Углублённый курс ACI: Колесо жизни в Сутре сердца (1999, Сан-Франциско), занятие 3

[Говорящий 1]
OK, we'll start. Tonight is the third of six talks on the painting of the Wheel of Life. And you should all get out your painting now.

It should be in your notebook. OK, we're pretty well into the painting now, the thangka. Up here you have Lord Buddha, which is much better than the drawings I did last week when I forgot the overhead.

And as you can see, he's pointing to the other corner. Over here in this corner is the moon. And it represents nirvana and enlightenment and not having to die.

And then here, traditionally, there's two verses drawn, which Tibetan monks still recite every two weeks during confession ceremony. And it's called, it says, Tsampa cha shi yor cha, sangye tenla gyupa cha, dangbe kim la langchen shin, chida deni shompa cha. Chida deni shompa cha means, you can overcome the Lord of Death.

You can stop death. Chida means, chida de means the Lord of Death. Shompa cha means, you can crush him.

Dangbe kim la langchen shin means, like an elephant crushes a house made of twigs, OK? Something like that. So this painting is really a code book for learning how not to die.

And that's the purpose of Buddhism. And what you have in the center is the monster. This monster here represents the Lord of Death.

He's holding everything inside of the wheel, even with his feet. Traditionally, his feet are holding it also. And as we said at the beginning of these lectures, Tibetan lamas are careful to say, we're not naive.

We don't think that there's some little gremlin that's running around and killing people at night in their sleep or something like that. This monster is a symbolic representation of the death that you are born with. The minute you are conceived, the minute the egg and the sperm meet, then death begins.

And the process of death begins. And it's like a candle starts burning. And then every day, it's getting shorter and shorter.

So this monster, they don't believe it's a real little critter that runs around inside of you. The fact or the condition that the moment you have life come into you, you will have to die. And that death is gnawing away at you.

When lamas teach it, they're always going like this and pointing at their stomach and saying, there's this creature who's trying to eat away inside of your body and get closer and closer to your heart. And then someday, he reaches there and you die. And that's what this creature here represents.

It's important to paint the Buddha outside of the wheel of life. The Buddha is free of it. The Buddha is no longer in the clutches of Lord Death.

Recently, in the last few hundred years, there's been a custom to paint Lord Buddha inside the realms, helping people or something like that. And the purists say, no, you don't do that. Lord Buddha is out.

Lord Buddha is outside of the. And he can't go there even if he wants to. He can emanate to those realms.

But he cannot be in those realms, because he doesn't have to die. He's escaped that condition. And you can do it too.

And that's the purpose of the painting. And that's the purpose of the wheel. Last time, we spent a lot of time at 1 o'clock right here with the blind man.

There's a blind man. And that's where the wheel of life starts. The 12 links of dependent origination or the 12 steps, domino steps, by which you get into trouble and die, beginning with ignorance, can start here at 1 o'clock.

And they go around in a clockwise manner up to 12 o'clock. 12 o'clock there, right here, is the Tibetan way of showing a hearse with a coffin. There's a guy.

When a person dies in Tibet, you take their body and you hire a guy to come to your house. And he comes and he straps the body into a fetal position with a big belt. So they tuck your knees up to your chest.

And then they take a belt and they strap it there. And then they put you in a bag. And he carries you.

He carries the body up onto a mountain. And then they chop it up with a big chop knife. And they mix it with tsampa, which is barley flour.

So it'll be tasty. And then they throw the pieces out to the birds, the vultures. And the idea is that at least your meat does somebody some good.

And the last act of your life is that your meat feeds somebody. Your mind is already gone. They don't believe that you have any connection at all with that meat anymore.

It's just dead meat. Okay? So, how do you get from number one, which is not understanding something, to number twelve, which is having to die?

Okay? Buddhism says that the condition of having to die is a mistake. Buddhism says that to live, to be born into this world that you know, and the condition that you are getting old and having to die is a mistake.

You made a boo-boo at a certain point. There are lots of people who didn't make that boo-boo and they're not here with us now or they're on a different plane. They look like they're with you, but they're not.

Okay? But basically, you are in a realm which is a mistake. And there's no way that things can work out here.

It doesn't matter how intelligent you are. It doesn't matter how strong you are. What's that guy, Bo Jackson?

I used to be amazed watching him run football, you know. And then he's getting a contract to play baseball in the off-season. So he's like a master at both of them.

And there's this big thing in the press and he's got hundreds of thousands of dollars of endorsements. And he's... Bo can do anything, you know.

It was the Budweiser ads and then Bo can play tennis, Bo can do golf, Bo can row a boat, Bo can play baseball and football. And then that season, you know, I don't know, a couple of nights later, he gets tackled in a game. He gets his hip bone broken.

He can't walk for six months and Bo can't do anything. You know, and Bo can't walk. You know, and all the endorsements go away.

And then there's like, once in a while, there's a little show that shows him trying to rehabilitate himself nowadays and stuff like that. And it's all over with Bo, you know. And everybody will be like that.

It doesn't matter how strong you are. It doesn't matter how smart you are. It doesn't matter if you have money or you don't have money.

It doesn't matter if you're nice or not nice. You're going to get old and die. Have to.

It looks like. OK? And that's a condition of this realm.

You are in this realm by accident. And you can get out of this realm if you just follow the instructions. OK?

And there are clear instructions how to do it. And any person in this room can do it. People ask me how hard is it to do.

And I say it's about the same as learning to play piano well. OK? So, the odds that you're going to do it are about like that.

You know, I won't say concert pianist. I used to say that. It's a little unfair.

OK? The odds of learning at your present age, and it's harder when you're older, to play piano well in this lifetime is about the kind of commitment it would take to get out of this wheel. But anyone in this room could do it if they put their mind to it.

You know, anybody in this room is smart enough, has enough drive. If they really thought it would work, if they believed that it was possible, then they could not die, and they could be on a different realm before the day comes of their death. So, my job is to convince you that that's possible.

And I'll work from logic. OK? We're called Sanyipas.

There's two kinds of Buddhist monks called One is Sanyipa, one is Lamrimpa. Say, Sanyipa?

[Говорящий 2]
Sanyipa.

[Говорящий 1]
Sanyipa? Sanyipa. Sanyipa means somebody who deals logically.

You know, we say, take you step-by-step through a process. Nothing on faith, nothing from belief. We take you through a process step-by-step.

It's a logician's way. Lamrimpa means more of a general presentation, sort of a general synthesis of all the texts for people who don't really want to get into the details. But we're Sanyipas.

OK? People from the Great Three Monasteries, Sara, Jebun, Ganden, Sanyipas, in other words, think it's important to be able to take a normal American person through this process logically, whether or not you believe in Buddhism and whether or not you ever believe in Buddhism. It doesn't matter.

OK? Can you logically establish to a normal American who's never going to be a Buddhist that it's possible not to die and how to pull that off. OK?

And that's the purpose of this class and that's the purpose of the wheel. OK? We spent a long time talking last time about ignorance.

Ignorance is misunderstanding things. According to this wheel, that misunderstanding creates your death. You have to die because you don't understand what's going on around you.

If you could change that, you wouldn't have to die. OK? And we talked about ignorance.

It's the guy holding the stick. So in honor of the stick, I always use this cylinder. OK?

This cylinder here. All right? I ask you what it is, you say, pen.

OK? People say, that's a pen. All right?

And we're going to demonstrate what it means to have ignorance about the pen. First link in the wheel. You know, the link that causes you all the trouble.

By the way, that's the link where you can break the wheel. OK? That's where it all starts and that's where you can stop it.

OK? If you can stop the first link, then you can stop the other eleven automatically. They grind to a halt when the first one grinds to a halt.

OK? And the first one is being ignorant. That's why they have a blind guy with a stick.

At one o'clock on your painting. OK? And that's...

The meaning is that he doesn't understand something about life. About the reality around him. OK?

And we're going to talk about it with a pen. OK? I put this up.

I said, what is this thing? Everybody says, pen. OK?

And you have this feeling in your guts that I really am holding up a pen. You saw me take off the top. You saw me draw on there.

You saw some blue line come out. So, you've decided in your mind that this is a pen. This is not like a wax imitation of a pen.

It seems to work as a pen. It must be a pen. Especially because it works as a pen.

OK? Once you see me... If I say, is this really a pen?

