-oriented. Like if you were just born, like you love to move your body, you love to dance and things like that, then you can use that as a method. You don't have to deny those urges to use your body.

You can use your body as your spiritual practice, and then you'll get the same results as people who are more attracted to meditation, for example. Okay? All right.

Next verse. Who's on? Okay, somebody.

Come on, you ready?

[Говорящий 2]
Do it with us.

[Говорящий 1]
We tenderly take kindly technique of curing those illnesses of the body, hunger and thirst, and the rest. To do so, we slaughter birds and fish, we laugh, we eat, and, of course, too, we lay in wait at restaurants. Where could she be?

She's committed. Okay. How old were you when you did the debate?

How old were you? When she was seven, we did a debate in Central Park with like 2,000 people there, and she beat me, but that's another story. Okay.

This verse says, this is about all the trouble that wanting to take care of number one gets you into. Okay? If you're too concerned about your body, and he calls it, you have sicknesses.

Is it dosha in Sanskrit here? It is dosha? I don't know.

It's called sickness in Tibetan. It means hunger and thirst, and it means for clothing. These are like sicknesses, and you're running around all day long trying to treat the patient.

Who's the patient? Your stomach. It's handcuffs.

It's chains on you, your stomach. It's like demanding another meal. I just fed you half an hour ago.

Yeah. I want some more. Can you wait a few hours?

Yeah. I want something. Yeah.

It's like you're a slave to the body. It's like an illness. It's like AIDS, and it will kill you, right?

Your stomach. It says in order to, the treatment, right, meaning running around, working for food, working for rent, working for cops, the treatment, in order to get it, we take birds and fish and other animals, and we kill them. In order to, because you're a slave to this body, you go out and kill animals to eat.

You go out and kill them for their feathers. You go out and kill them for their skins. You lay in wait.

It means like you just always to an animal. We were in Scotland, and we wanted to make friends with the animals like we did in Arizona, and they didn't want to have anything to do with us. We walk out.

We're the only people on this whole big lake walk, right? And there's a duck like 50 yards away, and he says, hi, and they're just like running. They don't swim.

They just kind of paddle away. And then we saw a deer, a stag, you know, and we're like picking berries in his area, and he's like, quack, quack, quack, and I thought it was a wolf, you know? And we said, no, no, the stags in Scotland, they do this scream.

It's very frightening. It sounds like a monster or something, and we just went swimming, and finally we got to know them. Like, it took a whole month to get them to be friends, you know?

And then we met local people, and they were like, well, it's a big shotgun old man, you know? And I'm like, no, they've got shotgun shells everywhere, and, you know, they're used to getting shot at. And they had these nice dogs there, these beautiful dogs.

They said, oh, my dog's sick. He won't run after the ducks anymore, you know? We shoot them, and then the dog swims out and gets them and brings them home, you know?

That's what they've been living with, you see? So they rightfully see humans as, like, muggers. You know, like, we're hiding.

We might be behind any tree with a shotgun, so they have to walk through the forest like this, you know, watching out for humans, you see? And that's our relationship. Why?

Because we are chained to our body. Because we take care of our own, at the expense of other people's bodies. We were in the tree.

Cows came by. They had a 5,000-acre desert, okay? They put 200 cows on it, and they just let them go.

Good luck. Hope you can find something to eat and drink. And then every six months, they come and kill a couple of them, just whoever happens to be there, you know?

And that's cattle ranching. And if they get sick, they just die under a tree. We saw one there.

And then one time, this mother used to come and give her cows, her two babies. And we were in this big fence. We couldn't come out of the fence.

They would stick their nose under, and we would feed them extra breakfast. Sorry, guys. Two of the cooks are here.

They would get some Cheerios and stuff. Yeah, they were really happy. And then one day they came, and the two little babies had this special clip on their ear.

Like, they punched the ear, and they put plastic tags on it. And it said, Terminate. It's a red fluorescent tag.

It said, Terminate. Then we sent a note out. What does Terminate mean?

Does it mean what we think it means? We said, yeah. If you're born, all the cows are killed, by the way.

Only a few of the female ones are killed. If you're a boy, you're out of luck. They kill you.

It's this beautiful note. We were all used to that. We all did.

Then a week later, mom comes back. She comes back to the fence, and she bangs her head on the big post on the fence. And we're like, No, take some Cheerios.

Be happy. It's all right. And she's bashing her head on the fence, because they took our babies.

