Углублённый курс ACI: Колесо жизни в Сутре сердца (1999, Сан-Франциско), занятие 7

[Говорящий 1]
I suggest we meditate for a few minutes, okay? I'm sorry we're late, we had a car breakdown on the way, so... Recite the Heart Sutra.

And... what you're supposed to do during this time is to think about emptiness, whatever you understand about emptiness, try to think about it during this time. And...

it'll prevent obstacles during the teaching, okay? Okay. So, what you're supposed to do during this time is to think about emptiness, try to think about it during this time.

And... what you're supposed to do during this time is to think about emptiness, whatever you understand about emptiness, try to think about it during this time. And...

So my talk tonight will be about Heart Sutra, and specifically one part of the Heart Sutra. The Heart Sutra may be one of the most famous sutras in Buddhism. the real name of it, as you can see on your paper, is something like the Conquering Queen, Bhagavati.

the name of the Heart Sutra is named after... they don't call it the Conqueror, which would mean a male Buddha, they call it Conquering Queen, which means a female Buddha, because wisdom is feminine, female energy, and the name of this book, The Perfection of Wisdom, is called Bhagavati in Sanskrit, or the Queen Who Conquers, something like that. And then the second name after that is the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, okay.

So really it should have been called the Conquering Queen Heart of Perfection Wisdom of Wisdom Sutra, or something like that, all right. We don't have time tonight to go over the whole thing. I wanted to concentrate on one part in the middle, where the Buddha starts explaining what emptiness is about, and also starts connecting it to the Wheel of Life, okay.

So, you have a picture I hope, with you of the Wheel of Life. So, you're going to get a crash course, one-night course in the Wheel of Life, as it appears in the Heart Sutra, okay. So, there's a very brief part in the Heart Sutra, the part that you have there is...

he says, tso me ni la, su me, tso me, du shi me, du chi nam me, nam pa shepa me, that's the first part that you have there, which means, emptiness doesn't have any physical matter, emptiness doesn't have any feelings, emptiness doesn't have discrimination, emptiness doesn't have other parts of you, and emptiness doesn't have your mind, okay. Meaning, all the parts of you are empty, okay. The Buddha is, in this sutra, is saying the opposite of what's true, for a fact.

Like, he's trying to, you know, explicitly he's saying nothing exists, implicitly he's saying nothing exists the way you thought it did, okay. So, he goes through a long list of stuff, saying, oh look, this pillar doesn't exist, these fans don't exist, this wall doesn't exist, you don't exist, the thing you're sitting on doesn't exist, okay. And it's the same thing, it's like as if I stood up and said that, okay.

So, one of the things he starts out with in the paper that you have, are the parts of a human being, okay, the parts... they call the five skandhas, or the five heaps. So, he's just going through all the parts of you, okay.

First one is sukhmed. Sukhmed means, you don't have any body, okay. Tsorwa means, you don't have any feelings, okay.

Which is not true, you have feelings all the time, okay. Buddhism says that, all the time you're either feeling good, bad, or medium, all the time. Even when you're asleep, there's some kind of feeling going on.

Dushyamay means, you don't have the ability to discriminate between things. You can't say, this is white, this is yellow, this is blue, he's tall, he's short, okay. Which is not true either, you have it all the time.

Everything from amoebas, up to Einstein, has discrimination going on all the time. You're always saying, this is better, this is worse, this is left, this is right, okay. You're always doing that.

So, the Buddha is exaggerating, for some reason, he's saying, you don't have discrimination. Then he says, you don't have any... the other stuff, other stuff, or other factors means...

Dushyapumbushileshen says the Abhidharmakosha, the other factors are all the other parts of you, meaning all the other parts of your mind, for example, okay. If you say there's fifty-something mental functions, then the other forty-nine or whatever, fifty, you... you don't have those either, okay.

You don't have feeling, you can't discriminate between things, and the rest of your mind doesn't exist either, okay. And you don't even have the ability to be aware of your world, you don't have consciousness itself, okay. And that's what the Buddha says, okay.

He says, none of you exists, from your mind, to your body, to everything else about you, your name, your identity, nothing exists, he says, okay. Now obviously he means something special, and... we're not going to talk about it right now, okay.

Then he says... because that's not the part we want to talk about, okay, that's just the introduction to where we are. Then he goes through all the things you can perceive with your senses, okay.

Then he says... what's it called? It's a sukme, domme, tumme, rome, reche, me, tumme, no.

Mikme, nawame, mikme, you don't have any eyes. Nawame, you don't have any ears. Name, you don't have any nose.

Cheme, you don't have any tongue. Lume, you don't have any body. These are all the ability to sense things, you see what I mean?

You don't have ears, you don't have eyes, you don't have a nose, you don't have tongue, you don't have a body. Yi me dom means, you don't have a mind either, okay, you can't sense anything. Then he says, sukme, domme, tumme, rome, reche, me, tumme, no, meaning, and none of the objects of your senses exist either.

