Углублённый курс ACI: Колесо жизни в Сутре сердца (1999, Сан-Франциско), занятие 6

[Говорящий 1]
OK, so we're back to the real of life. OK. Last week we talked about karma and how you can trigger karmas at death, how you can activate karmas as you're in the process of dying.

So we're going to continue on that idea. OK. We were talking about the process from here.

Here you see the guy. It's called or it's not going to. OK.

This one here. I want to do. OK.

It's called nipa-dvijayaki le. Say nipa-dvijayaki le. OK.

Nipa means link number two. Remember the wheel of life goes around like a clock from one o'clock to twelve o'clock. Link number two is here.

And you see a guy making pots and that represents all the things you've done in your life, all the things you've said in your life, all the thoughts you've thought in your life. A lot of people don't appreciate that karma means not only what you say and what you do, but also what you think. And raw karma is what you think.

OK. So that's actually the most powerful kind of karma. Even if you never say anything or do anything, you're still making karma.

So in your life, you make thousands and thousands, millions and millions of karma. And karma just means you make some kind of imprint on your mind. OK.

And you know that if a shoe salesman gets on the bus, where do his eyes go? I mean, you're checking people's feet, you know, you're looking at who's got what kind of shoes, you know, and you think this guy's weird or something. I was in the diamond business for 15 years and I used to commute for two hours every day and I would get on the bus and sit next to some lady and I would start checking her diamonds, you know, and then they would like go like that, you know.

It's called a bhakta. Bhakta means you put some kind of impression on your mind every time you do something. And the more you do it, the more you put impressions you put in your mind.

And these are all karma. Karma means any time you say something, any time you think something, there's some kind of... Lakje means some kind of imprint or footprint literally is left on your mind stream and then it stays for a while.

OK. And in Buddhism we say it tends to get even stronger and stronger as time goes by. That it's like planting a seed in the ground.

And then the power of that impression subconsciously is growing all of the time. So every time you do something good for somebody, there's a good impression that's getting stronger and stronger in your mind. And then there's a...

Every time you think something negative about somebody, an impression is planted and it gets stronger and stronger. What's it got to do with your life? This karma that's made here by this guy when he's making pots, it comes over to number 10 here, which is over here.

And here we have a... I don't know if you can see it too well, but it's a lady who's pregnant. It's a lady with a big tummy.

And this represents the same karma that was made over here, but it's being activated. It's being made much more powerful. And we say that karma seeds can stay in your mind for a long time, but they don't do anything to you until they get activated.

So this is the process. Number 10 here is where we left off last week. We were talking about the special activation that goes on during the last moments of your life.

Let's say as you begin to die, just before your breath stops. As your breath stops, you go into some kind of hallucinations, standard hallucinations. They come as the blood stops, as the brainwaves stop.

Certain kinds of hallucinations are experienced in the mind. Just before that, you have a brief period where you can still think clearly and you can still affect what's going to happen to you after you die. So this number 10 refers to the process by which the pots you made during your whole life, you filled up your mind with all these seeds.

And then at number 10, as you die, certain seeds are activated, like a bomb is turned on or something. So it's very important that a person die correctly, that you know how to die, that you're living quietly. The whole Catholic idea of last rites or something, where a priest comes and says something to you and says, OK, now you're clean and you don't have to worry about it.

In Buddhism, that makes a lot of sense. It means that as the person dies, in their own mind, they're going to be at peace. They're going to think, whether it's true or not, they're going to think, oh, my bad deeds are all gone and I'm not going to have to worry now.

And we say that it's very important to die that way. So you die in a sense of peace and as you die, you're thinking, OK, my bad karmic seeds, I will not concentrate on those and I'll concentrate on the good karmic seeds. Try to remember the best things you did in your life.

Try to think and rejoice and be joyful. Most people are afraid at death and they say that that leads them to activate the wrong seeds. OK, so it's very important for a Buddhist to practice dying.

And there's even a practice where every night as you go to sleep, as you lose consciousness in your sleep, that you practice during that sort of mixed up state, thinking about good thoughts and imagining that you're selecting good karmas. OK, so trying to remember the best things you did in your daytime, you know, being happy about the good things that you did. So as a Buddhist, you should practice that, you know, in cases where you're losing consciousness.

And that's sleep is the most common. Like if you're into boxing or stuff like that, you can do it then. But everybody, most people sleep once a day and that's a good time to practice.

You're losing consciousness and as you're losing consciousness, you try to review all the great things you've done in your life and all the great things you've done during your day. And then when the time comes for number 10, the pregnant lady, meaning the karma is very, very ripe. It's about to, the karma is live.

The karma is loaded. The karma is about to do something. You see what I mean?

And at that time, it's very important to think about the good parts of your life and the good things that you did, which means that if someone you know is dying, it's very important that they die peacefully. OK, that you, if you're around them, that not everybody's crying and screaming and grabbing them. And they have to be left peacefully.

You have to talk softly into their ear. You know, they can still hear after the breath stops for a while. So, so don't, you know, drag them right off to a refrigerator or something.

You know, we say in Buddhism, let them alone for four or five, three hours, four hours is very good. Keep talking to them. Keep reminding them about the good things they did in their life.

Keep talking about it, you know, and that they can still hear even though the breath has stopped. They still have some sense in the sense powers. So you should keep talking to them.

Also, when they move into the bardo, which we're going to talk about, they still have some ability to hear what's going on and to understand different things, even to have some knowledge of mantras or things like that. Like even if they didn't have any interest in religion or they didn't have any interest in anything, you can still softly do mantras in their ears or something like that. And at that time they gained some what we call Lucia.

Lucia means the ability to understand languages that they haven't heard for a while, or the ability to to move through walls and things like that. They have special abilities for a short time during the state after death. So they can understand what you're doing and speak to them softly, calmly.

Don't let people go crazy in the room. Don't let people start screaming and crying and and make everything as peaceful as possible, beautiful as possible, happy. Make a whole ambience, you know, that they're dying in a very peaceful way and then keep reminding them of good things.

And the idea is that during this second blink over here, your whole life you've been collecting karmic impressions in your mind. Every time you see something, every time you taste something, every time you hear something, every time you say something, every time you think something, an impression is made in your mind. The idea is out of those millions of impressions at this time of death.

You want to activate the right ones. You want to choose the right. It's called some depth.

And that means to choose the right ones. So that's what we talked about last week. And now we'll move on to number 11.

Number 11 is right here. And since this is the last class, we have to get to 12 o'clock and explain a few pieces inside the wheel. Right.

So I'll ask you to repeat. Chuchipa.

[Говорящий 2]
Chuchipa.

[Говорящий 1]
Keva. Keva. Chuchipa.

[Говорящий 2]
Chuchipa.

[Говорящий 1]
Keva. Chuchipa means link number 11. Okay.

Chuchipa means link number 11. And Keva means literally birth. Okay.

It's the process of birth. So at number 10, in the last moments of your life, you are dying and certain karmas are being activated. And then those take over and you have a birth.

Okay. And that's what's happening here. She's having a baby.

Okay. The pregnant lady is now having a baby. And I don't know how clearly you can see it, but she's giving birth.

Okay. By the way, in Tibetan, Keva in the wheel means the stage of conception and not birth. Keva in Buddhist philosophy means the moment that the sperm and the egg meet.

The consciousness enters at that moment. Okay. So at that moment, consciousness enters.

We say that a bardo being like some kind of spirit being during death, in the period between death and rebirth, you have some time that you are like a spirit being. You can pass through walls. You can travel great distances and things like that.

But you get stuck when you're near your parents. Okay. It's like a spirit catcher, those things.