And it was really sad. We had a chance to get close to them, because we didn't speak for three years. So they trusted us.

And then it was really sad. But we do that. Why?

Just because we're chained to the stomach. So it says, look at all the trouble that being attached to your stomach gets you into. You see?

It doesn't mean you shouldn't eat a nice meal. You should eat a nice meal. Have some nice oatmeal and Cheerios.

That's what I have for breakfast. It doesn't hurt you. It doesn't really hurt you at all.

It's fine. You can be happy. And actually, you get more happy.

All the foods that you get to hurting other beings make you sick. The reason meat causes cholesterol and fat and gives you a heart attack, it's not that it's a coincidence. It's not just random.

It's that the bad karma of all the killing expresses itself as cholesterol. Get it? And you can believe that or not, but it's true.

The reason cholesterol and fat kills so many people, it's like the second or the first biggest killer of people in this country. It's not just that it's in there by accident. It's that it's there because you killed them to get it.

You see what I mean? It's the killing that creates the cholesterol. Anyway, so he's talking about all the trouble you get into by taking care of yourself.

Now, question that's on the homework. We have this idea that grasping to a self is the source of all trouble. So me grasping to Michael Murch is the source of all trouble.

How is that different, or is it different, from me wanting to take care of him? Is cherishing Michael Murch, is my habit to cherish me the same as my habit of grasping to me? Is it the same thing?

What do you guys think? It's not the same thing. It's not the same thing.

When you see a Buddhist book and it says don't grasp to self, that's not the same as taking care of number one. And you have to know the difference. So I'm going to talk about the difference.

Taking care of number one, cherishing yourself, is just doing things for me at the expense of others. You have to say at the expense of others. Is it wrong to eat breakfast?

No. Is it wrong to like ice cream? No.

Is it wrong to enjoy a meal? My boss, I gotta brag, we went there last night to the Trump Tower. And we get out of the car and the guy's looking at us like, what are you doing here?

We're like, we're seeing somebody here. Yeah, right. And we're like, no, really?

And he says, nah, who do you want to see? And then finally we talk him into it, yeah, we're supposed to see somebody there. This is my old diner company boss.

Then he takes us out to this restaurant. This is at Danielle. We get 20 courses.

They're this big. I'm not kidding. And it's at his private table that he keeps.

That they never let anybody else sit there. And God knows how much it costs. But yeah, he takes thing after thing after thing.

They give you things. That's okay. If you earn the money, honestly, and you want to go waste your money like that, that's your right.

That's not a bad thing for you. I mean, if you're interested in that. I'm not.

We like dhal and rice from the Indian store. But no, if they want to give you, if somebody earned their money, honestly, and they want to enjoy it, enjoy it. That's fine.

There's no problem with that. That's a good thing. But Ramchen Jin means at the expense of other people.

If it's been dishonest or hurt other people or kill them to eat their food, that's a different thing. That's a different thing. So it's okay.

It's okay to treat yourself. It's not okay to cherish yourself. See the difference?

Hurt others to take care of yourself. Now, how is that different from grasping to yourself? How is that different?

How is cherishing yourself different from grasping to yourself? That's a different thing. Grasping to yourself means misunderstanding micrology.

Grasping to atma of Michael Rose means not understanding who Michael Rose is. Does Michael Rose exist? I think so.

He's making you lay. He affects you, so he exists. You see?

You can't say I don't exist. I'm up here. I'm making you lay.

You're not going to get home on time. Problem. I don't know.

I exist. Does his atma exist? Himself.

No. Michael Rose himself exists. Yes.

But is there a kind of himself that doesn't exist? Yes. Is there a kind of Michael Rose that you think exists that doesn't exist?

Oh, God, yes. What's that one? That's the source of every pain that every person will have.

Oh, well, then tell me what it is. It's a Michael Rose that didn't come from your karma. Okay?

You ready? We'll do an experiment. Everybody put their hand up.

Okay. Now, point to the Michael Rose that didn't come from your karma. Emptiness.

Emptiness. That's all emptiness means. All those long books written, confusing things by scholars and universities, you can stack them up and throw them out.

Okay? That's it. That's all emptiness means.

There ain't no Michael Rose in this room who didn't come from your karma. If you're a blade tonight, who can you blame? You.

That's all. That's all. Now, let's talk about that.

That's very important. That's very important. Are you going to get upset if Michael Rose keeps you late tonight?