There's nothing in this room that you can see. There's nothing in this room you can hear. There's nothing in this room you can smell, or taste, or feel, or think.

Okay, and then he, so he's saying nothing exists. Okay, then he goes through all those categories. The categories means 18 parts of a human, if you break it out kind of in a complicated way.

You can break out a human being into 5 parts, 12 parts, or 18 parts. He goes through all the ways you can break out a human being and says, you don't exist, you're not sitting on that chair. Then he gets to the part that I like the best, okay.

To me, this is the most important part of the Heart Sutra, and it goes like this, marikpa me, marikpa sepa, me pa ne, ga shi me, ga shi sepa paru, yo me do. That's what we're going to talk about tonight. So, you got to get in the mood.

He's speaking to a couple thousand monks or something, lots of high bodhisattvas, he's actually speaking through two of his disciples. They are like having an argument or a discussion. Buddha is in deep meditation at this point, and through the power of meditation, he's making them say things to each other, okay.

Then at the end, what does he say to them? Oh, like so, like so. You guys are so smart, you know, I can't believe you said all that stuff, okay.

So, at this point, the disciples are talking and shariputra, right, and they're saying to each other, you know, nothing exists from marikpa up to ga shi, okay. So, we're going to talk about those two things. Oh, what's the name of your, of this center here?

It's rikpa, okay, and I think it's kind of appropriate. First of all, I'd like to thank you for letting us have the talk here. Secondly, it's very appropriate to be speaking here, because Sogyal Rinpoche has written such a nice book about living and dying, and we're talking about dying tonight, okay.

So, it's very appropriate this being held here. So, rikpa means, as you know, knowledge, understanding. Ma is the negative in Tibetan.

So marikpa means, you don't understand what's going on, okay. Marikpa means ignorance, okay. You don't understand the nature of the things around you.

And then he says, everything from marikpa up to ga shi. Ga shi is two words stuck together. Ga and shi.

Ga means getting old, okay. The condition of getting older, every single moment of the day, okay. You notice it more after 40, okay.

You know, before that you're just blowing it, you know, but then later you begin to really notice every detail, okay. So, ga means the condition of getting old. Shi means death, okay, the condition of dying.

And in this one little sentence, you know, the Buddha has said, marikpa me, marikpa sepa me pa ne, ga shi me. He's gone from marikpa up to ga shi. He skipped ten other steps.

He says, oh, you guys know what I'm talking about, okay. He says, just, just he says, et cetera. Tibetans love it, Sanskrit loves it, okay.

It's like, et cetera, okay. So, he said, nothing exists from the beginning of the Wheel of Life up to the end of the Wheel of Life. Nothing exists, any more than you do sitting in that chair, okay.

Which is to say, of course you exist, okay. Somebody's occupying the chair, of course you exist. And, and the point is, it's a, of course the Wheel of Life exists.

The Buddha went to the trouble of having it painted, okay. Who designed this Wheel of Life? Lord Buddha, for a king named Bimbisara, who wanted to give it to a king.

This Wheel was actually, every detail was, was, was prescribed by Lord Buddha. He sat there and said, okay, paint this, paint this, draw it in a circle, okay. We're gonna be talking about the twelve links around the outside.

You might have heard twelve links of dependent origination, or something like that. Meaning, how you get in trouble, and how you get out of trouble, okay. What is trouble?

Trouble is up here, so I'm talking about this outside rim right here, okay. And there's twelve little scenes going on. They start, by the way, at like an, like a Western clock.

They start at one o'clock, over here, and then they move around clockwise up to the end, which is here. So, we count it from here, right here. And you'll see, as you look at the picture, right under the monster's right fang, is a guy with a stick, got it?

And that represents ignorance, okay, a blind man, he doesn't know what's going on, he doesn't understand reality, marigpa. That's number one marigpa, at one o'clock, okay. And then you go all the way around the circle.

The Buddha says, from marigpa up to gashi. Gashi is all the way around the circle up to 1130. There's a guy with something on his back, he's carrying something on his back, you see it?

Got it? In Tibet, when you die, they don't call somebody to put you in a box, they call the sky burial people, okay. And they come to your house, and they fold you up into a fetal position, and then they take a belt, a big leather belt, and they tie it around your shins and your back, and then some guy hefts you up on his back.

They put you in a burlap sack or something, and then they carry you out to a mountain, then they stretch you, they unstrap you, they stretch you out, they chop you up into pieces so the birds can eat the body, because they figure the mind is gone, and might as well do something virtuous with the rest of the, with the meat, the dead meat, okay. Which is, according to them, is all there is left at that point, okay. So that's what it represents.

It represents, it's just one of those hearse, Tibetan hearses, okay. It's the guy carrying this body up to the mountain, okay. And that's what the Buddha says, he says, marikpa me marikpa sepa mepane.

So he says, there's no ignorance, and there's none of those links from ignorance up to death. And you can't stop ignorance, and you can't stop death, okay. Now everything else in this whole sutra is what we call jangdun, okay.