It's like a net. And once you reach that, you can't pass through it anymore. And you actually, the mind actually stops there and enters that first self.

So we say that you have life from the moment of the first self. And that consciousness has entered at that time. That's why in Buddhism you can't do abortion, because we believe that the mind has already entered the very first self at that time.

I want to talk a little bit about the idea of rebirth. Okay. I think, you know, people say, have you seen your future lives?

First of all, you can. Okay. If you meditate well, if you meditate properly.

And I don't believe, I'm not talking new agey, I'm not talking voodoo, I'm not talking... What's her name? No, what's her name?

She did a great fortune teller in that movie about the guy who died and tried to help his wife. Ruby Goldberg. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm not talking like that. I'm not talking about contacting your future life or something like that. I'm not talking about that.

I mean, I'm not talking about any stupid things. I'm not saying that, you know, you can go in a room and talk to them. In fact, the text that we studied last week had a section later on that said, Oh, some Tibetans are saying you can send a letter to your wife who died and they can answer you through a medium.

And the Lama says, that's all BS. You know, he said he actually states in the scripture, this is not true. Those people are fakes.

You know what I mean? But in a state of deep meditation, it is possible with training, with serious training, to see your future life. And you can do that.

And it's anybody can do that. But it takes a lot of training. People ask me how much training.

I say it's like learning to play the piano. It's a similar amount of effort. You know, I don't know how long it takes to learn to play the piano.

Well, I guess it depends on how hard you try and how old you are. Right. Or something like that.

But. But if you try hard at meditation about the way you would learn to play the piano by the time you get good at the piano, you could probably get good enough in your meditation to see those things. OK, this is about the same amount of effort.

The point is that very few people ever make that effort. You know, very, very few ever actually practice as much as a person who learns to play piano. And I know there's like three or four piano players in this room and it would be about that hard.

Probably there's about that many people who are learning, really meditating. OK. And who have put in the kind of effort that you have to.

But what does it mean to get reborn? OK. I mean, I'm not talking now about seeing your future life.

OK. I'm talking about in theory what happens to you when you're reborn. And I remember people would ask me when I was a kid, do you believe in rebirth?

I said, I don't know. And it sounds kind of weird. You know, you die.

And then I think the first thing that people think is that you always come back as a human. Like they say, you know, I used to be Julius Caesar. And before that, after that, I was Abraham Lincoln.

And I was Napoleon for a while. And, you know, I mean, people think. And then they say, did you meet your mom who died?

And you say, yeah, I met this baby. I thought maybe might be her or something like that. The odds of coming back is you think of a human realm.

This realm, this level, think of reality as a spectrum, like a light spectrum. And it goes from some very long wavelengths to some very short wavelengths or something like that. This huge spectrum of colors.

Think of it like that. And then beyond the colors are infrared and X-ray and everything else, you know. And and think of the realms that you can see as color, which I think on the spectrum is very tiny slice, very, very tiny slice.

And then and then the possible ways of seeing the world, the possible realities that you can experience are millions. There are millions of other realities that you could have been in. You see what I mean?

There are millions of versions of reality. You you are in one and you are seeing one. And it's like seeing colors.

And, you know, you assume that this is everything, all the colors there are, or you assume this is the only way it could be. And now scientists know that this is, you know, as far as visual reality, it's only a thousandth or a millionth of the actual range. You know what I mean?

You could have been different. Animals have the ability to see on different parts of that spectrum. So think of it as a spectrum.

The odds of coming back to this particular range are extremely small. You know, I mean, the odds of of of doing this over again and seeing this particular size of reality, according to scripture, according to Lord Buddha, who spoke about it at length, are very, very small, extremely small. Like like that's pretty unlikely, actually, that you would come back in this form.

What does come back mean? I mean, what do Buddhists believe? You see, when I first heard about rebirth, I thought maybe there's some like spirit inside of you.

And then I mean, this is the way I grew up when I was I grew up as a Christian. My parents were normal, not too religious and not too non-religious, like the average. Right.

And they would say, when you die, there's some kind of spirit inside of you. And if you have been good in your life and that spirit goes to heaven and if you haven't been good, then that spirit goes down to hell and you stay there forever. And then I I used to go to bed at night.

They say, OK, you have to do your prayers because if you die, you're sold. Pray the Lord your soul to keep, you know. And then I say, what's my soul?

And they say, oh, it's something inside of you that doesn't die when you die. And it's like you can't see it and it lasts forever. And then I would go to bed.

I remember I close my eyes and imagine this little bubble or something like clear, shiny bubble inside. You know, like like if they cut open my stomach, someone could find it, maybe. I mean, it was big.

It was about this big, you know, and it was in my chest or something. And that was how I imagined my soul. And so later, when people talked about rebirth, I had this picture.

And I think most Americans might have a similar idea of this soul. I die and this clear thing. It was ghost.

It was a movie ghost, you know. And the guy kind of pops out and then he wanders around for a while and he pops into somewhere else. You know what I mean?

And and that was the that was the thing I had about rebirth until I studied in the monastery. And then in the monastery, they train you. They tell you how it works for years.

They train you about it for years. They teach you how to die, you know. And and then they explain to you how it works and what happens to you.

And I think if you hear that explanation, I'll give it to you once. You have to hear it a couple of times to really appreciate it. OK, but but I think it'll help you understand the idea of being reborn again.

First of all, Buddhism says that your mind is essentially separate from your body. Like it's obviously related to your body in a loose way, but the mind is made of like some kind of untouchable stuff. Like you cannot weigh the mind.

You cannot cut the mind. You cannot burn the mind. The mind is related to the body, but the mind extends far beyond the body.

Like if I ask you, what's in your refrigerator at home? I mean, your mind, as I said the words, your mind went home and checked in the refrigerator. And if if some of my students haven't been at your house, whatever you had there is probably still there.

And your mind can go there and look in the refrigerator and, you know, see what's there. And you're like you're aware of what's there and your mind is aware. I don't say that your visual consciousness is there.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying the mind, the what we call the mental consciousness, the sixth consciousness has the ability to think about the refrigerator and imagine what's in the refrigerator. So your mind, although your physical senses are of touch, is limited to the edge of the skin.

And there's a big debate in Buddhist literature. How about your hair? You know, does your mind extend to the end of your hair?

And they decide, no, it's about, you know, somewhere down here in the roots, that what you would feel if someone plucked it out. I mean, somebody cuts your hair carefully, you don't feel it. So the limit of your tactile consciousness is basically the edge of your skin.

And then people think of their mind as being in their body. You see what I mean? You're confusing your tactile consciousness with your mental consciousness.

You see what I mean? It's not true that your mind is limited to the edge of your skin. But you think of you as limited to the edge of your skin, you see?

But your visual consciousness is limited to what you can see. So, I mean, my visual consciousness can stretch to the end of the room. And then your smell consciousness depends on what they're burning in the room, with incense or how long it's been since your friend took a shower.

Or, you know, there's a certain distance. You know, so what I'm saying is your mind actually, people tend to think of the silhouette of their body as being the edge of where their mind goes. But that's not true at all.

You see, your smell part of your mind can go a little further. The visual part of your mind can go a little further. And then the mental part of your mind, your mental consciousness, can go miles and miles and miles, thousands of miles, easily.

You see what I mean? So don't think of yourself like that anymore. Think of yourself as there's a mind which is clear, and which is sort of independent of the physical body.

You have to get used to that. Buddhism says your mind is visiting your body for a while. Your mind is here.

They'll say, you ask a Tibetan, why do you cut up bodies and give them to the birds when people die? And they say, why do you ask that? And you say, well, it's kind of gross.