Are you sure it's a pen? You say, just could you take off the top and draw on there and if it works, then we can say it's a pen. We can decide it's a pen.

OK? So, the fact that you saw me do something with it convinces you that it's a pen. You already felt like it was a pen when I held it up.

But then when I popped it open and started drawing with it, you decided, oh God, now it's got to be a pen. OK? He's drawing with it.

OK? And you decided that. All right?

And so, it feels to you like its penness comes from itself. Like the nature of being a pen is something that it has already. OK?

Like I brought this cylinder into this room. I held it up. And there's some kind of penness about it from its own side.

And you believe that it has its own penness. Especially after you saw me draw with it. OK?

You believe that. OK? That it has some quality of being a pen that is held in this cylinder, in and of itself.

You believe that.

[Говорящий 2]
OK?

[Говорящий 1]
Now, suppose... And I... Sorry for the older students who this is really boring already, but...

Suppose a dog walks in here and comes up to here and I hold it out to the dog. What will they do with this cylinder? I mean, if it looks like about the right size and if they're young enough, they'll want to chew on it.

OK? I mean, to them it will look like something cute to chew on. Do they see it as a pen?

Do they cognize it or recognize it as a pen? No. According to Buddhism, that proves that there's no nature of a pen in this cylinder from its own side.

In and of itself, this cylinder is not a pen. OK? Why?

Because another creature at a different level can come in here and I can show it to them and hand it to them and they'll start chewing on it. All they see is something to chew on. OK?

Who's right? Is the dog chewing on a pen? From the dog's side.

From the dog's point of view. No. OK?

They don't cognize it as a pen. OK? To say it's a pen is being...

like you're not honoring animal rights. You know? They have their rights too.

OK? In their realm, which happens to coexist with our realm, in their world, which happens to be in the same visible plane as our world, they see this very... What do you call it?

Validly as something to chew on. So, you know, where those realms overlap, animal realm and the human realm, this cylinder could be two different things at the same time, right? So is it possible for one thing to be two different things at the same time?

Is it possible for an object to be red and blue? Completely red, completely whole and completely blue at the same time? Impossible.

Is it possible for one object to have two separate functions at the same time? We say... Yes or no?

50-50. OK. We say generally no unless you're talking about two different beings, right?

But for one person... I mean, you can chew on it and write at the same time. It's a little hard.

OK? Generally speaking, you're either going to use it as a pen or you're going to use it as something to chew on. But you have to make up your mind.

OK? So we say it doesn't have... Now we have to change...

If we're going to be... What do you call it? Democratic to animals.

Now we have to call it a... A cylinder. OK?

We have to cover both bases. So, this cylinder looks like a pen to you. You take it to be a pen.

And then an animal takes it to be something to chew on. OK? And that's its emptiness, according to Buddhism.

It is empty of the quality of being a pen from its own side. And it is equally empty of the quality of being something to chew on from its own side. From its own side, it's empty or blank.

It doesn't have a nature or identity which is fixed to it from its own side. So where is it coming from? Where is the penness coming from?

It's coming from you. Somehow it must be coming from your mind. If you get, by the way, past this next step, you can pretty much get out of the wheel of life.

OK? I mean, you just overcame ignorance. And it's unusual and it's uncomfortable and it's true and you can't deny it's true.

And you don't have to be a Buddhist and I don't care if you're a Buddhist. OK? Next step is this.

Who's making this pen a pen? If this pen, if this cylinder is a pen from its own side, then a dog should see it as a pen. And if it's a chewable thing from its own side, everybody in this room should be salivating right now.

OK? If that's true. OK.

So it's obviously not true. So where is its penness coming from? Why do you see it as a pen?

Something coming from your own mind, obviously. If you accept that much, then pretty much you've accepted all the theories of emptiness in Buddhism already. You're already OK.

You're already gonna get out of the wheel of life. Just that much. OK?

I'll say it again. Just because of what I just said about the dog and the pen and all that, this cylinder cannot be a pen from its own side. If it were, a dog would come up and say, Oh, gotta write a letter to my dog girlfriend, you know.

And they would pull it and they would write out and they would see it or they would cognize it automatically as a pen. It is not a pen from its own side. OK?

Who's making it a pen? Why are you seeing it as a pen? There's something in your mind compelling you to see it as a pen.

OK? Is it a matter of willpower? Could you see this as a golden bar or a hundred dollar bill and I could throw it out in the audience or something like that?

By willpower? No. OK.

That's what's wrong with, you know, your old ideas of prayer. Mom said, go to the church, you know, pray that Aunt Susie, who's got cancer, is OK next week and pray real hard. That's like trying to make something into something it's not just by willpower or by wishing it to be that way and it doesn't work.

She died the next week. That's what happened to me. You must have had a similar experience at some point in your life, you know, where as a young person you tried to wish something to happen and it didn't work.

OK? We say that in Buddhism that your making this a pen is not something that's a matter of choice. You are compelled to do so.

And the animal is compelled to see it as something to chew on. OK? By what?

Something in your mind. Something in your mind is compelling you to see this as a pen. It's not like a matter of choice or wishing it to be a pen or something like that.

If the ink ran out and you wished all night that it had ink, would it have ink? No. Because you were already compelled to see it run out of ink.

And by the way, to be a dog is to be compelled to see it that way. And to be a human is to be compelled to see it as a pen. And that's all dog and human.

That's the only difference between a dog and a human. It's not the number of legs. It's not the tail or lack of a tail.

It's not your fur or your skin. It's whether or not your mind is compelling you to see this in a certain way. Because if it's compelling you to see it as something to chew on, you is a dog.

And if your mind is compelling you to see it as something to write with, you are a human. You see what I mean? In Buddhism, rebirth is that.

Rebirth is not like the process of taking a dog body, going to a dog body factory, cutting open the back, shoving in the spirit, sewing it back up, saying OK, now you're a dog. Sorry. It's not like that.

When your mind starts compelling you to see this as a chewable thing, you just became a dog. You were just reborn as a dog. You see what I mean?

That's a little scary. The mind can do that at any point. The mind can shift very quickly.

Your mind can shift from seeing your body as breathing to seeing your body as not breathing in about five minutes. And it takes about five more minutes for the mind to start seeing this as something to chew on instead of something to write with. And then you is a dog.

You see what I mean? That's how rebirth happens. It's a state of mind.

If it were an external process of stuffing spirits into different bodies, that would be difficult. You know, take a big company to coordinate that effort. But the reality is that as soon as your mind starts seeing this in a different way, you are a different kind of being.

And when you look down, you won't see hands anymore. You'll see paws. OK?

That's the only existence that hands and paws have. OK? Because of this pen.

Oh, sorry, what? Cylinder. OK?

This cylinder. OK? You got to get used to that.

OK, so what is ignorance? Ignorance is thinking that this thing is a pen from its own side and not just a cylinder. OK?

Ignorance is like thinking that the way you see the pen is the way it must be. Now, we got to get from that ignorance to death.

[Говорящий 2]
OK?

[Говорящий 1]
Why is it that thinking wrong about a pen can kill you? OK? Because if you could figure that out, you could reverse the process and you would not have to die.

According to Buddhism, you would not have to die. And all the information is in this painting. Most important painting there is in Buddhism.

You can reverse the process. If you could figure out what's the connection between misunderstanding this pen and dying. OK?

We're going to try to make that connection tonight. OK? We're going to shortcut through the Wheel of Life.

Wheel of Life has twelve different links you know. We went through the whole meaning of dependent origination last week. We're going to take a shortcut tonight.

OK? Because you know, somebody might die during the week. All right?

So, we'll take a shortcut. We're going to go straight to a book by somebody named Maitreya. All right?

Jetsun Champa. Say, Jetsun? Champa.

Jetsun? Champa. This is a book that was dictated to a great Buddhist master in the 4th century, Asanga.

And then he brought five of these books back from Maitreya's paradise. OK? Whether or not you believe that story is OK, the information is cool anyway.

All right? So, we're going to go through Maitreya, who is the next Buddha. OK?

The next Buddha to come in this world. According to some levels of Buddhism, already a Buddha. OK?

So, this is how Maitreya describes this wheel, how to shortcut through this wheel. OK? So, in one night, you'll get all the information you need to stop dying, or at least to understand what's happening.

OK? So, we're going to do that. And it's...