Well, in theory. Okay? In theory.

In theory. You shouldn't. Because you made me late tonight.

Okay? It's not me. Okay?

No. You made me. I'm a production of your karma.

If you made other people late in the past, I'm going to keep you late. If you were punctual in the past, you'll get it out of here at 8 o'clock. Okay?

Don't blame me. Okay? Now, it's not just so I can get out of keeping you late.

No. It's to keep you from collecting your money. You see?

And it's to keep you happy. To keep you happy. Can you prevent CRAP from happening?

Not right now. Okay? Not right now.

So you don't need to get mad at me. You don't need to get upset at me. You can't do anything about it now.

It's too late to change me tonight. Keeping you late. It's too late.

It's too late. You don't have time to collect the thousand new karma seeds between now and 8 o'clock to make me not go late. It's too late.

Those seeds are already in motion. So... Yeah?

Yeah. We have a beautiful song. Isn't it?

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
I don't know. Anyway. The diagram always quotes from the same text.

If you can do something about it, then do it. If you can't do anything about it, chill out. Okay?

That's from Shantideva. That's from Master Shantideva. So.

Last question. Is misunderstanding my problem? Or let's say you.

It's your Christine. Is misunderstanding yourself connected to grasping to yourself? Sorry.

Is misunderstanding yourself, which is grasping to yourself, connected to wanting to take care of only yourself? Yeah. Obviously.

Okay? So these two things are connected. They're both bad.

Taking care of yourself at other people's expense is bad. Misunderstanding where you come from is bad. But their connected, see?

If you understand where things are coming from, you're not going to have the chance to do it. You're not going to hurt other people. Isn't it cool?

You see? Abhidhya is the root. I don't understand things.

But once you understand, you can cut off all the trouble. You won't take care of yourself anymore. Or me.

Okay? I'll say it again. If I understand that I can only get a cookie if I give them away, then I'll stop taking care of myself and eating all the cookies myself.

There's a connection there. See what I mean? That's all.

If I understand that my whole world is coming from giving away the cookies, then I'll stop worrying about number one. Or actually, I'll worry about number one on a higher level. I'll give away all the cookies I can so I can go to Daniela, to my private table, and get 20 courses of vegan, vegetarian.

They're like, vegan? Vegetarian? And then two guys come up, you know?

They serve you this dimple. Three guys. And they say, this is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And they say, is it cooked all right? And I'm like, oh, here you go.

[Говорящий 2]
You know?

[Говорящий 1]
And then I ask her afterwards, what was that? You know? She said, I think it's a french fry.

Okay. Anyway. It was really cool.

No joke. I think we'll take a break there. You're getting hungry, right?

We'll take a break. Come back in 20 minutes. If you want to just say hi to Christy and me, we'll be sitting up here.

All right. We have to read the next verse. Yes, I think it's...

173? Let's see... For it, for profit and to win The honor others give us We would even kill our parents Stealing also things belonging to the triple gems Passing on to burn for it in hells of endless torment This is just a depressing verse, I think we'll just go on No, it means if you get into the habit of taking care of yourself too much And watching out for yourself And not taking care of others Then obviously you're going to do small bad things Like take the last donut That you talked about in the yoga class Like there's one donut left Other people like them And you just take the last one That's because you're attached to your body Attached to yourself But then there's much more serious things that you might do One example is...