And they say, no, no, the mind is gone. The mind goes. The mind has already gone somewhere else.

No problem, it's just a hunk of meat. Might as well do something useful with it. And they're surprised that anyone would think that the mind and the body are connected like that.

You see what I mean? And the idea that the mind stops because the body has stopped is some kind of... How do you say?

It's like voodoo. It's a wrong idea. It's a totally stupid idea.

You see what I mean? The idea that the mind dies because the body dies is a very, very small idea that's restricted to Western culture in the last couple hundred years. You see what I mean?

It's a weird idea that happened among certain people on this planet. And it's completely wrong and silly to say that the mind must stop because the body stops. That's just an idea that popped up in our culture a couple hundred years ago.

And not many other cultures have believed that. That's just a new idea that happens to be silly. That's like saying, because a car is broken down, the driver is dead.

Or because a hammer is broken, then the person holding it is dead. Or something like that. Buddhism says the mind is clear, conscious, ineffable, cannot be cut, cannot be weighed, cannot be burned.

It's loosely related to the body. It's hanging around your body. But it's not your body.

Don't get confused between the skin and your mind. And then people debated the Buddhists in ancient India. They said, no, no, when you cut your arm, it upsets you.

So the body is connected to the mind. And then they say, yeah, but what about people like in sports, you know, football players? Some guy comes up behind him and hits him really hard and he cuts them and they see the blood.

And like a good football player just goes wild after that. He just inspired to fight harder. You know what I mean?

And they say that doesn't prove anything. You can't say that cutting the mind, cutting the body cuts the mind. Then people who got amputated should be 25% lower IQ or something like that.

You see what I mean? They say it's not true. There's no connection like that.

It doesn't work like that. So your mind is basically separate and you have to get used to that. The idea that your mind stops when your body stops is primitive.

And you have to get used to that. You have to get used to that. It's not true.

Then you become a real Buddhist. By the way, the next thought you have tonight, after I say that, is real Buddhism. Because what is it?

What is the next thought? Well, what happens to me afterwards? You see what I mean?

I mean, just to have that thought occur to you makes you a real Buddhist. They say you're not a real Buddhist until you're worried about what's going to happen next. You see, really, that's in the scriptures.

You know, you don't get to first grade in Buddhism until the thought even pops into your mind. If what he said is true, then what's going to happen to me next? You know what I mean?

Then where do I go next? You see what I mean? And that's a very interesting question.

And now I'm going to go to emptiness, okay? I'm going to talk about rebirth in terms of emptiness. This is very cool and very true and a little difficult, okay?

So we've been talking in this class about this thing. What is it? Usually most people who come here for the first time, those poor souls, will say, it's a pen, okay?

And then we go through this long story. We explain it week after week. My old students start looking around the room when I start talking about the pen because they don't want to hear it again, okay?

It's only a cylinder, okay? It's a white cylinder with some red stuff on it, okay? All that you can be aware of with your physical senses is that I'm holding up a white cylinder.

You cannot be aware of its identity. Your eyeball doesn't identify the identity of things. Your eyeball just says, we got a white cylinder down here.

What do you think it is, you know? And then the mind says, well, let's see, according to my past experience, you know, I think it could be a pen. Especially because we saw it open into two white cylinders and then we saw some red stuff up here.

He was trying to make some red stuff up here. And so I think it must be a pen. And then the mind figures it out that it's a pen, okay?

But if you're strictly speaking, if you're a scientist, you know, you'd say, I'm only holding up a cylinder. And then your mind interprets it, thinks about it as a pen. Something has led your mind to do that.

Your past experiences, what your mom told you, what your first grade teacher told you, and then some instinct that you're carrying from your past life, we say. But it's very easy for you to think of this cylinder as a pen. Is it a pen from its own type?

If I pulled it out, if a dog walked in the door, came up to here and I held it out to the dog, would they think of it as a pen? They can't, okay? Now, whether you explain it past lives, it doesn't matter.

Something's lacking. They don't have the ability to see it as a pen. They see it as something to chew on.

Like if it's a puppy and I show it, I go, hey, hey, hey. And they jump up and they try to chew on it or something, okay? For them, this cylinder is something to chew on.

And they cannot even imagine it as a pen. They can't conceptualize it as a pen. They automatically see it as something to chew on.

Somebody gave me a Christmas card. Two students explained Christmas cards. It's a dog's, it's called a dog's interpretation of a Christmas tree.

And it has all these candy canes on it. But then the candy canes are labeled thing to chew. And then there's two arrows going under the tree that say place to pee or something.

And that's how they see a Christmas tree. See, they don't get this warm fuzzy feeling about the gifts. And they don't think about the angels.

And, you know, for them, it's those two things are there. Something probably smells great or too strong maybe. And then there's something to chew on it.

And then there's a place to do something on it. And they don't see it as any other way. We say it's karma that makes them see it a certain way.

We say a dog has a certain kind of mind. And a dog's mind, because of the imprints that were put on there in the past, they very easily see the tree that way. They very easily think of the things as something to chew on.

It's not that this is something to chew on from its own side. But if you see it, and suddenly your mouth starts to water, you know, and you're obsessed by chewing on it, then you're probably a dog. You see what I mean?

Or a puppy, a certain puppy. You see what I mean? If that's the first thought that pops in your mind, and if you never think of it as a pet, we would say that your brain is operating on a dog's level, okay?

If that same brain looked down at this cylinder, this is also a cylinder, okay? They would see a leg and a paw. And it's the same principle, okay?

It's the same principle. This is a cylinder, and this is a cylinder, okay? A dog's mind, according to us, because of their past karma, makes them see something to chew on, and makes them see a leg and a paw, okay?

And if you could stick a human's mind into that same being, they would see a hand and an arm and a pen. And there is no pen independent of that. You've got to get used to that.

There's no such thing as a dog's body. There's no such thing as a human's body. There is a cylinder with five smaller cylinders, and then, well, I don't know how many toes dogs have, but anyway, and the state of mind that you are in makes you see either a dog's paw or a human's hand, but there is no hand from its own side, and there is no pen from its own side.

Same principle. You've got to get used to that. That's emptiness.

That's what Buddhist emptiness means. It doesn't mean some black hole. It doesn't mean some mystical state.

It doesn't mean some green light that you see if you press your eye real hard or something like that, okay? It's the fact that this thing is only a cylinder. From its side, it's empty of being a pen or a chewable thing.

It's empty. It doesn't have that identity, and then your mind makes you see something, okay? What's this got to do with the wheel of life?

It's got everything to do with the wheel of life. And get used to the idea. You don't die and your soul goes and moves to some dog's body and starts barking or something like that.

It's not like that. Suddenly, the imprints in your mind that would make you see this cylinder differently assert themselves. To go from seeing that cylinder as a pen, of having your own...

It's your own mind which is making it pen-like. You see what I mean? It's your own mind that's making you see it as a pen.

It's not a pen from its own side. Otherwise, dogs would try to write with it. You see what I mean?

It's only a cylinder. But to make the move from seeing it as a pen to seeing it as something to chew on is what it means to get reborn. And you've got to get used to that.

If that's how you get reborn, then rebirth is a real possibility. You don't have to go meditate and see your future life. I just explained to you how it works.

If you think about it for a day or two, you'll get it. It's very easy to start seeing this thing differently. And as soon as you do, you are a dog.

You see what I mean? It's very weird. It's very, very scary.

You see? What does death mean? Death means that you've been seeing this as alive.

You've been seeing this cylinder... You've been seeing some kind of red stuff and some kind of thing here moving. And then suddenly one day you look down and it's not doing that.