I took that reading and chopped it out of a text and put it in the beginning of this class's reading. So, you know, normally we're going through a monastic textbook on the Wheel of Life, but you'll see in there, I've inserted about three pages from another text, which tells you the... it's a flow chart for how you go from not understanding this pan to dying.

OK? And then it makes it really easy to turn it around. OK?

The idea of the Wheel of Life... Lung Jung. Say Lung Jung.

Lung Jung. Lung Jung means how it happens from one to twelve, like that. And then Lung Dok.

Say Lung Dok. Lung Dok. Lung Dok means shut off number one, shuts off number two.

Shut off number two, shut off number three. Shut off number three, shut off number four. And eventually by the time you get to number twelve, you don't have to...

die. OK? But you have to draw the connection.

You have to see what's the connection between misunderstanding this cylinder, thinking that it's a pan from its own side, and then dying. OK? Supposedly in Buddhism, if you figure the thing about the pan out, you don't have to get old and die.

You can stop the process.

[Говорящий 2]
OK?

[Говорящий 1]
I never saw anybody do that. I never... Nobody in the New York Times ever reported it.

I don't think it's possible. The realm I'm in, the people I see around me, the way I'm living now, the way my life is going now, it's the only way it could ever go. I've studied all the history books.

There's no record that I can believe of somebody who just stepped out, you know, and didn't have to die anymore. You know, they're not like crowding the buses or anything. You know, it's not like that.

Buddhism would say this. You have to be on a certain level to see this cylinder as a pan. OK?

Like, if I sit there and try to explain to a dog, you know, hey, your problem is you're being, you know, forced by something in your brain to see this as something to chew on. You know, you really could see this as a pan if you wanted. Would they get it?

Can't. OK? They don't have...

There's something lacking in their mind that they cannot see that thing. OK? Buddhism would say that the state of not dying is very similar.

I could pull up a person here and say, look, this person doesn't have to die anymore. This person succeeded about three years ago. They don't have to die anymore.

Look, you can see, you know, they're not getting old. Remember three years ago? They look just the same.

They look younger than they did three years ago. Get it? You know, I mean, I should be able to pull up a person like that.

It's the same thing as explaining this to a to a dog. You can't see it unless you're close to it. OK?

Buddhism says, and you know, you can take it as just a justification, and I'm not asking you to take it on faith, but I'm trying to explain why you didn't see anybody do it yet. OK? Buddhism would say that the purity of mind to see a person, yourself, not die and get younger, actually, and the purity of mind to see someone do it are very close to each other.

And the fact that you haven't seen it doesn't prove that it doesn't exist. OK? At least we can say that, right?

We can say that the fact that you haven't seen anybody not die, or the fact that you haven't seen anybody in a Buddhism class get younger and younger doesn't prove that it doesn't exist because of the pen. Am I right? I mean, given what we said about the pen, but I told you you're gonna be in trouble if you accept this thing about the pen, right?

OK? The minute you accept that, you have to accept that much of the world around you is created by your perceptions, and you have to accept it. Or, you have to say that Lassie can come up here and write a poem.

OK? I mean, you don't have any choice. You have to say one or the other.

We're logicians. We debate in the monastery. You know?

You're stuck. Once you accept that about the pen, you have to accept that about death also. OK?

If you accept that certain beings at certain levels can't see this as a pen, then you have to accept, in theory, the idea that certain beings at certain levels, meaning you and me, wouldn't even recognize a person who didn't have to die, or a holy being, or an enlightened being, or an angel, if they were standing in front of us. We wouldn't recognize them for what they were. And, in fact, we might see them getting older.

Like whom? Like the Dalai Lama. OK?

His holiness. OK? I mean, he looks like he's getting older, right?

What does he see in the morning when he looks in the mirror? What does he see when he looks at this... What was it?

Cylinder. OK? You don't...

I mean, you can't say for sure. He's... He's what?

You call... He's suspicious. You know?

I mean, not really sure. Have a feeling he might be seeing something different. OK?

Can you see it yet? No. Why?

Supposedly, presumably, he's at some higher level than we are, mentally. You know? His mind is compelling him to see something different.

If you believe the Tibetans, which you don't have to, and which I wouldn't, unless it was proven to me, when he looks down, he sees this white, golden, you know, white light angel, you know, Chenrezig, Avalokiteshvara, you know, supposedly. OK? What I'm trying to say is that, because of the thing with the pen, you have to agree, at least, that it's possible that certain people have already reached, have already gotten out of the wheel there.

OK? Possible.

[Говорящий 2]
OK?

[Говорящий 1]
That they are seeing their own body in a much different way than you see it. OK? Possible, because this is empty.

That's the emptiness of the pen. It does not have a nature of its own, from its own side. It depends on how you see it.

It depends on how your mind compels you to see it. So, as of tomorrow, can you see yourself as Tara? No.

We said compelled. Right? Certain energies in your mind forcing you to see yourself the way you see yourself.

That's what we call karma. That's what we call good and bad karma. OK?

OK. So, that's the theory, alright? Let's go now to the Maitreya's presentation.

I'd like to put the Tibetan up on the board. The first Dalai Lama in his commentary on the Abhidharma says, always throw in some foreign language and everybody will believe you, you know. So, we'll do the same thing.

OK? We were on... And I'll ask you to...

You know, I ask everybody to say the Tibetan. It puts a seed in your mind. According to us, you know, in about 500 years, I can be your Tibetan teacher or something.

OK? Say Dagzin. Dagzin.

OK. Dag means self. And it's a bad...

You know, self is a bad... You know, Buddhism says no self exists. Like, there's nobody standing up here talking or something like that.

It's not what no self means. No self means this is not a pen by itself. That's all.

OK? It doesn't... Atman, Anatman, all that stuff.

OK? It doesn't mean you don't exist and you're not sitting in that chair and you're an illusion and you're not gonna eat the cookies back there in about 10 minutes or so. You know, it doesn't even do like that.

No self means exactly what I said before. This cylinder doesn't have any nature, self nature of being a pen. Why?

Because its nature of being a pen is something that you're imposing on it. It's just a plain old cylinder. You's making it a pen.

And if you was a dog, you'd be making it a doggy treat. OK? So, that's all no self nature means.

It applies to people, it applies to things. No self. OK?

Dan means self. Dzin means to believe that it does have a self nature. OK?

Equals... Say Marikpa. Marikpa.

What's Dambho Marikpa? What is Marikpa? Hmm?

Ignorance, meaning here first link, OK? Link number one. What is it in the picture?

The guy with the stick, a blind man with a stick. One o'clock on your painting. OK?

Marikpa. OK? Marikpa is the tendency, the habit, the mental habit that all beings have and they say all the way down to ants and bugs and roaches and everything else, all the way up to Einstein, every living creature has a habit of believing that this stuff is coming from its own side.

That it's a pen from its own side. That's Marikpa. That's Dangdzin.

OK? Same thing. These are synonyms.

OK? To believe that this pen is coming from its own side.

[Говорящий 2]
OK?

[Говорящий 1]
Now, the wheel of life doesn't quite tell you where that comes from, right? Everything has to have a cause. In Buddhism you gotta trace everything back to what came before it.

We're dealing with link number one, right? Maitreya goes back a little further. OK?

Like, why do I have this tendency to see that from its own side? If this is gonna kill me, if this is something that's making me get old, if this is something that has, you know, parked me in this realm which is a big mistake, like a death realm and I don't have to be here, why did it happen in the first place? Where did it come from?

Why do I have the tendency or the habit to see things the wrong way? Why do I have such a strong tendency to believe that that thing is a pen from its own side? Why wasn't...

Why isn't it true that when I was born I figured it out? Like, when I was six years old I figured it out. Hey, you know what?

That's just a cylinder and I'm making it a pen. My mind is making it a pen. Aha!

Now I can do lots of different things. Maybe I can get to a Buddha paradise in this life. You see what I mean?

Just manipulate my impressions or something like that. Why is it we can't figure that out? Why is it it's so difficult for people in this realm of death to figure that out?

Why? Maitreya goes back one step, okay? So we got a number one.

I don't know why, but every Westerner that ever takes a single course here remembers this word.

[Говорящий 2]
I don't know.

[Говорящий 1]
And a few four-letter words in Tibetan if they learn them. But anyway, say bak cha. Bak cha.

Bak cha. Maybe it sounds like some Ukrainian dessert or something. I don't know.