Jangdun means, he's not speaking figurative. Obviously, if he says, you don't exist, your head doesn't exist, your fingers don't exist, your nose doesn't exist, he's exaggerating for some reason, he's trying to teach you something, right. So when he gets to the Wheel of Life and says, there's no guy there representing ignorance, and those, none of those other ten things mean anything.

And the guy's standing there carrying a body up to the mountain, that doesn't mean anything either, okay. So just forget it, okay. And he, you know, but he went through the trouble of painting it, so he must be exaggerating, okay.

And that's the idea. So what does he mean? What is he trying to say?

We have to go through the twelve links, okay, you're gonna go through the twelve tonight. This will be on the second, on the back of the printed sheet, okay. It's in English at the bottom, I think.

You got one? By the way, I've put them in the order that they are occurring to you and me, okay. Like, on the wheel, they go from one o'clock to twelve o'clock.

But we're gonna do it in the order that it's really occurring to you, which is a custom, okay. Different schools of ancient Buddhism taught the wheel different ways, okay. We're doing it this life way, okay.

We're gonna start with... you got those twelve links there? First one is what?

Namshé. Say namshé? Namshé?

Namshé means consciousness. You're just your gross awareness, okay. The fact that you are aware at all, okay.

Like, if Mike Tyson punches you in the head really hard, and you go down, you almost don't have namshé, okay. Like, namshé becomes very subtle at that point, alright. And it's represented in the wheel at about 2.30, okay. There's a... I don't know if you can see, there's a monkey climbing around a bunch of rooms in a little house. You got it?

At around 2.30 on the outside rim of the wheel, there's a little scene of a monkey coming down from the top of a house. That represents your consciousness, okay. And specifically, your mind moving into this life, okay.

Your mind coming into this life. At when? According to Buddhism, it happens at conception.

So, when they say there's a debate in Buddhism about abortion, it's not true. I mean, in every Buddhist scripture that exists, from India, it says that the mind comes into the sperm and the egg when they meet, at conception. So, there's a human being there at that time, okay.

So, you can't kill it after that time. So, that represents that moment when the mind comes into the womb, okay. And that's at 2.30. At 3.30, what do you have? You have, it's pretty hard to see, but you got two guys in a boat, okay. That's called Ming Suk, okay. Say, Ming Suk.

Ming Suk. Ming Suk is a code word for your five skandhas that we already talked about, the five parts of a person. What?

Your body, your feelings, your ability to discriminate between things, all the other stuff in your head, and your raw awareness, your consciousness, okay, all of those things. Now, how come there's only two? Well, Ming is a code word for the body, and Suk is a code word, I'm sorry, Suk is a code word for body, and Ming is a code word for everything else, okay.

They call it name and form, okay. So, name means all of the other four parts of you, and form means your body, your physical, your physical form. So, what are they doing here?

Oh, they're starting to travel into, into your life. It means the formation of your body and your mind in the stages, in the, what do you call it, in the womb, okay, the formation of the embryo. And in Tibetan, they have weird, weird, like, weird names like Nurnurpo, and Linglingpo, and Mermerpo, and it means getting stretchy, then getting longer, then stick-like, then stick with other sticks, and stuff like that.

And there's all these gestation stages in scripture. They come from the Abhidharmakosha. So, that represents the formation of your body and your mind in this life.

Now we're down to about, what is it, four o'clock? And you see you have some, they're empty houses, okay, and that represents the doors of sense, they're called keche. Say keche?

Keche? Okay, everybody got that empty house down there? About 4.30, 5 o'clock, no, 4.30. And those empty houses represent your, your senses, okay, what? You just went through them, mikme, nawa me, na me, che me, lu me, yi me, okay, meaning your eyes. By the way, in the Abhidharma they say, if you can't remember, go down, okay, your eyes, your ears, your nose, your tongue, and your body, and then your mind. In Tibet they'd say like, your mind, okay, so, so those sense powers, meaning the ability to see, the ability to smell, taste, hear, and to feel things, and to think things, those are all represented at 5.30, 4.30 there, okay, it's called keche, okay. Number six is next, it's called contact. Say rekpa? Rekpa?

Not the same as rekpa, okay, now it's rekpa, say rekpa. Rekpa means contact, okay, and you see a man and a woman touching each other on a bed, okay, and, and that's at 5.30, that's called rekpa. Rekpa means contact of the, of three things, what?

In the case of seeing something, this red color here, got this red color? That's one-third of the equation. Then there's your eyeball, your sense power, okay, and then there's your mind which records what the eye sees, your visual consciousness.

So when those three get together, you can see something, something to see, something to see it with, and something to know you're seeing, okay, that's...and when those three come together, you have a seeing, okay, you can see something, okay. So that's a code word, that whole symbol, the man is touching the woman, meaning making contact, those three things are making contact, okay, your eye, the object, and your mind, okay, you're seeing something. What happens after you see something?

Oh, number seven, that's at, that's a really gross one at 6.30, okay, it's a guy with an arrow in his eye, all right, if you look carefully, ouch, yeah, okay, it's a guy with an arrow stuck in his eye. This represents, what do you get? Feeling, okay, say tsorwa.