I don't know Sometimes you're getting financial problems You're thinking, oh my parents are getting kind of old Maybe they passed away or something Maybe I could get some money like that You know what I mean? It occurs to people And then people fight about it And your parents are an example of a heavy karma object They gave you a body and mind With which you can reach enlightenment So whether they were nice to you or not Whether you liked them or not Whether they have bad habits or not They gave you the means to reach enlightenment If you're going to go the yoga way They gave you that body, right? If you're going to go the meditation way They gave you your mind If you're going to use both They gave you your body and mind Priceless gift they have given you So you have to honor them It doesn't matter how nice they are It doesn't matter You have to honor them So the person who gave you your life To have this little thought in the back of your mind That when they're going to die already It's like the worst thing it can be It's like a really terrible karma So he's saying, even those kinds of serious karmas Are caused by your stomach Attached to your body Attached to this meat Then he gives another example Of stealing from the future In practical terms In practical terms this means You get into a situation Where you're helping out at a dharma center Or something like that And then you need money really bad And there's money floating around And you're kind of You know, you don't steal the money, right? You just kind of Maybe you exaggerate on your hours Or something like that Or you do something To direct money or stuff to yourself And this is very careful In the monastery they teach us to be very careful I went to my lama Geshe Thich Nhat Hanh In the monastery And he was my scripture teacher in the monastery And really great teacher And he said I was late for class one day And he said, why are you late? No, you can't be late in the monastery And he's like, why are you late? And I said, well, he stuck with his job I do the accounting in the monastery And he's like, I hate it I hate it And he stuck with his job Because I'm the only one who knows how to work this Hand-calculated thing Not everybody does, but at the time Back in the 1920s And then So I'm I was kind of upset And I said, they stuck me with this job And he said, oh no No, they get the best monthly accounting job And I'm like, yeah, right And he's like, no, no In Nalanda monastery Way back Old, old times They gave that job to Nagarjuna Arjuna wanted to kill him And I said, yeah, right And he said, no, I'm serious This is like we call the second Buddha This is like the most famous Of all teachers 18 centuries ago And I said, why did Nagarjuna get stuck With the accounting? And he said, because the karma Of dealing with spiritual money Is so dangerous That they almost trusted Nagarjuna to deal with it So you have to be really careful Like if you work at a center You have to be really careful About money Not because it matters The yogis don't need money Whether you're a lama there Or a guru there, or a teacher there They don't need money, they don't want money But the money is powerful The money is a very powerful karma You have to be very strict about it Everything should be well-planned You don't need money, you kind of do something sneaky And you get the money And that's very dangerous karma He said that karma can be very dangerous And again it comes from his stomach It's your breath Or it's your, you know, poop Something like that So you have to be careful with that Okay That's a good question Let's go to the next one What wise man Could ever then Desire this body, care for it And make unto it Offerings? Who is it that wouldn't see The body as the enemy Who then Not just food And not the state He's wrapping up The self-cherishing thing And he says look It's the stomach He says body, I say stomach It's your stomach that gets you in trouble So you should sort of have this schizophrenic relationship With your stomach Okay, you know, you've got all this chocolates and stuff You can make more money On the other hand You keep whining all day for more food You're gonna have to go to your job You're gonna have to do all this stuff So in that sense I don't like it So you have to feel both ways about your stomach And the rest of your body You're a big hassle And I don't like whining all the time On the other hand You have all these sacred channels And all this trauma and chocolates You're pretty cool Okay, you have to have both feelings about your stomach And your body And those two Okay, the next I like the next one One of my favorite verses It's such a good one Thinking of yourself and saying If I give What will I have for me It's nothing but The mind I think of others and say If I use this for myself What will I give It's an angel from me And Prajnaparamati, this great Indian yogi Who wrote the commentary He says This means, you know you get a paycheck, right? Or you get a paycheck Or somebody gives you a dollar or some money Or something like that Or somebody just hands you a platter of cookies Anything The minute The minute you touch it The minute you see your hands You're facing the choice What does that mean You can either consume it Or use it for your convenience So you have a choice The minute you get some money The minute you get some food The minute you get some clothes The minute you have an apartment You're facing the choice Do I use it for myself Or do I share it with others The minute you get anything The minute anybody hands you anything You're facing the choice Do I use it for myself Or do I use it Do I give it to someone else Share it or give it to someone else Then he says You want to know demon dharma We call it demon dharma Devil's religion It's If I give it away What will I have for me That's like the devil's religion If I I've got a hundred bucks I need it for the whole week Somebody else needs money Somebody important I'll give it to them It's a good thing But what will I have for me Then he says that's the devil's thinking Devil thinking Devil thinking Then here's angel thinking Angel thinking How's it going If I eat it What will I give away Somebody gives you a cookie right And you've got this choice Then you've got to hesitate Once you get into this practice Once you get good at this practice You have to think I could eat it What am I going to have to give for it People are coming to talk to me I've got to save this cookie Then I'll give it to somebody that'll be happy But if you eat it Everything stops there It's a dead end And we want to do this upward spiral Upward cycle I'll get a cookie, I'll give it away I'll get more cookies, I'll give them away If you eat it, it's a dead end It turns into a cookie Okay Dead end There's a word here in Sanskrit Where it says Which means Dharma of the angels Dharma of the angels And in the In the Sanskrit if you look it says Devarajita Devarajita And I just picked this out Just to give you This is like an advertisement for people By the way, I wanted to Remember to say We just found out that the Dalai Lama Is telling us we'll be coming to Tucson Next fall Not this fall, next fall 2015 And We got permission for the biggest block of tickets And we already bought 200 tickets together So We just bought like A quarter of the tickets And it's okay You know And guess who's teaching Teaching this chapter So you're like Loaded, you see No, if you had it once from an editor And then a year later you get it from The horse's mom Your mind is like prepared Your mind is like fresh It'll cook in the next year In your mind If you want a ticket, talk to Chitra And no guarantee If they grow, they grow And that'll be in the middle of the first semester Of Dalai Lama University Next year Alright But that's just really cool It's really exciting, we just found out And they're very excited that we want A large group to come The organizers are very happy We're all very miserable Okay And they said They were not to tell But why did I get into that? It's interesting It was just like America In the old days in Tibet Like a thousand years ago in Tibet There are these guys showing up from India And they're teaching this new stuff And everybody's like, wow, that's cool And then they go to India And they hear the same thing And then they all come back And then there's all these different versions Of these books Like if you go out And buy a yoga sutra book And you try to read it You say, that doesn't sound like what Geshe Barkha taught us Then you go buy another one And you say, that doesn't sound like either one of those other books And this happened in Tibet Twelve guys would go to India Twelve guys would get Lester Shantideva's teaching Twelve guys would come back Twelve guys would translate it And it sounded completely different And then over the years The best translations rose to the top And the other translations just died on And then there was a few periods In Tibetan history Two or three periods Where there was a Dharma king Like a great king And he would hire like a hundred best monks And they would go through all the translations And they would choose the best one Or they would join a few good translations together And then that became what we call Kanyu and Tendu These are the holy books in Tibet Four and a half thousand books And John Brady's not here tonight He's being the priest At a wedding in California Okay Of Chris Talley It's a very beautiful name I think today or yesterday So John is the Is the god, right? The priest But anyway, so those are the books that he's sending But what's interesting is Master Thaksin Karamati was using a different translation Or the Tibetan version of his book He had from a different translator So sometimes they're not the same And it's very interesting So I mean, sometimes they It's like having two Yogi Sutra translations So we have two different ones And we have two different versions of this book See, even in the sentence So Devarajita, Master Thaksin Karamati Takes it as The kingship of the gods Kingship Royalty of the gods Which is another way you can take it Here it says what?