But anyway, bak cha means a seed in your mind. Okay? An impression that was left in your mind by the last occupant.

Okay? Bak cha. An impression that was left in your mind.

Alright? That's why, for example, some people learn things so well. That's why some people are natural businessmen.

They just automatically see into the ways, you know, there's an opportunity, a business opportunity. Other people are just standing around. To them it's perfectly obvious, you know.

They can see it a mile away and they go for it. And then other people are saying, how did you see that? And how did you understand that was gonna happen?

And you just say, I don't know. It's just clear to me. You know?

Just like that. We would say that's from bak chaks in your past life. You practiced business.

You did business a lot. You had a good business guru. And you learned to do business very well.

Then in this life, it's very easy for you to see opportunities that other people don't see at all. And that accounts for everyone's, what do you call, predilections. The reason some people have talents and other people don't have any talents at something.

Okay? It's whether or not you're carrying bak chaks in from the past. Okay?

Impressions on your mind. Does western society believe in bak chaks? We talk about it a lot in this class.

You know, people do send their children to elementary school. You do send a kid to first grade. In first grade, I remember, they teach you A, B, C, D, stuff like that.

Okay? Why do I remember? I can remember Mrs. Melvin in the first grade. I came from another school in California. I moved to Arizona. Mrs. Melvin says, draw a big A on the paper. So I think if she meant a capital A, she would have said a capital A. But she said big A. So I drew this big A.

You know? And then she got really angry. She said, no, no, I wanted a capital A.

I said, well, why don't you say a capital A? You know? Instead of a big A.

But I still remember all this thing. I still remember her kind of angry at me. And I'm the new kid in the class.

And I felt embarrassed. I still remember all that stuff. And I still remember A, B, C.

See? I can prove it. There's an A.

There's a B. I still remember that. Okay?

That's because a bak chak was set in my mind by Mrs. Melvin. Okay? A bak chak was...

I mean, you accept that Western society does accept the principle of impressions being made on your mind and staying there for year after year after year. Somewhere. Okay?

Mind is ineffable. According to Buddhism, there's nothing physical about the mind. It is floating around your body, but it's not necessarily connected that much.

And still it is storing information and holding it from year to year. Some kind of impression is being made on your mind through learning process and through familiarity with things. And it gets stuck there.

And shoe salesmen are on the bus, looking at people's feet. And diamond dealers are staring at ladies' fingers to see how big the diamond is. And they're like...

This happens to me all the time, because I do diamonds, right? And still you have bak chaks in your mind all the time. You have predilections.

By what you do a lot, then you start to see the world that way. That's a bak chak. That's a mental impression.

Buddhism says that from time without beginning, your indestructible mind has had a bak chak for seeing this the wrong way. And as long as you keep doing that, you will keep getting old and dying. That's making you get old and die.

I'll try in this class to show you how it actually works. And for me it's very much a big relief to finally tie it all together. You have to tie it together from a bunch of sources.

But if you can actually demonstrate to someone how it is they are dying, and how it is they are getting old in terms that don't require any religious faith at all, I find it was like a big relief to me. It was like, OK, 10% chance this guy is right, but at least I got something. You know what I mean?

So, I'm gonna try to show that. So, Maitreya says it all starts out with a bak chak. Bak chak for what?

Bak chak for seeing things the wrong way. Bak chak for ignorance. So, according to Maitreya, you have brought that in from the past.

Your mind has been carrying that. And if you are in this realm, and if you are who you seem to be, and unless you've reached some great spiritual realizations in this life, meaning the direct perception of emptiness, then you are still seeing this the wrong way. By definition.

Every single moment, every single object around you, you are misunderstanding it. And it's gonna kill you. OK?

Literally. So, those are the first two steps. How do you get from step number two to step number three?

Let's take the wheel again. What's this guy over here doing? Two o'clock.

Huh? They say potter, OK? When lamas explain this part of the wheel, they say, I saw a lama explain this to a kids class once, and it was really good for me.

And he said, hey kids, what do you think he's doing there? And they said, he's making pots, you know. And he says, how many pots?

He says, lots of pots. You know, and he says, what kinds of pots? He says, all kinds of pots, you know what I mean?

Some of them have like ten pots there, you know. And he says, well, that's called making new karma. OK?

Say, Nyipa. Dujekhi. Le.

Nyipa. Dujekhi. Le.

In the wheel of life, in the twelve links, there are two different kinds of karma. You just met the first one. OK?

You can call it fresh karma. OK? Karma at the moment that you create it.

OK? How many karmas are you creating per moment? This is called a Dute Kechikma in Buddhism, OK?

The time it takes me to snap my fingers... I'm sorry, this is called a Kechikma. The time it takes me to snap my fingers is called a Kechikma, or an instant.

Within that instant, there are 65 Dute Kechikmas. Say, Dute. Kechikma.

Dute Kechikma means the smallest amount of time in which a person could do anything. And there are 65 of them in a finger snap. OK?

Do what? I mean, there's not enough time there to even, you know, look at somebody. Not talking about that.

We're talking about for your mind to have a discrete thought or an impression. Your mind is moving at 65 frames per finger snap. OK?

Your mind... The illusion of motion around you is created by 65 frames coming up in your mind per finger snap. Each one of those is a result of karma.

OK? A different action that you did in the past is coming up to you as one frame made up of millions and millions of dots. And each one of those is a karmic result.

You're actually seeing a movie go by at a very fast rate. It's going by so smooth that you're not aware of it. OK?

And your mind is compelling you to see certain frames come up at a certain speed. And that's why you think the world around you is moving. And that's why things are happening to you.

OK? Karmic impressions are coming up in your mind at that rate. OK?

And you're seeing things. For you to keep a pen up here, if you like it, and that's not necessarily the case, right? But if this pen is useful to you for a week or two, it requires thousands and thousands and thousands of karmic impressions to ripen in your mind in a row for a week.

OK? At some point the good energy that created those impressions wears out. And then what happens?

You perceive this as running out of ink. Does it run out of ink from its own side? No.

You perceive it as running out of ink. Because your impressions have exhausted themselves, as all energies do. OK?

That's why people die. That's why pens run out of ink. It's your impression.

It's your perception. The same way that you're creating a pen, you also create the end of the ink of the pen. OK?

That's another story. All right? We gotta figure out how you go from not understanding the pen to making those karmic impressions on your mind.

[Говорящий 2]
OK?

[Говорящий 1]
This guy is making lots of pots. What does that represent? Good karmas and bad karmas.

[Говорящий 2]
OK?

[Говорящий 1]
And neutral karmas. How do you get from link number one to link number two? If you're gonna shut off link number one and shut off link number two and shut off your own death, you gotta figure out how do you get from link number one to link number two.

OK? What is there about not understanding this pen that makes you do karma?

[Говорящий 2]
OK?

[Говорящий 1]
How do you go from not understanding a pen to karma? OK? How do you go from link number one to link number two?

Here we gotta go back to my tram. Say, tsu-min. Yi-che.

Tsu-min. Yi-che. OK.

Now we're gonna switch examples. Back to my favorite example. My boss at work.

OK? I'm in the diamond business. We do 30,000 diamonds a day.

We ship them to customers around the world, you know? And I'm sitting there at my table in the morning. I'm having my coffee.

I'm trying to look like I'm working. You know, the trick is to put lots of diamonds out on the desk, you know? So when the boss walks in, you're just like, they just moved them around.

And then you drink the coffee on the side, you know? Because it's really bad to spill a cup of coffee in about 20,000 diamonds that are all floating in the coffee. It takes like two days to wash them out.

So, you know, I'm sitting there and then suddenly—this is a true story, OK? The boss bursts into the room and says—in fact, one of my fellow workers is here, and she can account for it. Comes in, bursts in the door and says, what happened to the JCPenney order?

And I say, I don't know. I was working on it. And he says, do you realize that there's an ad running, you know, and the rings that they were supposed to make with our diamonds are already being advertised and people came to the store and asked for the rings and they weren't there yet?

And I said, no, I didn't know that. And he says, yeah, I know you didn't know that. And he says, you're still sitting on the order.

You didn't finish the order. They didn't even go to the ring factory yet. You know what I mean?

And he's like screaming at me. And, you know, he got a phone call over the weekend and it's Monday morning and I'm just having a quiet Monday morning, you know, and he's in there screaming at me. And then let's say that there's three people sitting in a row, which is the way in the diamond business you all sit on these long benches, you know, like you can't see anybody.