Tsorwa. Tsorwa. Tsorwa.

Okay, that's what comes next. By the way, this is a, they're, they're showing a chain reaction, for what? How you get from the womb to the...grave, okay, all right, this is a trigger, this is, you could call it the 12 links of chain reaction or something like that, I mean dependent origination is such a big word, you know, it's really just a chain of events, it's, it's 12 events that lead from, from the womb to the grave, okay, so here we have, tsorwa means feeling, you got the guy with the arrow in his eye, okay. By the way, now if you notice on your sheet, on the written sheet, they're all out of order, right, what happens after number seven?

Number one, okay, this is the way the Wheel of Life really works, okay, it's very interesting. It starts at number three, really, okay, you come into your mommy's tummy, okay, then what happens? Your, your body begins to form, then what happens?

Your senses are completed, then what happens? Somebody shows you something, then what happens? Your mind contacts that object, then what happens?

You start to feel something about it, what? I like it, I don't like it, okay, that's, that's where we are now, okay. Question for you, do Buddhas feel things?

Do they have feeling? Obviously they do, they call their paradises Tushita or Sukhavati, having fun, having bliss, they must be doing something, okay, I mean they're not sitting like, you know, in this neutral state, okay, they're having a good time, they do have feeling, okay, so, so it's not like, like you get over having feeling, it's not wrong to have feeling, and it's, and the feeling you want to have is what? Suffering or pleasure?

Okay, so obviously it's, even Buddhas have feeling, you will have feeling for the rest of eternity. According to Buddhism, your mind never stops. According to Buddhism, as long as you have a mind, you have feeling, and even after you get enlightened, you'll still be having feelings, but after that, after that point, they'll all be good feelings, okay.

So, so what's happening there, okay, he's having some kind of feeling, okay, there's a difference between the way an enlightened being reacts to something that feels good, and we react to something that feels good, and there's a difference between an enlightened being's reaction to something that doesn't feel good, and the way we react to something that doesn't feel good, okay, that's the crux, okay, when we get feeling, then we get in trouble, okay, why? Then we go to number one, okay, number one is at 1230, and there's a guy there, he's got a stick, meaning he's blind, okay, I mean, he should have a red tip on it, but we didn't have time to put it on, but this was finished about 645 by Kelly, where is she? Very noble efforts, okay, anyway, there's the guy there, and he's blind, and he's got a stick, and he's wandering around.

Ignorance kicks in at the moment of feeling, okay, so you got a figure, 1230 and 630 have some kind of connection there, across the wheel, these two things are happening, first you have a body, then you have a mind, then you have some contact with an object, meaning somebody you like, or somebody you don't like, then you have a feeling about them, and then suddenly ignorance kicks in, and this is really where the trouble starts, okay, this is really where the trouble starts, what trouble? Gashi, what's gashi? Getting old and dying, okay, getting old and dying, and now I come to the main point of tonight's talk, you know, we did some translation work for CNN a couple weeks ago, they were translating, we had to translate His Holiness, when he broke into Tibetan, we had to retranslate everything, and the neatest part was at 24 minutes into the piece, you know, so I said, why didn't you put that at the beginning, this is the neatest part, and they have this spot questions, they're asking him, did you ever dance?

He says, no, then they cut, he says, do you listen to music? He says, haha, no, then they cut, you know, and then they ask him all these neat questions, like boom, boom, boom, you know, and I said, why don't you put that at the beginning, you know, and they say, we found out that American audiences at exactly 24 and a half minutes start surfing, so we put this at 24 minutes, okay, so it hasn't quite been 24 minutes, but this is the punchline, okay, something happens here at feeling, okay, this is where the whole trouble starts, what is the point of the Buddha saying, maripa me maripa sepa mepa negashi me, you know, why does he say that?

He's saying nothing exists from ignorance up to death, and then he says, sepa me, sepa me means, and you can't stop ignorance, and you can't stop any of them up to death, okay, is he being literal? No, he's not, the whole Sutra is not literal, nothing's literal, he's not even saying the Sutra, I mean, not even the thing who's, not even the people who are talking is real, you see what I mean? Everything's backwards in the whole Sutra, he's saying, your nose doesn't exist, your ears don't exist, got it?

Here, your ears, the ones that you're looking at don't exist, okay, you know, and then he says, and you can't stop ignorance, and you can't stop all this stuff from happening, and you can't stop your death, what is he trying to say? You can stop your death, okay, this is the 24-minute question, okay, what's the point? The point is this, and it's the question at the beginning of the reading, the real purpose of Buddhism, the real reason that the Buddha came to this planet and taught, is right here in the middle of the Heart Sutra, where it should be, in the middle of the most famous Sutra, right in the middle, you know, probably 24 minutes into their talk, okay, and what does he say?