It's all in your perceptions. There's imprint in your mind called karma, number two. And it's making you see this cylinder a certain way and suddenly it has changed.

And then we call you... Dead. And that's all death is.

There's no death which exists in another way. There's no death independent of that. That's how people die.

Your perceptions of your own body shift one degree along that spectrum. Tiny, tiny shift. And suddenly you're not seeing a living thing anymore.

You're seeing something dead. Then we call you dead. Then you are dead.

And that's how emptiness and karma work together. It's very, very scary. It means that anybody in this room could walk out and have a different perception of their body in five minutes from now and be what we call dead.

And then a few minutes after that if the perception changes just slightly you could see your hand as a paw. And other people wouldn't see it that way. You would see it that way.

It's very interesting. That's why everybody has a different favorite song. It's very interesting.

See, people fight over what's good music and bad music. And if you're good at convincing other people that you know you get to be a critic for the New York Times. There's a really lousy piece.

You read the movie reviews. It's a really lousy movie. I saw that yesterday.

It was the best movie I ever saw. I don't know what's wrong with this guy. That's the emptiness of movies.

Really, seriously. And it extends to actual reality of objects. You see what I mean?

It's not just interpreting a movie whether it was a good movie or a bad movie. It's the same for every object in the world. This is not a pen from its own side.

Either your mind is making you see it as a pen or your mind is making you see it as something to chew on. And that determines whether you're a human or a dog. It's very interesting.

It's very scary. Meaning you can shift from one to the other without a big change. If you had to die if some guy had come and cut your belly open and take out this soul thing and then go find a dog body and, you know, cut it open and put your mind in there and say, stay in there and sew it shut and then suddenly you're barking or something like that.

It's not like that. There's a million degrees of reality on the line, on the spectrum. You shift through them all day long.

Happy, sad. Happy, sad. Good job.

Fired. Promotion. Nice girl.

Bad girl. Nice guy. Ugly guy.

Treats me bad. Treats me good. And your mind is slightly moving between the spectrum all day long.

It's your karma sending out... new imprints are ripening all day long. And then suddenly there's a major karma comes along and you stop seeing your body as alive.

And then a slightly different shift and you're onto another line of that spectrum. And the spectrum is long. There's nothing to say you have to be a human at all.

The idea that you're going to come back and see your old friends or something is unlikely. The odds are very much against it. I always say I was in Moscow and they showed me this huge ugly building next to Red Square.

And I said, my God, what is that? And they said, this was built by the communists because they wanted to make the biggest hotel in the world. They just wanted to say they had the biggest hotel in the world and it has 1500 rooms or something.

And no one wants to stay there but they have the biggest hotel in the world. And the plumbing doesn't work and everything else. But they're very proud, or they used to be, that this thing has 1500 rooms.

Dying is very much like walking into the Moscow Hotel. And which room they're going to put you in is totally up to what's in your mind and what kind of karma has been activated as you die. So in the West, we cry, we scream, we stick stuff in their bodies.

We stick them in a refrigerator while they're still conscious. And totally wrong way for someone to die. Very important to let them die peacefully.

The whole place, there should be candlelight like an Italian restaurant. No, I'm not kidding. It should be peaceful, there should be some nice music.

You should be encouraging them to think some holy thoughts, sacred thoughts. There should be organ music in the background or Neil Young. And something that they feel comfortable with.

And then you should just talk them through it and let them die, let them take the right karma. Because whatever gets activated is the way you will see the world in five minutes. You see, that's what this story is all about.

Going from number 10 to number 11 is the story of which karma gets activated. And that's very cool. Okay, so how are you going to take rebirth?

Millions and millions of different choices. You can group them into five, what do you call, archetypes or something like that, like five standard, you can group the whole spectrum into five sections, or five areas. Within each area, there's thousands of different pieces or slices of reality.

But basically, there are five standard sections. The whole spectrum of living, of life, of living beings can be divided into five parts. And I'll go through it.

This part is hardest to explain to Westerners. They say, oh, I don't believe in that stuff. Now you can, you see what I mean?

Given what I explained, you can at least think maybe this is possible. It's not like I'm going to make you stay here until you accept the existence of hell or something like that. Maybe we can make it hell.

But anyway, it's not like that. But given what I just said, lots of weird things are possible, because of the stupid cylinder. And given the fact that this thing is empty, then this stuff takes on a new seriousness.

Many things are possible now. If what I said is true, then A, your mind doesn't stop when you die. B, it has to go somewhere.

And then C, if your world is really just what your mind is making you see, millions of possibilities. And it's true. And I'm saying it to try to help you to stay out of it.

You see, I'm saying it because it is true, and I'm trying to help you to go to at least a better one. I mean, not such a... If what I said is true, then the odds of going to some crazy weird reality is very high, and you have to try to take this seriously and die right, and do good things while you're alive.

That's the whole point of this class. Okay. This realm here is a human realm.

So, can you be reborn there? Say no. No.

Can your mind make you see that? Yes. You see, don't...

Get used to thinking like that. Okay? Get used to...

Your mind is making you see a certain level of reality now. And five... You know, a couple of hours from now, your mind will be making you see a different kind of reality.

And... And this is just a... what your mind is making you see right now.

What's in your mind that makes you see it? Which karma? What decides which karmas make me see what?

We talked about it last time. These two... Eight and nine, okay?

Your mental state, how pure is your heart, is going to make you see reality different ways. Okay? If you have compassion down here, then you're...

you're okay. If you're thinking about other people, you're okay. The more selfish this thing gets here, the worse this gets.

Okay? All right. So here are humans.

There's only one other realm that we can see, which is here. Animals. Okay?

Are there... Do you accept the idea that there are two realms going on in this room at this moment? Do you accept the idea that anyone in this room could have a flea or a lice on them?

I hope not. But anyway, probably somebody does. Okay?

And I'm not joking. I'm just trying to point out that two realms, two... two slices of the reality spectrum can be going on in the same place at the same time.

And there's no problem with that. If there was a dog sitting here, there would be a dog world here. If there's a human sitting here, there's a human world here.

In the same room, at the same time, two different realms or worlds going on at the same time. No problem. They don't, like, bump each other out.

It's not like when a dog walks in, all the humans have to leave. But it's not like that. Okay?

Realities can be going on simultaneously. The fact that a dog can walk in here and have a dog's reality going on and that the humans don't have to leave, they can still have their human reality going on, suggests that different realities can coexist in the same space. That's the point.

Okay? So these two realities are coexisting and you can perceive them. You know that.

You know that there's animals and you can't read their minds, but you have a good idea that they are experiencing something totally different. You know? They don't react to TV properly.

They don't react to your favorite songs properly. They overreact to dog biscuits and stuff like that, that you don't care about. So there are obviously some of the realities going on for them.

Okay? So those are these two possibilities. The other possibilities you cannot perceive right now, Buddhism says, don't go teach Buddhism in a hall in New York City on Friday night and try to talk them into believing in hell and things like that, because they can't perceive it.

You know, you can say, Lord Buddha said, there's these other three realms going on as we speak. Okay? Where?

Do they have to be in a different place? No. Like, you know, and do you have to be able to see them for them to exist?

That's very parochial. You know, it's very typically human to think that, you know, the way they make popcorn in Kansas City is the only way to make popcorn or something like that. But all things are possible.

If you can have two realms going on in the same room, why not three? Why not four? Why not five?

How do you know that the other people in this room are seeing it the way you see it? How do you know that they're not having a totally different experience of this room? Where is heaven?