That's part of the trick, you know, because then you can't talk to each other. So you're all facing the wall and you're all looking at diamonds. And suppose there's one guy next to me that doesn't like me.

And then there's somebody on the other side who doesn't care. And then there's me in the middle who does like me, okay? And then there's three different people sitting there, you know, we're all doing our diamonds.

You have these little special tweezers and you have this eyeglass and you hold them up and you pull them up like about that fast. And so one guy sitting next to me is perceiving this yelling face, right, red, open, squares there, you know, some kind of cylinder wagging here, you know, and decibels coming out. And this guy is interpreting it as something great, you know.

Michael Roach, who never shows up for work, who's always out at those Buddhist conferences and stuff, is finally getting in trouble for not taking responsibility when I always have to cover for him, you know what I mean? So, finally the boss woke up, you know, and he's like perceiving these decibels, these syllables, these consonants and vowels, you know, as something very pleasant. Seriously.

And this red coloration and the wagging of the cylinder, you know, for him, he's seeing it as something pleasant, okay? He's being compelled, according to Buddhism, by his past karmas, to perceive this neutral object, empty object, blank object, that's the meaning of emptiness. It's just red and white and squares and cylinders and movement, right?

He's being compelled by his past karma to see it as something good. Why? Because he did something good in the past, okay?

He gets to see this object as something pleasant, you know. His karma is compelling him to see this neutral thing as something pleasant. I'm sitting in the middle.

I'm perceiving the same oval, the same crimson, the same wagging thing, you know, and the same consonants and vowels. I'm perceiving them as something very bad. I'm being compelled by my past karma to see them as something very bad, okay?

And then what about poor Dumala, over there in the corner, who just wants to do her work quietly, okay? She's—everything's neutral to her. She doesn't care if the boss is right or the boss is wrong, should he really blame Michael or he shouldn't blame Michael.

He's just hoping that—kind of hoping he would leave so she can get back to work, you know. So she's neutral. Her karma is forcing her to see this blank boss, right?

That's the meaning of emptiness. Her karma is forcing her to see this blank canvas in a certain way, to perceive it in a certain way, which is neutral, okay? Why?

We say because she didn't collect any particularly good karma or any particularly bad karma about it. She just has a neutral karma, and that's making her see something neutral, okay? That's what's really going on, okay?

How does ignorance see it? Does ignorance sit there and say, oh, this is just my perception, you know. He's blaming me for this $50,000 mistake, you know.

Probably I'll get my bonus anyway. You know, something like that. You know, how does ignorance see that boss?

That's what sul min yi je means, by the way. Sul min means wrong way, okay? Yi je means to think of it the wrong way.

Thinking of it the wrong way, okay? Sul min yi je is thinking of it the wrong way. Thinking of what?

Thinking of the boss, okay? Nice boss— should I say nice boss or bad boss, by the way? Cylinder.

Okay? Just a boss, okay? Not from his side, a good boss or a bad boss.

Not from his side, a pleasant experience or a unpleasant experience, okay? By the way, does that mean that Buddhists can just sit there at the dentist and say, this is just my perception, I won't feel it as pain, you know? Can you do that?

Try. Okay? I always say, bring me the person who says they can.

Fifteen years I've been waiting. Bring me the person. I got a dental drill at home.

We'll check. You know? No, you can't, okay?

That's not the point. Is he just your perception? Is he just a projection of your mind that you're compelled to have?

Yes. Does that make him less real? Does a dental drill still hurt?

Of course it does. I mean, that's a big point in Buddhism. Don't think that Buddhism says you're supposed to space out and sit there and realize this is just your perception, it's all an illusion, it doesn't matter anymore, I'll still get my bonus?

No, I won't get my bonus, because it's real. Okay? It is a projection.

It doesn't have any reality from its own side, and it is totally real, therefore. Okay? That's very important.

It is real because it's only my projection. Okay? That's what Buddhism really says, okay?

So, so is he a good guy from his own side or not? Is he a bad guy from his own side or not? We just proved he's not.

Why? Because one guy saw him one way and one guy saw him a different way. He was saying the same words even, okay?

Were they words of anger or righteous words of an employee who keeps going to those Buddhist activities and not showing up? Which were they? Depends on who's looking.

Okay? It really depends on who's looking. So, to believe that he's bad from his own side, by his own nature is tsulmin yi je.

That's the next step. Why did you do that? Why do you believe that he's bad from his own side?

Why do you try to convince the other people in the office to see him the way you see him? Why do you try to convince them that you're right and they're wrong? You believe it's coming from him.

You really believe it's coming from him. Why do you do that? What was the step before that?

It's that tendency in your mind to see everything that way. You believe this is a pen from its own side. And you believe that the bad people around you and the bad thing that's happened to you, all the bad things that happened to you come from their own side.

You really believe that. You don't believe there's some kind of projection in your mind. You really don't believe it.

Why do you do that? What's that word that you're not gonna forget? Bakchak.

Okay? You do that because you gotta be able to go up and down the wheel. Up and down the ladder.

Okay? Why do I think this pen comes from its own side? Because you had a bakchak from before.

What's that gonna make me do? You're gonna see things as being nice or bad as if they were coming from their own side. What does that do?

What's the ignorant reaction to somebody being bad to you? Be bad back. Be bad back.

Okay? What's that called? Very simple in Tibetan.

Say, le sak. Le sak. Louder.

Le sak. Okay, that's good. Le means karma.

It's the Tibetan word for karma. Okay? Le means karma.

Sak means collect karma. Le sak means you collect karma. You do karma.

Karma.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
This is very important. You know, most people think karma means squishing bugs or, you know, killing people or something like that. There's three kinds of karma.

Okay? The people can recite it here. Le le jikten natsuke, deni semba dan de che.

Fourth chapter Abhidharmakosha, fourth century. Le le jikten natsuke means your whole world comes from karma. Neni semba dan de che.

Neni semba means raw karma. You know, like Coca-Cola concentrate, that stuff in the what do they call that? In the soda thing.

What do they call it? Syrup, yeah. Raw Coke concentrate, raw syrup is semba.

Semba means anytime your mind moves, anytime you have a thought, that's karma. That's the rawest form of karma. Most people don't realize that.

You are creating 65 karmas every time a finger snap goes by. In your mind, you have done 65 discreet actions every time I flip my fingers. By being happy for one minute, by being unhappy for one minute, you've just created, I don't know, a few hundred or a thousand karmas, karmic seeds in your mind, bhaktyaks, new bhaktyaks, okay?

That's how fast they collect. That's how fast you make them. That's the guy making pots.

That's two o'clock in the wheel, okay? That's the guy making pots. Now, there's two secondary forms of karma, which are what your mind makes you do, which is anything you say and anything you do with your body, okay?

Those are verbal karma and physical karma, okay? So, it's really three kinds of karma and the main one is mind itself. Every time you have an irritated thought at someone, even if you control your tongue, you've already collected a great deal of bad karma, okay?

And it collects like crazy, okay? The consequences of them are enough to create your whole world and sustain it for seventy years, okay? These instants of consciousness are ripenings of impressions that you put on your mind in a very short amount of time.

You've got lifetimes and lifetimes of karmic motion picture frames stored up in your mind and they'll be playing for a long time, okay? They're there and it doesn't take long to put them. To insert sixty-five in your mind takes about one second of irritation at another person, even if you never say anything or hit them or anything, alright?

That's raw karma, okay? People have to understand that. That's le.

So, le sak. Why does you le sak? Why do you commit karma?

I actually misnumbered it, sorry. We gotta go back. This is five, okay?

Sorry. There's a four. And then we'll take a break.

We'll do four and we'll take a break. Sorry? He asked if we're still at two o'clock.

We're trying to explain how you go from one o'clock to two o'clock, okay? Number five in Maitreya's system is two o'clock. Number two in Maitreya's system is one o'clock.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Now, how you get that out of the wheel, we're gonna get to later, okay? But you can't understand the wheel unless you understand Maitreya's flowchart, okay? To understand how you go from not understanding something to collecting karma and getting dead after that, you have to understand Maitreya's chart, okay?

You have to go through Maitreya's system, okay? Okay, say chak dang. Chak dang.