He says, you can stop ignorance, and if you do, you will stop aging and death. Is he being, like, figurative, you know, is he just trying to make people feel better or something? And in your own mind, you think, in your own mind, you don't very seriously entertain the possibility that you could, you know, sometimes you think about getting enlightened, and I've had students who said, yeah, I think it could happen, but I don't want to have one of those bumps on my head, okay, I'd rather look like one of those pretty tantric bodhisattva deities, you know, you know what I mean? I mean, in the back of your mind, you think, maybe in a zillion years, you know, I could become a Buddha or something like that, but the reason you come to a Buddhist lecture, or the reason you come to this place, or wherever you usually go, is not that you seriously think that you're going to suddenly turn into a bodhisattva, a beautiful bodhisattva with jewels and silk, and long beautiful hair, and you don't really believe that. You're kind of, in the back of your mind, you're saying, I hope I kind of improve, I hope I could get, stop yelling at my kids, you know, I hope I could learn to be a little more calm, because I can't, you know what I mean?

Or something in the back of your mind, you're kind of thinking, I hope I can do some gradual self-improvement, it would save money at the gym, you know, and stuff like that, you know, like you're thinking, in the back of your mind, this is, this is really what you, what you're thinking. It's wrong, okay? It's wrong.

Right in the middle of the Heart Sutra, most important moment in Buddhism, 24 minutes into the Heart Sutra, Lord Buddha is saying, you don't have to die, and you don't have to get old, okay? And, and you just have to figure out this Wheel of Life thing, you know, 12 things, and then you're out, you're out of here, you know what I mean? Where's Lord Buddha on this painting?

He's out of there, okay? This monster is Lord of Death, okay? He's holding the wheel, and Lord Buddha's up there.

There's a reason why they painted, who painted him out there? He painted him out there, okay? They had trouble when they got to this part, by the way.

The king said, how's the progress? They said, well, they started out real good, but nothing's happening for the last two weeks, you know? And he said, well, what's going on, you know?

And they said, well, they came to the Buddha, they have to paint the Buddha now. And he said, well, what's the problem? He said, well, every time they look at his beautiful face, they they freeze, you know?

And they can't stop looking, can't take my eyes off of you, you know? And, and it's funny, it's really part of the story, that they couldn't paint him, because he was too fantastic, you know? So finally, they made a compromise, and Buddha said, okay, put a sheet in front of me, and they put a lantern behind me, and just get the outline right, you know?

And then go away and fill in the rest from memory, or something like that. It's a very beautiful story. So he's like outside of the wheel.

The point is, you can get outside of the wheel, okay? Next question that pops up into your mind, if you're a normal American, or anybody. I mean, I don't believe that most Tibetans seriously entertain the idea that if they practice Buddhism, they could not die, or not get old, okay?

I don't believe there's many that, that would say that. I don't think so. So is it possible?

I say, yes, Buddha says yes. Have you seen anybody lately who didn't do it? I mean, except for National Enquirer reports, you know?

Any serious reports? New York Times reports, you know? San Francisco Chronicle?

Have you seen it, like, you know, reported? It'd probably get to the headlines, I think. You know, so-and-so didn't die, you know?

So-and-so's getting younger. Hair's growing back, you know? Have you, have you read it?

I mean, I mean, the first thing that I, when I speak to an American audience, and I say, the Buddha in the middle of the Heart Sutra says, you should be a Buddhist because you don't want to die, and you'd like to get younger, and, and eventually reach some kind of Buddha paradise, in this lifetime, now. They say, yeah, but, but even His Holiness seems to be getting older, you know what I mean? So what chance do I have?

You know what I mean? No, it's a serious question in your mind. The trick is this, and we'll talk about it later.

There's something about the emptiness of a person, okay? And we'll talk about it. The whole Heart Sutra is about emptiness.

There's a, there's a quality of the emptiness of a person, which is that you can be perceiving His Holiness getting older, at the same moment, in the same planet, about the same body, His Holiness could be seeing something totally different. You see what I mean? That is, by the way, the emptiness of the Dalai Lama's body, okay?

I mean, what does His Holiness see when he looks down at his body? What does His Holiness see when he looks in the mirror? You should see the CNN piece.

He takes him into his bathroom, you know, he says, he gets, comes out in a towel, he says, come on, I'll show you my bathroom, you know. And, you know, it made me think, they asked me, why is he doing that? What does he got in mind?

What's his agenda here? You know, and I said, I said, I don't know, maybe he's just trying to show you he's a regular guy, you know. Or, but maybe he's trying to show you that when he looks in the mirror, he sees something different.

You see what I mean? So, the emptiness of Dalai Lama's body is, is like the emptiness of your favorite song, okay? How many people have a favorite song?

Come on. How many people's best friend thinks, that's the best song in the world? That's the emptiness, that's perfect emptiness, okay?

Emptiness is not some bizarre, weird thing, you know. That's the emptiness of your favorite song. What?

That two normal people, reasonable people, can listen to the same, you know, music, and one of them say, this is the best song in the world, and the other say, quite honestly, this is close to the worst song in the world, okay? You know what I mean? Like, they don't want to say worse, because it's probably not true, but very close, you know.