You know? How do you know that someone in this room isn't experiencing some kind of heaven or something? You see what I mean?

If a dog can be experiencing something, then maybe somebody in this room is experiencing heaven. Then you can say, no, they would have told me. Okay?

But when they said, hey, you know what, I'm experiencing heaven, you might have heard, hey, can you loan me a dollar or something? You see what I mean? There's no guarantee at all that the reality you're tuned into is even what...

I mean, they could even say something and you could hear something totally different. That's the emptiness of this room. You see, emptiness is very important in Buddhism.

There is no standard reality in this room. There could be a hundred different realities going on in this room. Because this room is empty.

Okay? It's like the cylinder. It's not a pen and it's not something to chew on from its own side.

It depends on what being is experiencing it under what karmic impressions in their mind. Okay? So what are the other three realms?

I feel like I have to tell you. You don't have to believe in them. But if I'm going to teach the Wheel of Life, I have to explain all the parts of it or else you'll go home and say, they gypped me, you know.

They didn't give me... They didn't tell me what those three boxes were on the painting. Okay?

This one is called Dretta. In Tibetan it's Yidak. And it means a craving spirit.

Okay? Spirit meaning they're hard to see. Okay?

We don't believe they're made of mind or some kind of invisible marshmallow-y material or something like that. We believe that they are very hard to perceive visually given our eyesight, you know, given our ability to perceive colors and shapes. We have a very primitive ability to see colors and shapes.

They have bodies. They are ghost-like. And maybe when they reported ghosts in places they were seeing these beings.

Okay? I don't know. But they're very similar to what they describe as ghosts in the West.

And they exhibit similar behavior. For example, if a person was particularly attached to their home, you know, if they were like one of those people who buys a beautiful carpet and then covers it with plastic because they don't want anyone to dirty it, you know what I mean? Very attached to that house as a material object.

Then we'd say it's very possible they could be born as a what we call a spirit or a craving spirit and hang around that house for another 20 years or something. You see what I mean? And then people would say the house is haunted.

You know, you might occasionally someone who's tuned in to them might be able to sense them there. And we say that's totally possible. And that's typical preta behavior.

Very typical behavior for that kind of rebirth. Is there such a rebirth? No.

You can see yourself. You see what I mean? Again, it's that same principle.

You perceive the world that way.

[Говорящий 2]
You see what I mean? That could be going on in this world. You know?

They say any given place there's two or three at least, you know, around.

[Говорящий 1]
And it's because they are being forced to perceive this room a different way from the dog and the human. By the way, who's right? The dog or the human?

Is this a pan or something to chew on?

[Говорящий 2]
No, who's right?

[Говорящий 1]
No, you see, both of them are right. Okay? I mean human rights and animal rights equal.

Okay? They have the karma to see it one way and for them that's correct. And we have the karma to see it a different way and for us we're correct.

Okay? And then somebody might have the karma to perceive this room as a spirit, you know, them being a spirit. And that's no problem.

You see, you gotta get used to that. Don't be so small-town to think that yours is the only town. You know what I mean?

It's not like that. They say frogs in a well imagining the ocean. You know?

Don't be like that. Okay? Okay, what's the other realms here?

Here we have hell realms. Okay? And I've heard Buddhist teachers get up and say Oh, this is just a metaphor for a bad day in New York City.

You know, there's no such thing. It's not like that at all. I mean, it's not impossible to imagine that at one moment you're perceiving yourself as having a nice, quiet dinner in Baghdad at 10 p.m. two nights ago with your wife or something. And two minutes later your body is covered with flame and you're watching the flame on your arm and your legs and it's real. You see what I mean? I mean, if you say that's impossible then you didn't read the newspaper two days ago.

That guy was having a quiet dinner in a restaurant. Unexpectedly, two minutes later, his body is covered with flame. And he's...

You see, his karma is making him see his body covered in flame. Is he covered in flame? No.

Buddhism says no. Does he see himself covered in flame? Yes.

Does it hurt as much as if he was covered in flame? Absolutely. You see what I mean?

But it's still only a perception. But it hurts as much as being covered in flame. And so to say that, oh no, it's not possible, I could go to a place where my body is covered in flame is naive.

You know, it's naive. If it can happen to a nice, innocent guy having dinner with his wife in Baghdad, you know, then it can happen... You know, is it impossible that it could happen to you after you die?

You'd have to say no, it's not impossible. I don't believe it, but okay, it's not impossible. You know what I mean?

And he would have said not too possible either. You know what I mean? Clinton's busy.

You know, he's... You know what I mean? And...

It's not the case. It's totally possible for you to be... In the hell realms, you are like that, okay?

Your body is covered with fire and you can't die. You know, you can't die from what would normally kill a person. So you just have to experience it like that.

And very... Very great suffering, okay? It comes from being negative in this life, hurting other people, not caring about other people, ignoring other people, being unkind to other people, bombing people's countries, okay?

Stuff like that. And then that makes you see those things, okay? That makes your mind see those things.

And you have to... You seriously have to try to avoid it, okay? Being good to other people is a lot of fun and it makes you happy, even if there's no such thing as a future life.

So, I mean, my boss is very practical. He's Israeli. He still used to give me nice donations for the monastery, you know?

And I'd say, why? He'd say, I'm covering all my bases, you know? And, you know, it doesn't cost you anything to be nice to other people.

It's fun. It's the most satisfying way to live. And just possibly, there's such a thing as proceeding yourself on fire ten minutes after you die.

You see what I mean? Just possibly there is such a thing. So why not cover your bases?

What have you got to lose? You know? It's no fun to be bad to other people.

So, just don't do it, okay? Okay, last one is... We call deva realm.

Deva realm is people who've been pretty good in this life, like they did a lot of meditation without understanding meditation, like they watched their breath for ten years or something like that, okay? The nice thing about watching your breath for four or five hours a day is that you can't lie to anybody during that time. You can't hurt anybody very badly.

So we say you collect, like, good karma by default. It's called good karma by default. It's called samtengidomba.

And you keep yourself out of trouble just by staying home. And we say you collect a certain kind of lazy good karma. You know?

And then you get born into this place where everything is like very similar to a heroin experience for a long time. You know, like being drunk for a long time. And you don't feel so bad and you don't feel so good.

You just... They call it sawatangyom. Means you're in this sort of a semi-high for a long time.

And during that time, according to Buddhism, you are burning up good karma very fast. It takes a lot of good karma to maintain a high. A physical high.

Like, that's why drugs wear out. That's why LSD doesn't last that long. Or cocaine.

Or that's why you have to keep buying heroin again. It's because it's also a karmic projection. And it's very expensive, karmically.

You have to have been very good to other people to get high for an hour or something like that. There's a lot of karmas going off. We say 65 per second, millisecond, karmas are burned up by being high.

So... There's this... The hangover, right?

Or the down afterwards is typical of that kind of karma. If you used up karma, sweet karma, that heavy, you know, to have like a high for 10 or 12 hours or something like that. This is very similar to...

If you get born in this place, meaning if you're projecting this kind of karma at a very high rate of speed, it's like using up a credit card, and then you start some kind of debt at a point. And then they say that it's very typical to go from this projection to this projection. That's almost always the case.

It's like a flowchart. That you use up all your good karma, and then there's only this karma left. Where does karma stay?

Is it something that there's a guy up in the sky that they haven't seen yet with the space shuttle, and he's got this big beard, and he's counting, he's looking down, you know, even when there's clouds, right? And he's counting everything, and you did this many good things, you did this many bad things. No.

Karma is collected on a videotape recorder located in your own mind. It's your own mind. And it's very interesting.