Chak means liking things stupidly. Dang means disliking things stupidly. People have translated it as desire and hatred.

I get desire like once a day or something, you know what I mean? When you say desire, I think of X-rated movies or Playboy magazine. When you say hatred or revulsion, I think of Hitler or Mao Zedong or something like that, okay?

This chak dang and the one in the wheel is happening every millisecond of your life, okay? I think hatred and desire are too general. I mean, the definitions of them are yi duong laya, jang du gyi sempa, meaning anytime you feel like you want to keep something or anytime you feel the slightest urge to want to get away from something, meaning anytime you like something or anytime you dislike something, even for an instant, you are doing chak dang, okay?

Chak dang comes from what? Number three is seeing things the wrong way. And it leads to number five, collecting karma.

Now you get into a big thing. Are Buddhists supposed to sit there like a vegetable and not like anything and not dislike anything, okay? Don't forget that when we are in this class and when you are in the debate ground and you are debating the wheel of life, you better well distinguish between liking and disliking and liking and disliking as a member of the wheel.

In the debate ground, if you don't make this distinction, you are dead. I'll say it again, okay? Big difference between liking and disliking in general and liking and disliking as a chain of circumstances that kills you.

Big difference. Okay? And people don't make that distinction and so then poor American Buddhists think they can't go to a movie, they can't listen to their favorite songs anymore because they are not supposed to like anything.

You know? And like that you think you have to eat all these vegetables your mother gives you because you are not supposed to dislike anything, you know? And then you are paralyzed, you know?

There are a lot of American Buddhists that go year after year like schizophrenic because they are not supposed to like anything or dislike anything. It's not the point, okay? Would the Dalai Lama like to see you get enlightened?

Does the Dalai Lama dislike seeing you suffer? Of course. I mean, does the Dalai Lama like music?

I saw him watching Ritchie Havens one day and he was like... You know, he was like... And then, you know, of course he likes things.

I've never seen anyone enjoy a dinner or a joke more than His Holiness, you know? Obviously he is enjoying something, you know? The point of Buddhism is not that you are not supposed to like anything or dislike anything.

It's that the things you like are created by some kind of karma that wears out and they'll end up screwing you. Okay? So you have to figure out, you just have to figure out how to fix them and then you can still like them.

But then they won't do that anymore. You see, that's the point. That's the whole point.

It's not wrong to like your body if it's beautiful and it's working right, okay? It's not wrong to dislike being sick or ugly or stupid or something like that. You can stop them.

The point is that you can stop them. Do Buddhists sit around in their enlightened realms neutral? You know, being neutral about everything?

No, I mean the realms are called Ganden. You know? Every single millimeter of every single object in a Buddha paradise turns them on constantly.

You know? When they look at a flower or they look at the sky or they look at a star or they look at their nose hairs, they get the same bliss feeling. You know?

They really do. That's the quality of a Buddha paradise. They are having a good time and enjoying themselves constantly.

Unendingly. Of course that's not the point in Buddhism not to like anything or dislike anything. Okay?

We're talking about a special kind of disliking or liking. The stupid kind. Okay?

The kind that gets you killed. Okay? And there's a difference.

There's a big difference, okay? What is the stupid kind of liking? It's the one that's based on misunderstanding your boss.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
If you dislike your boss in a certain way, in a stupid way, what will you do? You'll say something bad. How many times do we say something bad?

It's the human reaction, right? This is the wheel of life reaction actually. And it's the one that keeps you in the wheel of life.

Why? What according to Buddhism has created this boss? Why are you perceiving that oval and the crimson and the wagging cylinder as something bad?

Why? It's not coming from him because the guy next to you is perceiving it as something beautiful. Ah, Michael Roach is finally getting it.

You know? Why? Your karma is compelling you to see it that way.

Okay? Something in your mind is making you see it that way the same way something in your mind is making you see this as a pen. Okay?

What kind of karma do you have to collect to see that particular wagging thing as being balled out at work? What would logically... I mean, I'm not gonna prove it to you tonight.

We can do it. We will do it. Logically, I mean, if there's any justice in the universe, what would make someone yell at you?

You yelled at somebody else. Okay? Now, there's a whole system for that.

There's a way that when you yell at someone certain impressions are made on your mind, especially with a harmful intention, that certain impressions are made on your mind, like the ABC back in the first grade. And there's a certain system by which they come back to you in a priority system like airplanes on a runway. We're not gonna talk about that tonight.

Okay? There's a certain system to that. But if this theory is true, okay?

Which, by the way, you just got sucked into it when you accepted this thing about the pen and the dog tree. Once you get to that, you're stuck. Okay?

You can leave here and never come back. But you heard something that you can't deny about this cylinder.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
So, what is it about... What would be the only way to get this boss to come back? If I don't like him, what would be the only way to make him come back again in that format as a screaming boss?

According to this theory, say something mean back to him. Say something bad back to him. Dislike him in a stupid way.

Okay? Stupid means you go from disliking, chak dang, to lay sock, collecting new bad karma. How?

You yell back at him. According to Buddhism, what's gonna be the result of yelling back at him? You planted a new impression in your mind which will compel you in the future to see this red cylinder, oval, right?

As what? A yelling boss. It's a self-perpetuating wheel.

He yells at you because you collected some karma in the past. You yell at him and create new impressions in your mind. The new impressions make you see him yell at you again.

Then what do you do? You yell at him again. You could paint this as a...

as a wheel. Okay? Sipe korlo.

Self-perpetuating wheel of life. It's exactly what the picture means. Okay?

That's the whole point. This is perpetuating itself. Every time you respond to somebody negatively, you just did the only thing according to Buddhism you could ever do to get it to happen again.

And you keep doing that. Every time you feel bad about something or someone, you have just swung it one more time. Okay?

And it will keep swinging until what? When do we have some intelligent dislike for the boss? How do we eliminate the boss?

I did it actually, to tell you the truth. How do you eliminate this screaming boss from your life forever? Seriously.

What's the intelligent way to dislike this guy? Terminator. Be very compassionate.

Be very kind. Be very intelligent. Be very concerned about his thing he needs.

Take care of him. Do what he needs. Do not get angry.

If necessary, shut him down, put him down, but in a kind frame of mind. Okay? There's a place for that too.

But what will happen according to Buddhism? You wear out the old bad karma. Then you'll start seeing him as sweet all the time.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Eventually, you'll be able to leave the company and have your own income. I'm not kidding. You know?

If you... By the way, if you try this thing, and it really works, it's really cool. I have students who are very sincere.

They spend a certain amount of day tracking on paper how it's going. And they've actually eliminated fellow workers that they don't like. Okay?

How? By being kind to them. By being concerned about what they need.

And by never getting angry at them. Then they get transferred, they get fired, they get moved to Peoria, Illinois or something. You know?

I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. What would be the ultimate end of this process?

What if you did this about every negative thing in your life? I mean, you would clean up everything in your life that disturbs you. Mental or physical.

Everything. Everything. Physically, what would happen?

Your body would start to change and get younger. Okay? Seriously.

Mentally, what would happen? You would stop having any kind of depression, anxiety, anger, jealousy, anything. It would all start to...

I'm not just talking about eliminating one or two people at work. We can start with them. Okay?

It's a good place to start. And you can do it. And I love it.

People come and report to me, I didn't, you know. I hope it wasn't with a gun. They say, no, no.

I was just kind to them and they got transferred, you know. Okay? It works.

It really does. According to Buddhism, your perception of them getting transferred is created by... you are compelled to see them transferred.

You don't have any choice. Buddhas are compelled to see Buddha paradises around them. Okay?

That's really cool. You can do it. You will be compelled not to see yourself die.

That's the whole point. It's not just to eliminate a few people at work. Okay?

Which is the starting point. Okay? Like that.

All right? So, we're going to finish Maitreya's chart. There's a little bit more.

A little bit more. Finish it right now.

[Говорящий 2]
No, it's just one more thing. That's not... Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
That's the last thing. And then after the break we'll do one more or two more links in the chart, in the painting. This stuff really works.

I mean, I had some guy, he made a T-shirt that said this stuff really works. It really does work. Okay?

You really can do it. It's very cool. People try to get rich all the time, you know?

People try to be happy all the time. Try it. It's very interesting.

It's very interesting. Say, korwar. Kor.

Korwar. Kor. Korwar kor is a pun in Tibetan.