And then, and then that proves the emptiness of a song, okay? That is the emptiness of a song. So, on a very obvious level, you can see that two different people can perceive the same object in very different ways, okay?

That you, you can accept from your favorite song theory, okay? That doesn't take Einstein to accept that. The same is true of physical colors and shapes, okay?

On a more profound level, once you get into very high practices, say tantric practices, then it's possible that, that you would start seeing yourself in a totally different way. Really, I'm not saying imagining, forget imagining. I'm not saying that.

I'm saying that you would wake up one morning and see, and see some kind of Bodhisattva's pure body, the way that maybe His Highness sees himself. And, and then, you might not see that at all when you look at His Highness. You see what I mean?

There's an emptiness to the Dalai Lama's body, in the same way as there's an emptiness to your favorite song. It's the same principle. Therefore, it's not the case that if you've never heard of anybody that did it, did what?

Got out of Gasshi, okay? Got out. If you say you've never met anybody, it might just be because of your own level, okay?

That's, that would be the answer of a Buddhist, okay? You don't have to accept it now, that that exists, you know? You don't have to believe me if I say His Highness, in His Highness's own eyes, is getting younger.

You don't have to believe that. But you have to accept the theory, right? You have to accept the principle that two different people can have two very different perceptions of the same thing.

Prove it. You know, we debate all day in the monastery, four hours every night. Prove it.

Your favorite song. It doesn't take a genius, okay? Your favorite song is a perfect example that two different people can see something, at the same moment, in a totally different way.

Why is another question? We'll talk about it, okay? But Buddhism says, by that same principle, it's possible that there are people, even in this audience, who have overcome death, and are not obvious to the rest of us, okay?

And, I mean, do you have to accept it because I said it? No. Buddha said, don't.

But do you have to accept that the theory is possible? You have to say yes, okay? Why?

Because of your favorite song thing, all right? So, can we go...can somebody really stop their death, even though we might not be able to see it right now? By the way, Buddhism says it takes a hell of a lot of good karma, a hell of a lot of compassion, and sweet mind, perfect sweet mind, to stop your own death, okay?

And you can do it. And to see someone do it, you have to be very close. The theory in Buddhism is that miracles are possible.

It's possible to walk on water. They...totally possible. It's called the Separ Kitingen Zen.

It's a certain kind of meditative state, that a person could get out of a rowboat and walk across the Sea of Galilee or something, okay? No problem. And they say it takes almost that much good karma to see a person do it.

You see what I mean? Like, it takes a certain amount of karma to do it. It takes another amount of karma to see it.

It takes another...it takes something in between to get out, walk a few steps, doubt it, and see. You see what I mean? Seriously.

This is all...karma says that's all perfect. You know, they said that incident was perfectly plausible. You know, according to Buddhism...I forget, was it Peter or who? I don't...Peter? Yeah. So, it was that...it was that the karma of doubting it destroyed his concentration, and then he...and then he sank, okay? He destroyed his meditative state, and then he...he sank at that point. But you'd have to be really good-hearted to see the whole...the whole event happen, which means the other guys in the boat. You'd have to be perfectly good-hearted to actually walk all the way, which means the main guy. And then you'd have to be Peter...you know, you'd have to be somewhere in between to be the guy who walked a few steps and then...and then sank down. What I'm trying to say is that the fact that you and I haven't seen someone practice Buddhism and achieve its ultimate goals in one lifetime, doesn't it all prove that it doesn't happen all the time to people who practice well? And that's the goal of Tantra. It's exactly this, okay?

To...the goals of...of higher-level Tantra, which are actually reversing the process of aging and death within you, are...either people have been doing it for two and a half thousand years and no one got it, or people are getting it all the time and we didn't see it yet because we're not close enough to that. You see what I mean? Two possibilities.

It's unlikely that they'd carry it on for two and a half thousand years if it didn't work something, okay? I mean, this is just logical. I'm not saying you have to believe it, but...but this is a...

these are indications that this might work, okay? And it all hinges on emptiness. We'll get to that, because the Heart Sutra is all about emptiness.

The reason he says, this stuff doesn't work, this stuff doesn't exist, is that he's trying to get you to think about its emptiness, okay? But we'll get there. Okay, so how do you go...by the way, we'll take a break in about 10-15 minutes, because I like to take a break halfway through and relax and...and, you know, and then we'll start again, okay? What's ignorance got to do with feeling? Okay, that's where the bad stuff starts to happen, all right? What happens?

It's the famous example of something that you don't like happening. Let's say somebody comes in, someone you know, your friend comes up to you and says something, some angry words to you, okay? Like they say something, they do something, or they look at you in a certain way that they know irritates you, you know what I mean?

And...and...and then you start to feel angry, okay? What's happening there about ignorance? What's the...what's the real...how are you misunderstanding this event? When does rikpa come in? And what does it mean not to have rikpa at that moment? This is, by the way, the whole meaning of rikpa, the real meaning of rikpa, okay?