As you see yourself do things, as you're aware of yourself having thoughts, as you're aware of yourself making someone feel good or bad by the things you say, all of those things are being recorded indelibly on your own mind stream. I mean, every time you have a thought, you create a small impression in your mind. And then that grows and grows, and then there has a time when it comes out again.

And don't think of karma as some, you know, stupid Buddhist idea that, you know, cosmic justice or something, and it lives out in Jupiter or something, and comes back on the next asteroid or something like that. It's not like that. It's recorded in your mind every minute of your day as you watch yourself saying things and doing things.

And then it comes back to you. It manifests itself in how you perceive reality. It creates your reality.

I think we'll stop there. And we'll take a break for five, ten minutes, and then we'll come back, and I'll give you this little... I think the only thing we've got left is this little donut here and this box up here.

And then you guys will be experts in the Wheel of Life. OK? Just so you know what else is happening in this Wheel, OK?

The only thing we haven't covered is this donut here. And that represents a kind of birth that doesn't count in the other five. And that's called bardo, the bardo.

OK? Bar means in between. And bardo means in between the time that you die or, more correctly stated, the time that you...

you think you see yourself dying. Because that's all it ever is. Which is the same as dying.

You've got to get used to that. OK? Seeing yourself die and dying is the same thing.

That's what makes you die. That's why you don't have to die. And you've got to get used to that.

OK? You have to get used to that. So seeing yourself die, in between that time and the time that you start seeing this as a pen or something to chew on, depending on how it's going to go.

OK? Depending on what was activated in your mind, what karmas were activated. By the way, there's hope, right?

I mean, the Bible was right. They say you can be a lousy person your whole life. But if you know how to activate the right seeds at the end, you can still make it a good one.

OK? Is that smart? Is that...

It's like... Is that smart? We say, no, it's very dumb.

You know, like, the odds are much better if you've been a good person your whole life. OK? So, you know, you really should try to help other people your whole life.

And then the activation, what you've got to choose from at the end is much, much easier. Normally when you die, something bad has happened, you got hit by a car, you're usually very upset. OK?

And it's hard to think straight. So it's better if all the odds presented to you are good ones. You see what I mean?

It's better if all the choices are positive, because you might not be in any shape to choose wisely. You might... You'll probably be panicking at that moment.

So it's better if you load up your head with good karmas. You know, be good to other people your whole life. And then no matter what happens at the end, you'll be ready for it.

OK? You have good things to choose from. So here these people in the black are having perceptions of going down.

And this... People who go through the bardo, or the state between death and... and re...

I don't like to call it rebirth. How about seeing yourself as something or another? OK?

You have some kind of darkness during that period. And the people who are going up to a good place are all having some kind of... It's like they say, the lamas say, it's like walking up a hill with the bright sunshine going.

And there's this... There's this feeling of... of walking upwards and having some kind of bright light around you and some kind of good feeling like that.

So that's what this circle represents. And you see how you could cycle? You know, it's like...

Where are you gonna get off? The elevator. You see what I mean?

Which one are you gonna get off into? And that's what the meaning of this part of the wheel of life is. OK?

You gotta get used to that. OK? That's...

That's what's happening in this circle here.

[Говорящий 2]
OK?

[Говорящий 1]
Now we have one last thing to talk about. At the beginning of this class, we said that this circle represents how you get stuck here. According to Buddhism, this part of the spectrum is a mistake.

This is not a good place to stop. It's not a good elevator floor to get off at. Everything here is a big disappointment.

You know, you come in healthy. You come in smart. You come in with big hopes.

Then you get confronted with life. And then, slowly it begins to disappoint you. You know, even if you have some successes, you get old.

Even if you meet somebody that you love, they die. Even if you're able to collect some material possessions, you have to give them up. And ultimately, this place is not a happy place.

And nothing can go right here, basically. So that it's important to understand that this whole wheel representing our life is a mistake. You know, our life is a mistake.

Is there no beauty in life? No, there's lots of beauty. You know, children, children is beautiful.

Sunsets are beautiful. Neil Young music is beautiful.

[Говорящий 2]
OK?

[Говорящий 1]
I mean, it's not true that there's no beauty. There's lots of beauty. But it always wears out or it always goes away or something happens and then you're unhappy again or you're dissatisfied again.

So that's represented in this wheel by the fact that it is a wheel. OK? And then ultimately, the end of everything, whether your life goes well or bad or 50-50, is still in the clutches, the hands and feet of the Lord of Death.

OK? So this represents the Lord of Death. Do they think there's some mean guy with big fangs who comes and sucks your blood out late at night one night or something like that?

No, they don't believe that. This represents a condition which you are born with. And as you get older, every day, it gnaws away at you.

The fact that your body was created and your mind was created by certain circumstances and that those circumstances lose their energy. And so your eyes get worse, your ears get worse, your teeth start to, you know, 40-year-old dental problems and stuff, and then your body starts to get bent over. And it's inevitable.

It happens to everyone. OK? So that's what this represents.

Now there's one person outside. OK, that's Lord Buddha. He's over here.

He's out of it. He got out. He used to be here.

And then somehow he got out. OK? And he's pointing to this box here and this moon.

The moon represents nirvana and Buddhahood. It represents the day that you look down at your arm and you see pure golden light and you are a tantric angel. OK?

And there's no problem. You can do it. OK?

You just have to load this up with really good karmas. And then you look down one day and instead of seeing an arm or a paw, you see some kind of incredible Taurus body or something. OK?

What is it? Yeah. Totally different thing.

Totally completely different thing. OK? By the way, that's why tantra works.

That's how tantra works. OK? But tantra is very tough.

Tantra means you have to keep certain kinds of morality, certain kinds of ethical living, certain kinds of way of thinking very, very strictly, very holy inside of you, very sacred feeling your whole life. And then your actual body starts to change. Does it start to change?

No. Your mind starts to change and then you see something different. And then you are a Buddha.

You see? That's the whole point. So Buddha already finished that.

Now we get to the... to the text that you have. OK?

The text... I don't know if you got it yet. Did you get it yet?

No. OK. Well, I'll go over it with you.

It says, saṃpācāśi yuṅgocā saṅgye tenla jhūpa-cā jambay kim la laṅcīn-cīn citta-deni śrama-cā The first... There's two verses there. OK?

They're so important that monks are required to memorize them and we're required to recite them twice a month when we do our purification ceremony together. So, it goes like this. saṃpācāśi yuṅgocā means, you know, learn what you should do and learn what you should stop doing.

Meaning, you know, be compassionate to others, do good things for other people and give up the things that are negative. You know? Give up hurting other people.

It's not worth it. Life is too short. Even if Buddhism is a big lie and this whole wheel is a big stupid thing, it's still more fun to be good and compassionate to other people and you're still more happy if you do it that...

if you live that way. It happens to be that the wheel is true. So, it's the smartest thing you can do with yourself.

You know? Because you will have to go somewhere else because your mind doesn't stop. OK?

Forget soul or spirit or anything like that. We don't believe in that. Your mind cannot be stopped.

You can shoot yourself in the head and the mind won't stop at all. It keeps going. If there's a 1% chance that it keeps going, it's probably smart to do something.

OK? So, Tsam-pa-ja-shin-yu-wa-ja means then, yu-wa-ja means give up this worldly way of life. Meaning, in your mind, try to dedicate your efforts to something good, something meaningful in your life.

OK? Yu-wa-ja means give up just trying to feed yourself and clothe yourself and make sure you have a nice house and things like that. You know?

Do something for other people. OK? Yu-wa-ja.