Angel Dharma But you can also read it as Kingship of the gods And then Master Thaksin Karamati Says If you learn To take care of other people If you learn this thing about the minute you get a cookie You say, if I eat it, what do I have to give to my friend? You say, I can't eat this cookie If I eat it right now What am I going to do? What am I going to give to him?

I gotta say it, I gotta eat it If you start to think like that You are Devarajita Then you are the king of the gods You become the king of the gods In one way it's saying You are a moral king of the gods You are a You are a mensch You know, like you are a real person You are a Deva You are a god You are a king among men Because you don't eat the cookie You save it for the next person That you can give it to The minute you give the cookie, you are like, what can I give this to? You know, you are looking around the room What can I give this to?

You don't even think about eating it You need people like that So he says, if you think like that If you keep thinking like that You are like a king of gods King of kings What's interesting is if you keep that up What will happen to your karma? You will become the king of kings Okay, that's an interesting thing So there is an example where you see It's nice to know the language That things were written You see, even the bible Or Rāsā-śāntideva Or if you try to read Some kind of the Dalai Lama's It's very very useful to learn a little bit About how to read the original book Why? Because like Sanskrit One word will have three meanings You see, Sanskrit is a very beautiful ancient language It's the mother of all of our languages It's the mother of every language In our western world It's the source But every Sanskrit word has like Three different meanings But when you're translating, you're a Tibetan A thousand years ago, you have to choose one You see, you can't put three different words together You can't say King of the gods And Angel of Dharma You can't do that, you have to choose one Then forever after, people who read Tibetan will never know the other three meanings So it's good to go back and learn How to read it If you can, in the original language The best way to learn a language Is not to sit there in a class On your bottom And try to memorize words That's a start, it's a good start Second step is start Memorizing stuff, like verses And sing it to yourself Like maybe Ruth was doing It's very beautiful, it's more exciting It's more comfortable It's not a hassle You get to sing with your friends Make up songs for these things We have some songs for these things And the best, best, best way to learn stuff Is to debate The way we did the other night You know, and then When I first went to the monastery, I'm like

[Говорящий 2]
I'm like

[Говорящий 1]
You know, like that And they said, get up, get up, do your debating And I'm like, I haven't understood a single word For an hour and a half You know, not a single word For an hour and a half Because they're like screaming in Tibetan That's going 90 miles an hour, you know And I'm like, I can't get up I don't know what to say, get up And I get up, you know, there's a thousand people there And I'm like You know, and You know, and the guy's like What?