What...what's going on at that moment, that you have rikpa, or you have what? It's opposite. Marikpa, okay?

What's...what's the difference between a person who's having a feeling with rikpa, and a person who's having a feeling with marikpa, okay? What's the difference between them, okay? By the way, if you get the difference, you don't have to die, all right?

Okay...why is something your favorite song and not your friend's favorite song? You're born in different eras. Yeah, I had a fight today, I wanted to play Rubber Soul, and there are the people said, what's Rubber Soul?

Okay, anyway...anyway, it's not just different eras. I mean, come on, people your same age, see people born on the same day that you were, think the best song in the world is something totally different, right? You know that, okay?

Buddhism says, by the way, simple, you have certain karmic seeds in your mind, they have certain other karmic seeds in their mind, okay? Like, if it's your favorite song, you have certain seeds from the past. By the way, the karma for a favorite song is speaking gently and truly to other people.

Like, if you want to have more good music on the radio, then speak more gently to other people. According to Buddhism, that's the only thing that would make it happen, okay? If you want to improve...like, I worked really hard on getting rid of disco music by speaking nicely to people, and then the fad changed, and the music is much better nowadays, okay? By the way, if you laugh, you don't get it, okay? Because it's true, it's true. I'm not kidding, I'm really not kidding.

And someday you'll...when you get to really deep into Buddhism, you'll understand that the only way to get better songs on the radio is to speak gently and nicely to other people. And you don't have to buy it now. Those of you who have studied a lot, you should be close to thinking that way, okay?

Because it's true, and it will change, and there'll be more music on the radio that you like. Now, how that works is a whole other story. But anyway, they say that when you speak gently to someone, truthfully to someone, when there's a ring of beauty, of truth in your voice, then...then you start to hear everything more sweetly. You have a favorite song, okay? So, the reason you're enjoying a song, and the reason a song sounds great to you, is that good karmas are ripening in your mind, okay? They say, by the way, a good song is very expensive, karmically, okay?

There are, like, 64 mini-impressions. Every time I snap my finger, there are 64 mini-karmas ripening in your mind to see me standing here, to hear my voice. You're...you're spending 64 good deeds a finger-snap. To hear me talk Dharma is very expensive, karmically, seriously. And it wears out. It wears out.

Why? You get old, okay? I mean, and...and there'll be a last time that you hear your favorite song. The radio in your car is not your God-given right. Every time you turn it on, you're using up some karma. And...and there'll be a last time that you turn it on. And then you go into the house, and you don't come back to the car. You know, there will be a time like that. So, every time you experience something good, you're spending karma.

You have a credit card that you're born with, and you...what's...no, it's a debit card, really. And, you know, and it comes down to zero, and you die, okay? So...so that's how favorite songs work. There are impressions that you planted in your mind through certain actions. And as you listen to these random decibels, at a random beat, you hear something beautiful. You know, why should one collection of...of chords be more beautiful than another collection of chords? It's not logical. You know, why should Stravinsky sound worse than Handel? But he does, to some people.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
You know, why...why...why...why should that be true? They're just notes, you see what I mean? They're just notes going up and down.

But there's...there's karma. Karma is expressing itself. Your karma is ripening at a certain way, and it sounds good to you, okay?

And that's the way it's happening. So what's it got to do with anything? What's it got to do with feeling and ignorance?

Now we get to the point. One of the reasons to have your favorite song on the radio, at that moment, would be having collected the karma to offer music to others. You see what I mean?

Like, that could also be a karma for hearing your favorite song on the radio. Like, if you had the opportunity to offer music to others, you know, if you knew that somebody else liked a certain song, and then offered it to them, you would collect the karma to what? To hear certain random notes in the future as being Neiliam, okay?

I mean, the best music in the universe, okay? Like, you would collect that karma by doing that, by giving up what you wanted, so, you know, okay, let's listen to your favorite song, okay? Then that collects the karma to hear your favorite song in the future, okay?

So what happens at number 7, okay, down at 630? You get an arrow in your eye, okay? What does that mean?

This means that this, by the way, 7, 1, and 2 happen like boom boom boom, okay? They happen in a millisecond, okay? 7, which is the guy with the arrow in his eye, number 1, which is the ignorance, and then what's number 2, we didn't talk about it, 130?

What's he doing? What's a guy doing? Making pots, okay?

This represents making fresh karma, okay? The guy making pots represents making fresh karma. Karma can be physical, karma can be verbal, but raw karma is thought, okay?

Thinking. So, how do you go from 7 to 1 to 2 in one second, okay? It's like this, you hear your favorite song, somebody else is playing with the radio, right?

Suddenly they hit Neil Young, Down by the River, you know, and you're like, wait a minute, stop, you know? And then, that's feeling, okay? And then, and then, number 1 is, number 1 is ignorance, like ignorance says, this has to be everyone's favorite song, okay?

Ignorance doesn't understand what? The emptiness of the song, okay? Ignorance doesn't understand that that song, and any particular color, and any particular person, is empty.