Sang-ye-ten-la-ju-pa-ja means start acting in a way that's taught in this wheel. OK? Start following a compassionate way of life or at least you do something for other people.

Sang-ye-ten-la-ju-pa-ja. Dan-pa-kim-la-lang-chen-shin means this is very cool. You take little twigs and you build like a toy house, like a...

What do you call those things the kids make? Those round things with the sticks that you stick in them?

[Говорящий 2]
Tinker toys.

[Говорящий 1]
Tinker toys?

[Говорящий 2]
Tinker toys or Legos.

[Говорящий 1]
Tinker toys or Legos. OK. Think of a little house made of Tinker toys or Legos.

OK? And then think of a five thousand pound elephant. OK?

And the image in the scripture, this is from two and a half thousand years ago, Buddha wrote this poem. OK? He says, think of an elephant stepping on this Tinker toy house.

You know? OK? And think of a huge elephant that jumps on top of this Tinker toy house.

OK? Dan-pa-kim-la-lang-chen-shin. Dan-pa-kim means reeds like a little house made out of twigs.

Lang-chen-shin means elephant. Chi-da-den-ni-cho-ma-ja means you can smash death in that same way. It's very beautiful.

OK? The last line says you can smash death in the same way. And, you know, people say I got interviewed on the phone from Australia and said they made me pay for it.

And some lady is writing a book, you know, and she wants to make a chapter about what we're doing here. And then she says, well, tell me what you teach. And I told her about this class.

And I told her, you know, the purpose of the Wheel of Life is to teach people how to avoid number twelve. Which we didn't do. OK?

OK. You're distracting me with a cake and all that. This is a guy carrying a big load.

OK? This load is in Tibet when you die, they one guy pushes you from the back and one guy pushes you from the feet and they put you in a fetal position. And then they take a belt and a strap, a leather strap and they strap it around you and then they tighten it.

And then they put you in a burlap sack and then one guy carries the body out. I mean, that's the Tibetan hearse. OK?

And then they they carry you onto a mountain and they throw the body down there and they cut it up and they mix it with cornmeal or barley meal and then they feed it to the animals. You know? And then there's these animals that always live there waiting for these bodies.

And they say at least do something meaningful with the bodies. So what you see there is number twelve is called gasshi. Say gasshi.

Gasshi. Gasshi. Gasshi means the shi part means dying and the ga part means getting old.

OK? Now a question for you. Philosophical question.

We debate this in the monastery now. You know? Which means why did they stick those two together?

Why did they have link number twelve, old age? Aging. And then link number thirteen, death.

Huh? She says because you don't have to get old and die. Right?

Yeah, right. OK? That's the right answer actually.

Meaning that lots of people get killed in the womb. OK? Lots of people get killed a week out of the womb.

They don't go through an aging process particularly. So Buddha said let's stick it together as one link because some people get old and die and some people don't get old and die. So we better put it as one link.

Gasshi means aging and dying is link number twelve. Gawadakshiva. OK?

And that's why they put them together. Now the punchline. OK?

How do you destroy the Lord of Death? This thing here, although you can't read it very clearly in the Tibetan. Chidabdheni Somajamy.

You can stop your death. As if you were an elephant jumping on a what do you call those things? Lego.

A Lego house. OK? I mean that finally you can destroy your own death.

OK? And I have lots of... Oh, the lady in Australia.

OK? And she's asking me, what do you teach about? And I say, well, I'm teaching them the Wheel of Life.

She says, what's the point of Wheel of Life? I say, well, I teach you how not to die. And you don't have to die.

And she says, and she like giggles and says, I never heard of that. This lady's been writing about Buddhism for twenty years or something. And I said, well, that's the whole point of Buddhism.

She says, no, no. It's like be calm, meditate, be happy. And I said, yeah, you will be, but after you figure out how not to die, you can be calm and be happy.

You know? Stuff like that. You know?

And she says, well, I never heard that. You know? And I said, well, you know, it's like this and this and this.

And she says, oh, that makes sense. So how do you... First of all, can you stop your death?

I mean, if your death is the same as the pen, then you can. How come you never saw anybody do it? We talked about it before.

[Говорящий 2]
Does...

[Говорящий 1]
Do pens exist, I ask you? Yeah, well, I'm, what do you call it, Fido the dog, and I say, no, they don't exist. Why would Fido the dog say that?

They don't perceive... They can't even... You see, they can't conceive a pen.

They can't conceptualize a pen. If you put a pen in front of them, what? They see something different, you see?

Is it something different? See, you have to say, to them, yes. Completely different.

Are they wrong? From their point of view. But is it right for dogs to get up in the class and say, pens don't exist?

You see what I mean? You see, for them, they don't exist. But that doesn't mean that in general they don't exist, okay?

And they would swear to God that pens don't exist, because they just can't even think of a pen. And you could stick a pen in front of their face and say, what is that? You know, and they'd say, I'm going to chew on it, you know?

They can't think of it as a pen. They can't see it as a pen. They have a thing in their mind that doesn't allow them to conceive of a pen.

Even if the pen is in front of them, in our terms, they can't see it. You see what I mean? What it means is there are certain things that divide realms.

There's two realities going on in this room, at least. And there's some kind of border between them. Meaning, I stand on this side of the border as a human and say, what is this?

And the dog stands on the other side of the border and says, that's something to chew on, you know? And I'm, from my side, I'm saying, you're crazy, look, it's a pen, you know? And they're saying, no, you're crazy, it's something to chew on.

And there's a border created by the two realms between the two realms. You see what I mean? And it's a border that's created by the mind.

And the dog truly, honestly can't see a pen. It's the same with death. Many, many lamas, many, many Buddhists, many practitioners of Buddhism have reached this goal where they don't have to die anymore.

Many people have reached that place. You can't see them. So say they don't exist is silly.

I saw the guy, he died. Did he see himself die? You don't know.

And I'm not making it up. If it's true about the pen, I'm sorry, if it's true about the cylinder, then you must accept the possibility that it's true about other objects. You have to.

It's logical. It's hard to imagine because you grew up that way. It's hard to imagine because they told you for years and years and years you have to die.

And you believe it. But it's not true. It's not logical.

And if you're honest, you have to say maybe it's not true that I have to die. Maybe it is a projection. Hang on one sec.

I'm getting to the emotional part. It's really not true that you have to die. It's really not true.

So where do you break it? How do you get out of the wheel of life? I mean, that's the last thing and then we'll stop.

It's this one right here. It's this one right here. This blind guy, number one.

The troublemaker. You make it or break it here. You make it or break it at number one.

That's why it's number one. Number one is a blind man. Ignorant.

Meaning, blind about what? Blind about what I've been saying over and over and over about this? Cylinder.

Blind about that fact. What's an example? How does this affect your daily life?

Are you supposed to go around wondering if this is a pen or a dog biscuit? Does that help you? We say no.

So what's the point of you keep talking about it? How do I break the wheel of life? Stop collecting the karmas that make you see it as a pen.

Start collecting the karmas that make you see it as some kind of golden light in a Buddha paradise. Because it could have been that. It could have just as well been a dog biscuit for you.

You see what I mean? It depends on what you do. It depends on what kind of karma you put in your mind.

It depends on what kind of seeds you plant. Well, how do I plant good seeds? If you're right, then can't I just put some good seeds in my mind?

How long does it take for this to work? How long would it take for me to see this as a hundred dollar bill? How much good seeds do I have to do?

I'll test. I'll check it. That's an American attitude.

Like fast food. And it's all right. It should be like that.

If I believe your spiel, then how long do I have to be a good person to see some kind of change? And I say this. First you have to learn what are the most powerful kinds of karma.