What'd you say? And he's like, excuse his accent You know, he's a white guy You know, and I have no idea what's going on there And you know, they were very kind And after like four years I could understand a few things But you learn really fast You learn really fast, you know So we're going to do that in Arizona You know, we'll do it in English We'll do it in Tibetan, we'll do it in Sanskrit Okay, but Then it just blew me And I have lots of students sitting here who are Translating beautiful books, beautiful books Kristy's just finished the first book of Meditation ever written In Tibetan It was lost, and we found it And we translated it, and we're going to use it For the course in September, see And I don't know, like X years ago She was the imam You know, and we learned We learned fast, you see That's what Arizona's for It's dead uncomfortable There's no facilities It's going to be too busy Totally unorganized And If you really want to learn hard Then you should go Okay, if you really We call it the natural filter You know 64% of the people won't come back And then the people who stay will learn And then they'll be great teachers The thing is, you want to make great teachers Like Orhan Masood's dad Who did the course today And yesterday That's how they learn Alright, so anyway So it's not that the Tibetans didn't translate well They are perfect Perfect translations Once I took the Abhidharmakosha It's 10 years to study this thing I checked every word And the Tibetans translated Every word in that And there was one extra syllable In the whole book One extra syllable You see, like amazing They were amazing But they just can't convey three different meanings of what they mean So it's good to learn as much as you can So you can help other people You see Then you go someplace Like I went to Doubleday to sell them this Yoga Sutra translation The new one, the third one, the short one And the guy said We'll take it And I said, why? He said, because you base everything on the word It's authentic And then people will trust you more You can teach them If it's authentic Next please If I deprive others for myself I will only be tormented in places like the hells If I deprive myself for others I will come to attain a way of self This is that old trick If I deprive myself of this cookie Then I'll be really happy If I deprive others to make myself happy If I eat the cookie Then karmically it's a debt The cookie ends, the karma ends If I take the cookie and reinvest it It's just reinvesting I did that in the business I did that in the business I got X amount of dollars I went and gave it to some refugees And then I got more money I went and gave it to the refugees I started out at 7,500 dollars And now that company is a quarter of a million dollars a year It's more than the state of Arizona's economy Got that? No, really And I don't own it And I gave away all the money But you keep reinvesting your karma in the matrix You see?

No, I'm not kidding You just keep sending it back into the matrix And then it pops out again as something good And then you say that you reinvest it Every time you get something You turn it over In the bank of humanity Humanity bank You see? You turn it back over Just keep throwing it over And then it just keeps building and building And it's unbelievable It gets global after a while It gets global after a while You know, you start doing little stuff In a little dharma center in Harlem, New Jersey Like where? Toxic waste, dumb capital in the world You know?

And people say, you're crazy, Michael Don't go there, you've got to go to graduate school No, no, I don't want to do this thing You start off this stupid, ugly little place You know? And the last place in the world you wanted to live You know? I was from California, I wanted to surf in Del Mar I had my apartment picked out Right, Brian?

And then you tell me I've got to go to the Arkham of the Nation tour You know? And you start small And then you keep reinvesting This good karma, you see? And then after a while, it's like unbelievable This guy got a book from, it's the Polish Translation of the Diamond Cutter And the Vietnamese one's coming out And, you know, I'm like I've never heard of these people, you know?