What's this wheel called? What's this painting called? Sipay korlo.

Okay? Korlo means wheel. And this is the verb.

To circle. The circle. Same root.

Korwar kor. What does that mean? Oh, sorry.

You got to go back to the beginning. Okay? Something from your past life makes you see things the wrong way.

You start seeing things as if they came from their own side. You start to like things and you start to think that the things that are nice come from their own side and the things that are bad come from their own side. You start to like them or dislike them in a stupid way.

You respond to them. You fight back at them. You keep the wheel going.

That's the whole system. Okay? Beautiful.

Really beautiful. That's Maitreya's, you know, wheel of life in a nutshell. Six steps.

Okay? Really beautiful. I mean, if you study that, you can do anything with your life.

Anything you want, you can make happen. Even not dying. Okay?

So, please go and have some refreshments and come back in about ten minutes. Okay? That's Kiran.

He was reportedly conceived during the Diamond Cutter Sutra. So, I think he's going to be amazing. Just a reminder, tomorrow, if you know Art Engel, out in New Jersey, very great, sweet Dharma teacher, he's having his 50th birthday.

It'll be at four o'clock at his house, so they said you're welcome to crash it if you've ever met him. Okay? Alright.

We're going to go pretty fast now. We don't have much time left. And I'm just going to tie Maitreya's presentation down to the wheel.

Okay? You know, in the monastery, it took us over a year to finish this whole wheel. We got to get through it in six classes.

So, we got to get through five or six links tonight. So, I'm just going to start going through them quickly. Okay?

We already talked about link number one here, at one o'clock. And that's ignorance. That's not understanding the nature of the boss.

The boss is someone who is bad from his own side. Therefore I'm justified in doing something bad to him back, which according to Buddhism is the only way to get him to come back, which is the stupidest thing you can do. Okay?

So, that represents that kind of stupidity. Ignorance. Okay?

Don't forget that the text of the Abhidharma said, it's not just a lack of knowledge. It's the opposite of knowledge. It's active stupidity.

Okay? It's not just like not being aware of something or something like that. It's actively doing the opposite of the right thing.

Okay? Number two. Say nyi pa.

Nyi pa. Duche gyi le. Making pots.

Okay? Which in our example is the equivalent of yelling back. Yelling back at the boss.

And you don't really understand the going from one to two unless you have Maitreya's list. Okay? So, now you know how you go from that.

First of all, you have to be stupid from your past life. Then those seeds of stupid have to stay in your mind and you're stupid in this life. And then you misunderstand things and think they come from their own side.

And good things and bad things come from their own side. The traffic jam is not my fault. I didn't create this traffic jam.

Okay? Like that. And then when you get angry, you're reacting the wrong way.

And that's, according to Buddhism, when you get angry in a traffic jam—by the way, it doesn't have to be people, okay? When you get angry in traffic, according to Buddhism, you are turning the wheel. You are making the traffic get worse as we speak and you are causing yourself to have the same traffic later.

Period. Everything is like that. All the things in your life that you don't like come from that, even your death.

Okay? So, that's number two. Making karma.

And don't forget the chain of events between number one and number two. You are making karma because you like things stupidly and you dislike things stupidly. Why do you do that?

Because you misperceive them as being good or bad from their own side. Why do you do that? Because you have ignorance.

Why do you have that? Because you have a seed from your past life. Okay?

So, you have to have all those things in your mind when you go from one o'clock to two o'clock. Alright? What's number three?

In number three, at three o'clock you have a monkey and traditionally he's supposed to—he's in a little house with six windows and he's racing from window to window like a madman. Okay? This represents consciousness.

Okay? Your mind. Your mind.

What are the six windows? It's checking—it is stuck in your body. It's looking out your eyeballs.

It's peeking out your eardrums. It's looking through your nostrils. It's running—your mind is running from window to window and the window of your thought, which Tibetans place at your heart.

Okay? So, your mind is racing like a crazy monkey from window to window. Your mind never rests.

Your mind is constantly racing from window to window to take in things. Okay? And that's represented by the monkey.

This represents, by the way, how it is that you encounter something you don't like. Okay? The next four or five links are all happening in a millisecond.

Okay? In one presentation of the Wheel of Life, and there's about five ways to present it, this thing is happening in a millisecond. This represents your raw state of awareness as the boss walks in the door to yell at you.

Okay? It's your raw awareness of life itself. It's your consciousness, your awareness.

Okay? You were born with it. You don't notice it because it's been going on every minute of your life since then.

You don't appreciate that you're conscious. Okay? It's the fact that you're aware of anything.

Okay? That's necessary for those chain of events to happen when the boss walks in the door. You have to be what?

Conscious. Okay? Now, sometimes you're not conscious on Monday morning.

Okay? But, you know, generally, some level of consciousness. All right?

Next link, number four. By the way, those of you who care about the Tibetans, say sumba. Namshe.

Sumba. Namshe. Means number three, consciousness.

Consciousness acting as link number three. And don't forget, there's a big difference between consciousness in general and consciousness acting as link number three. This is a screw-up.

These twelve links are a screw-up. When we talk about consciousness in this class, we're talking about consciousness in the context of the problems of your life. Consciousness in the context of you having to die.

You know, would you put a Buddhist consciousness here? No. Okay?

If someone wasn't misunderstanding their boss and getting angry at something that they think comes from their own side, would their consciousness be here? No. You see, this is a...

this is a flow chart for how bad things happen. Okay? And then, in the monastery, when you debate this four or five hours a day, you must draw a distinction between consciousness in general and consciousness as one of the steps in the process by which you have to die.

And we're talking about the second one here. Okay? And when you read the reading, which is very difficult and very confusing and don't worry about it, okay?

I just wanted you to have it. Okay? I mean, you can chew it for days and days.

You should. But... but that's the point of the reading when it sounds a little...

what do you call it? Redundant. It says the definition of ignorance is the ignorance of the first link which causes the second link, which is the link caused by it.

Okay? I mean, that's the definition, okay? Why do they have to say all that?

The point is that they're trying to nail it down to ignorance as an event that causes your death and not just all the stupidity in the world. Okay? We're talking about that particular kind of stupidity.

Alright? That kills you.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, number... what are we on to? Four.

You can't see it very clearly here, but it's a boat and it's going from one shore to another shore, and generally there's two guys in it, okay? Say shi-pa. Ming-suk.

Shi-pa. Ming-suk. Shi-pa means link number four.

Ming-suk means name and form. Okay? Ming means name and suk means form.

Name and form. Okay? What does that represent?

It represents your body and mind just after you are reborn. Okay? It represents your body and your consciousness.

If you know about the five skandhas, it represents the first one and the other four, meaning everything physical about you and then everything mental about you. So there's two guys in the boat. One represents all your physical parts, your body.

The other one represents your mind. And this means your... your container for your life.

Going from this shore, meaning your birth, to that shore, meaning your death. The container or the boat that's going to carry your mind and your body throughout this life. Okay?

It means your basic physical and mental makeup as you enter an event. When you teach dependent origination, when you teach the twelve links as an instantaneous process that happens when the boss slams the door open, okay? It's your body and your mind at that moment.

Okay? So, so far we have your consciousness in general, the fact that you're even aware of the boss slamming the door open and then you have your body and your mind there, sitting on the chair, sitting in your mind, right there. Okay?

That's number four. What happens next? Number five.

Say, Ngapa... Keche... Ngapa...

Keche... Ngapa means number five, link number five. Okay?

Like the great fifth Dalai Lama is called Ngapa Chenpo, big five. Okay? Ngapa.

Ngapa Keche. Keche means your sense organs. These are called Wangbo Kokpa, meaning in the Abhidharma theory from sixteen centuries ago, the cells at the back of your eyeball that are sensitive to light and motion, okay?

The cells in your ear that are sensitive to vibrations. The olfactory cells in your nose, inside of your nose and on the surface of your tongue. It's very beautiful.

Abhidharma first chapter, second chapter, Abhidharmakosha, they explain all these things, especially the second chapter. It's very beautiful on all the parts of your body and the actual cells of your body that are sensitive to different sense perceptions. And these are, these are number five.

Number five means your sense organs and your mental organ, okay? At any given moment. Before anything has taken place, you have to have the equipment to have a sensation, okay?