You see what I mean? You have to study. There's like a certain amount.

They call it ten or twenty kinds of karma which are very, very powerful. And if you learn what they are and then you do them, then I could say, yeah, six months you could see something change. Twelve months, things would happen which are unusually good.

A year or two, you start seeing things which are amazing. After two years, three years, you see things which are flatly impossible. You know what I mean?

Like people walking on water and stuff like that. You know what I mean? Like totally impossible things.

You start to see them that other people don't see. And that's because you've been keeping this. There's ten or twenty very powerful karma.

And you have to study them. I can't do them in the next ten minutes. What are they called?

They're called bodhisattva-bhava. Bodhisattva-karma. And you have to study them.

You have to know what they are. And we'll talk about them when we start the class in February. If you really want to know, just in case you die in January, talk to...

I think Aura would be the person. You can take them. There's an audio tape thing.

Or you can go to the... There's a store we have on Fifth Street between Second and Third called Three Jewels. And you can go there and you can listen to them for free or you can borrow them or anything you want.

But you can learn the list of those karmas. It's called bodhisattva-karma. Bodhisattva-deeds.

You can check it out yourself. Try it for a while and see if something changes. It's very, very fun to watch it change.

Since you were a kid, you heard them talk about religion. When you were a little kid, you heard the stories about the Bible stories and stuff like that. You know, miracles.

And people doing unbelievable stuff. And raising dead people and stuff like that. And it was part of what you believed in.

It was like with Santa Claus and everything else. It was like you really believed that those things could have happened. And your parents tell them to you with a straight face even though they don't believe them anymore.

You see what I mean? You go to Sunday school. They teach you that stuff.

The teacher probably honestly doesn't believe that it's possible. But the kids who are listening are like, that's wonderful, you know. I wish they could do that.

That would be great. And you really believe in it. And then as you get older, you say, was there really such a thing?

And your parents start to fudge it. They start to say, well, you know. And then later on you decide it's impossible.

You never saw anybody walk across the Hudson River. You know what I mean? And then you say, you know, you get to about, I don't know, 10 years old or 15 years old and you say, yeah, that stuff's just Bible stuff, you know.

And it's not true. You really don't believe it after that. What I'm saying is that if you go through this class, if you understand emptiness of this thing, all that stuff is totally possible.

All the stuff you ever wished about religion, you know, that you thought might be true when you were a kid, that was all true. You were right. And then you got wrong.

You know what I mean? Like, you were right. When you thought that you were right.

And the Bible and all that stuff is true. You can do those things. Those things exist.

There is a different reality called heaven or whatever you want to call it. I think the politically correct term is Buddha Paradise or something. I don't, you know, I don't care what you, it doesn't matter what you call it.

There is a place like that. And you can be there. You can get there.

It's very, very cool. It's very exciting, you know. And it's because of the pen thing.

So remember it. And then he's pointing to that thing. And you can do it.

It's not some meditation stuff or friendly to other people stuff. It's not that. We're talking life or death.

And you don't have to die like that. This realm is temporary. Every being in this room will eventually become an enlightened being.

And it's because of that thing with the pen. So think about it. And then keep working on it.

And you can do it. You don't have to die like that. You don't have to live like that.

We'll stop there. We'll do some prayers. You have one question.

Sorry. I'm sorry. Good question.

She said, what happens to people who kill themselves? Buddhism says that you have been equipped with a brain which can understand what I'm saying. And that's the most precious thing in the universe.

You see, a brain that's on that spectrum of reality that can understand what the last six classes were about and can say, OK, 1% chance this guy is right. You know, 1% chance what he said is logical. And just that state of mind in the universe is extremely precious.

So Buddhism says that when you destroy that ability to think like that, you can't destroy the mind. But when you shoot yourself or something, you destroy the current ability to think that way. And we say you've destroyed one of the most sacred objects in the world.

It's much better to go rip down a temple or a church than to destroy a human mind that could have reached that kind of heaven. So we say very, very serious, very bad karma to destroy that state of that mind that could have done it. And that body that could have carried that mind until that time.

You know, so we say very serious mistake. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that's like he said, well, if it's such a precious opportunity, why is it a mistake to be here? I mean, did you see what's a finding private Ryan saving fire? I mean, to be standing behind the thing on the beach where you get a little bit of cover is a great opportunity compared to all the other guys getting shot.

But doesn't mean you want to be there. I mean, I mean, of all the bad places to be, that's the best one. And it's just like that.

It's just like that. This body is getting older every day. You know, the mind is getting duller every day after a certain age.

And the odds of pulling it off are getting lesser every day that you wait. So so basically, it's a dangerous place to wait. I mean, I keep thinking those guys on the beach, why are they sitting there?

They should run off the beach. You know, they're just paralyzed. You know, they don't want to say, you know, they don't know what to do.

They're scared, you know. So, I mean, that's a bad place to be. And you have to move.

You know, you have to try because time is short. You don't know how long it will last. You don't know how long this particular body will last.

OK, that's one more. And then we'll stop. Yeah.

She asked if you if you were never taught that this is a pen and somebody held it up to a human. Right. I said, what's this?

You probably say it's a cylinder. Right. And that's true.

And does that mean that being able to see it as a pen is something only which is learned? Because even if I say like if an Eskimo from the 13th century walked in here and I held it up. And then I said, what is this?

And they say, oh, interesting, smooth stick, you know. And and and then it might you might be tempted to think that the reason they didn't recognize it as a pen was that we call it. They just weren't acquainted with the concept of a pen.

And if if they stay here for six months in New York City, they'll learn that it's a pen. See, we're talking. That's true.

But we're talking about a more basic instinct, like a more basic seed in his mind that Eskimo's mind, just some seed or some karma in his mind that if you explain it to them reasonably and if you show them how it works, they will start to conceive of it as a pen. We say that's also karma. And then if you do the same thing to a dog for the same period and you say, look, you didn't you thought was just a stick.

But look at this, you know, show them. No, it's not a joke. And I'm not making a joke.

I'm very I'm dead serious. They won't get it. You see.

And Buddhism says that's the result of karma. They're not able to project or to see it or conceptualize it as a pen, even after training. And the reason the human is able after a week or two of explaining is not because they suddenly understood it.

It's because they have a karmic seeds in their mind that allows their mind to shift that way. So it's all consistent with that. OK.

All right. We'll do some prayers after prayer. Be silent for like a minute.

And we say you collected some very, very, very heavy karma. Talking about the possibility that you can actually reach some kind of heaven and giving people a logical method to do it. It's extremely rare in this sector of reality.

OK. This doesn't exist much in the sector of reality. You know, it just happens here like a spark and then it goes out for a long time.

And then once in a while, every every very rare occasions, very rare places, very even call them a place of a point of power in time and space. This elementary school, I got to remember that there's a spark and then it just passes very quickly and maybe it doesn't happen again for a long time. And we say it's a very, very rare in this area of reality that such conversation can go on, that some people stuck here can actually talk about and understand these ideas and hear them.

So it's a very good karma, extremely good karma, very powerful. Maybe the best karma done in New York City today. Because nobody talked about this today, you know, in a reasonable way, you know.

So then the best thing to do is to send that karma out to other people. It's a very interesting idea that the best way to keep the energy and to have another class together is to take that good karma and dedicate it to the people in New York City, for example. So take that good karma during the silence and imagine it like white light and going out of this room and just touching people, you know, animals, dogs, everybody.

You can send it down the subway halls or something, you know, like that. And imagine it during the silence. And then we say that that would make this happen again.

You see what I mean? Okay, all right. We'll do a short prayer and then we'll do that.