And you keep reinvesting this good karma And then it becomes like Unbelievable joy That you can touch people Everywhere, you see? It's really fun It's really fun So don't just dead-end stuff by using it Turn it off Reinvest it somewhere And you'll get every good thing Okay, last verse Then we actually get to go home That's kind of weird Maybe I can make some more questions Okay John, you can go You The desire to be better Than others will bring me Lower rebirth Loneliness And idiocy But if I can move This same state of mind To others, I'll attain higher rebirth And honor as well This is the scene where You want to be better than other people Like And you want people to know Like it's not bad to want to be good at something To strive for excellence is a good thing But to think Competitively You know, I want to be good because I'll look better than somebody else That's not a good thought Okay The karma of that is that you come back You don't come back as a human After you die If that's been the theme of your life People should like me better than him I should look better than him I should make more money than them Okay, like that If that's been the theme of your life Then most people who live that way After they die, they go to a god Like animals, birds or something Then he says loneliness And in the commentary it says Loneliness here means Even if you were born as a sheep You'll be like born very poor Or you Physically you'll be very weak Or you'll be a very unattractive person Like that Because you were competitive You always wanted to be better It's not wrong to Want to be good You should want to be beautiful You should want to be wealthy You should want to be strong You should want to be smart Because you can use it to help other people That's good But to think I want that because she's gone Or I want better than her If that's your motivation Then it will throw you down You'll fall That's the idea In India's theory the big deal here is Even if you Never say anything to anybody else And even if you Never hurt anybody else Just thinking it Will make you stupid Okay Karma is physical Karma is verbal But main karma is thinking So just thinking That you'd like everybody to love you And not like anyone else That you'd like to be the prettiest And nobody else should be Should have any attention put to them Like that, those thoughts Just thinking them Destroys your IQ Like you become forgetful And then you Can't remember things You can't do things You can't figure out things You can't have new ideas You're not creative anymore All of these things come from Not wanting to share With other people I want to have everything I want to be the biggest Then there's this thing where your IQ starts to drop You're not as creative as you used to be You can't have good ideas anymore The opposite of that If you keep sharing You'll have creative ideas all the time Like new ideas all the time It's very powerful, it's very beautiful And the older you get The faster you can memorize stuff It's very beautiful It's not normal at all You can turn back The normal process You can go the other way You get smarter and more Happy every year Okay, next question No

[Говорящий 2]
Okay

[Говорящий 1]
When you get to the monastery You know And I had already been to university I already had a degree from Princeton I already was a presidential scholar I got a medallion from the night house When you go to the monastery And they break your ego The first few years they just break you They take whatever you were They don't come from nothing I was the I watched pots for eight years Okay, I watched pots for eight years They just broke me And It was a blessing and I'm really grateful You see And And If you want To be a big shot The karma of that is that you were wrong You see And if all you want to do is just serve others I'm the cook People used to ask me, what do you do?

I said, I watch pots Then there's this immediate thing They're like almost a step away from me Later I got the diamond business They were like, oh hi And then when I was a pot watcher I was like, oh yeah You know, and You know If you keep wanting to be somebody Then you'll be alone And then you have the honor To meet a holy moment, a great moment That came in between And then you're a kid But you don't have anything there That you could ever wish for You see But you give up and you surrender your heart to your teacher And you help them And you don't think about what you want And then The karma of that Is that you have all these beautiful students Who serve you all day long And you know The karma of that Is to have all these beautiful students So To get that karma You have to break your ego You have to Surrender to a good teacher So if you have a teacher It's a great opportunity You don't get that If you don't have a teacher You see If you don't have someone who can snatch you down And it hurts I'm talking now like it was fun It wasn't fun It was very very difficult And I was very It was very hard for me For many years But if you don't have a teacher You'll miss out on this You won't have a chance To get wrong And that leads to all good things So Try to find a teacher Try to find a good teacher that you can be with Someone that you trust And then check them out carefully Don't do it easily Don't do it irresponsibly Do it carefully, take your time Then make this relationship And then surrender And then break it That's their job They're not there to make you more Egotistical than you are already They're there to break it So that you You can grow So Try to find that teacher Somebody close And then you have to stick around during the break And it's hard It's really hard But you There's nothing wrong I'll tell you afterwards Okay Next sentence The total amount of happiness That exists in the world Has come from Wanting to make others happy The total amount of suffering That exists in the world Has come from wanting to make yourself happy As you can feel This is the most famous verse In this book This is one of the most famous verses in the book Every kid who shows it in the monastery They memorize this verse I think you should learn it by heart In English or whatever Learn it by heart Learn to say it as it is Let's do it together Let's do it together One Two Three The total amount of happiness That exists in the world Has come from wanting to make others happy The total amount of suffering That exists in the world

[Говорящий 2]
Has come from wanting to make yourself happy Good job

[Говорящий 1]
Good karma That was a dedication Okay Have a good night We'll see you on Friday Friday at 6pm here Okay See you then Do your meditation This class don't count for nothing Every day in the morning Hold yourself, look at it, meditate on it Then your heart will change It won't change by itself See you