So, number five represents the equipment to have a sensation. Your eye, the cells at the back of your eye that are sensitive to light and color. And the same thing for your ear, nose, tongue, tactile sense and then your mental sense.

Okay, six senses. They are the six senses before anything happens. So, what do you have in the picture?

An empty house, okay? Empty buildings, nothing going on yet. It's the capacity for sensation, okay?

By the way, in the example that we're dealing with, your boss screaming at you, throwing open the door, this is all taking place in a millisecond, okay? This represents your six senses before you perceive his face, okay? He's about to impose himself on you, okay?

This represents your equipment to have a perception of him, okay? This is all happening in a millisecond according to the way we're presenting it. This is called kechigme tendo, which means explaining the wheel as one action, one event in your day, okay?

Okay, number six. In number six, you have a man and a lady embracing each other in a bed, okay? It means contact.

It represents contact. Contact here isn't quite so sexy, okay? What is the contact here?

Three things. Say yul, wangbo, namshe. Yul, wangbo, namshe.

Yul means the object. In this case, in our example, what? The boss.

Irritating boss or the boss? The boss, right? Because he's empty.

From my point of view, irritating boss, okay? If you say, who walked in the door? The boss, okay?

Because he's empty. He's not a good boss or a bad boss or a neutral boss. So far, he's just a boss, okay?

Boss walks in the door, that's yul. Wangbo means my eye sense power, okay? My eyeball, my capacity to see him, okay?

And then consciousness, okay? My visual consciousness, the fact that I can see the red oval with that wagging red cylinder moving increasingly faster, okay? And hearing these decibels rising, consonants and vowels, okay?

I can hear all those things. What three things have come together? The object, my sense power and my sense consciousness have convened, okay?

That convening is called contact. And that's the meaning of the man and the woman touching each other here. Those three things have come together in the way that two people would hug each other, okay?

I have my eyeball, I have my consciousness of what my eyeball is seeing, and I have a boss to put in my eyeball's vision, and that's contact. We're about to have something bad happen, okay? First I had a body, then I had a mind, then I had sense organs with nothing in front of them, and then suddenly an object has presented itself.

This is all happening in a millisecond. He's slamming open the door, right? What comes next?

What do you guess? A guy with an arrow in his eye? Okay.

Feels like that some days at work. Okay. Say DUMBA.

SORWA. DUMBA. SORWA.

DUMBA means number seven.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
SORWA means feeling. Three basic kinds. Good feeling, bad feeling, neutral feeling.

Sometimes they present it as five. Feeling good mentally, feeling good physically, feeling bad mentally, feeling bad physically, feeling neutral. Okay?

According to Buddhism, your feeling never stops. It's very interesting. It's a constant video recorder.

You never stop feeling. You know, I have friends who are heroin addicts, and they say one of their goals is to stop feeling, because they're very sensitive to the fact that they never stop. It keeps going.

You know, you can be feeling neutral and think that you're not feeling what you're feeling. You see, feeling can't be shut down. According to Buddhism, you can commit suicide and you still won't stop feeling.

See, feelings are part of the mind. The mind is indestructible and you will continue to feel. You can never shut it down.

It's one of the pains of life. You see? You can never stop feeling.

Okay? So, feeling... But feeling can only happen if an object presents itself and you have an eyeball to see it, and your mind is aware of what your eyeball is seeing.

So, that's why it comes after the man and the lady touching each other, which is contact, or the three coming together. Now you have the three coming together, you can have a feeling. Okay?

And that's about all we're gonna do tonight, okay? We got up to feeling, which is number seven. Eight and nine are two kinds of mental afflictions or bad thoughts about what you're feeling.

Number ten is a very subtle form of the karma that you see in number two. And then eleven and twelve are the explanation of why you are born and why you die, and what makes you get old. Okay?

But I'll give you a little taste of it in case you don't come back, okay? You know from Maitreya's chart what happens. You feel good or you feel bad, but don't forget that we're not talking about every kind of good feeling or bad feeling.

We're talking about the stupid kind. Liking or disliking something because you don't understand it, okay? Hating the boss, the kind of disliking the boss that makes you yell back is what we call stupid disliking because it spins the wheel and that's why they painted it as a wheel, okay?

What's the smart way to dislike your boss? Understand that he is your own projection which you're compelled to have because of your past karma. And the last thing I want to do, because I don't want to see this guy again like this is what?

I do not want to respond negatively. I do not want to say something bad to him because I want to eliminate him, okay? And this is what His Holiness calls enlightened self-interest, you know?

Okay? Like it's really this is the goal, but you understand where he's coming from and you want to shut it off. Where?

At link number one. That's where you shut this stuff off. Stop misunderstanding where he's coming from.

He is just like the pen. Everything in your universe is just like the pen, okay? He's a perception which you are compelled to have because of what you did in the past to other people, okay?

If you don't want to meet him again like that, then for God's sake, shut up and let him be and be kind and be compassionate to him. It's the smartest thing to do, aside from being fun, okay? Aside from being like the least stressful thing to do, okay?

But you'll find out when you start doing— when you start acting like this. Okay? Now, what's this got to do with your dying, okay?

And then I'll answer your question, okay? I mean, we're gonna stop there. I just—I mean, I promise tonight to tie the ignorance thing to your death, okay?

And this is partly Tantra, okay? And generally Tantra shouldn't be spoken anywhere. But if it's a matter of life and death and if someone might not hear it again, you should hear it, okay?

Every time you have a negative thought, every time you misunderstand somebody like your boss, every time you have a bad feeling about him that would even compel you to say something to him bad, you do some very delicate damage to your spiritual body, okay? You have a physical body and you have a spiritual body. Are they the same thing?

No. If you cut open your body, would you see the spiritual body? No.

Is it related to your physical body? Yes, okay? Meaning if your physical—if your spiritual body is in very good health, your physical body will be healthy and young and stay beautiful, okay?

If you're—and conversely, if your physical body starts getting bad or angry, right? It affects your spiritual body. It's very interesting.

They have an interrelation, okay? Every time you have a negative thought, something happens inside your spiritual body and that damages your physical body, okay? It's very interesting.

Even if the thought is only to be stupid. I'm talking just not understanding who the boss is coming from. I'm not talking getting angry at him.

The very act of not understanding your boss damages your spiritual body. It's very interesting. There's a big fight in Buddhism.

They end up agreeing that the simple act of not understanding where your boss is coming from is enough to damage your spiritual body moment after moment during your life, and that makes you get old. It's very interesting. The simple act of not understanding that he's your projection and thinking that he's coming and that he's bad from his own side, just thinking that is enough to damage your spiritual body and then that damages your physical body and that's actually why you get old and eventually you die from that.

It's very, very interesting. So, if you can overcome that ignorance on a constant basis, you actually feel better physically. And if you did it constantly, if you practiced sincerely—what sincerely?

Oh, about the level it would take to become a good pianist. And I'm not kidding. It takes about that kind of effort.

Then you physically would start to change and you would see it. Would other people necessarily see it? No.

Does the dog see it as a pen? Not necessarily.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Maybe can't. Okay? Does that mean it doesn't exist as a pen to beings whose minds are on that level?

No. You can change. You can shift.

And that's the real meaning Chidagdheni Shombhadja, up in the left-hand corner there. You can destroy the Lord of Death if you understand these things. It's very beautiful.

That's the whole reason to have Buddhism in the world. It's not to sit and meditate in a corner somewhere. It's not to be friendly.

It's not to like, you know, be happy while you get old and die. That's not the meaning of Buddhism. The real meaning of Buddhism, from the beginning, first thing that came out of Lord Buddha's mouth, you don't have to die.

Marikpame. Marikpa sepa me pa ne. Gasshi me.

Gasshi sepa baru. Yen me do. Heart Sutra.

The whole process starts with ignorance. Marikpame. Gasshi me.

And you can stop your death if you get it right, about ignorance. He said that. That's the first thing that came out of his mouth.

So, the real purpose of Buddhism is not to like, watch your breath all day, or get calm while all this crap happens to you, or something like that. You can stop it. You can eliminate all those people.

And it actually works. It's very exciting. Everything you ever wish for, you can do.

If you understand the wheel. That's the point. That's the whole point of it.

Okay? You had one question, and then we'll stop, I think. Okay, cool.

I think it's a very auspicious place to stop. So, we'll do one short prayer, and then I'll see you, I think next—is it next week? Yeah.

See you next Friday.