Whether the person next to you in the car is experiencing a good song or bad song, it's totally up to their karma, you see what I mean? There's nothing about Neil Young's chords that innately, or self-existently, are beautiful. They're only beautiful if you have really weird karma to hear it as beautiful, okay?

So, not to understand that, allows you to what? When they go past Neil Young, and go on to, what was Michael Week playing the other day? Schubert or something, for like an hour on the radio, can you believe it?

New York City traffic, playing, you know, old bebop jazz and stuff, driving us crazy, you know? So you're like, he hits Neil Young, he goes past, to something like old bebop music, you know? Then what happens in your heart?

It breaks your heart, okay? No, you get upset, okay? You get upset.

That's number two, you just collected a karma, okay? That's number two. You just planted a karma in your mind, by being angry or upset, or if you say something, come on Michael, are you crazy?

You know, that's a bad karma. So, all this stuff happens in a millisecond, okay? You sense something, why?

Because you had contact with your senses to the object, because they existed, because they grew in your mommy's womb, because your mind came in your mommy's womb, going backwards, okay? And then suddenly, you have the feeling, you hear Neil Young, then you have a flash of ignorance when he goes past, and you say, your mind says, this has to be the best song in the world, he should notice it, he's an idiot, you know? And then, and then you, then you trigger karma.

You have just created a karma, okay? Now, according to the rules of karma, what's the best way to get a song on the radio that you like? It's to offer one to someone else happily, okay?

His holiness calls it enlightened self-interest, okay? Like, best way to get a thousand songs in the future, is to give one away now. Say, oh, go ahead, I didn't like Neil Young that much anyway, you know?

Or, you know, something like that, you know, to offer it to someone else. What's the converse of that? What's the opposite of that?

If you want to make sure that you don't get your favorite song played on the radio, for a long time, then get angry. You know, insist that they turn it back to Neil Young, okay? Like, ignore what the other person wants, and try to demand that you get what you want.

Who's doing that? Who thinks that way? Ignorance, okay?

Ignorance. You'd have to be incredibly dharmically stupid to do that. You see what I mean?

In a dharma way, forget IQ about making money, business, doing SAT scores, talking dharma IQ, dharma smarts, okay? You'd have to be really stupid to demand that the person do what you want, you know? Because then you're making sure that you're not going to get what you want in the future, you know?

Because karma grows. Much better to give it up now, and to have a lot in the future, you know? It's hard to think like that.

But that's how it works. You have a good feeling, which is 630, then suddenly you have an ignorance attack. This is the best song in the world.

Everybody should understand that. He's a stupid. Then you create karma.

That's fresh karma. That's the guy making pots.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
How does this kill you? Okay? Like, if a person, in the course of a lifetime, could shut down this process, is it possible not to die?

Or is it possible, theoretically, to enter a realm where everything goes right? Is it possible that this could turn into a realm where everything goes right? Theoretically, given what I just said.

Absolutely. Very interesting, okay? Very interesting.

Very interesting. But you'd have to look at things a whole different way. It requires a massive shift in your way of looking at the world, and it's very difficult.

It's very unnatural to give up to someone else what you want. It's very hard to know that that's the right thing to do, okay? Now, does that karma in itself, how does it kill you?

You know, how do you get from number two to... where was death, by the way? 11.30, okay?

Final hour, okay? How do you get from number two to number twelve? How do you get from the guy making pots to the guy...

to the Tibetan hearse up there? Okay? How does that happen?

We'll do that after the break. We've got to do the rest of this wheel over here, okay? And then, theoretically, you could stop it, okay?

So take a break, walk around. I don't know if there's anything to drink or anything, but... Take a 10-minute break, and then we'll finish up.

Okay. We were... We were at the guy making fresh karma, right?

You had a nice feeling down at 6.30, which was? Neil Young. Then at 12.30, you had an ignorance attack and said that this should be everybody's favorite song. You weren't mindful of the emptiness of the song, really. That's the meaning of emptiness, okay? Meaning that songs are just blank.

Whether you find it beautiful or not, depends entirely on which karmas are ripening in your mind at that moment, okay? The song itself isn't, from its side, something good or bad. You only hear it one way or the other, depending on your own...

the own... the seeds ripening in your own mind, okay? Then at 1.30, you made a lot of fresh karma, fresh pots, okay?

When? I didn't say anything yet. Before you say anything, you're collecting karma, and it's important to appreciate that.

Senpai yagi le yin no, fourth chapter, Abhidharmakosha. Raw karma is... is thinking, okay?

When you get irritated at the guy for skipping over Neil Young and going to Bebop from the 50s, you're... you're already making pots, okay? You've already making fresh karma.

How does... now, what I promised you after the break was, how does fresh karma hurt you, you know? How does that kill you?

Isn't death something that naturally happens to people? No, okay? Reality itself is like your favorite song.

The building, San Francisco, your body, the people around you, is all the same as your favorite song. It doesn't have any nature from its own side. You are...

your mind is... is making it what it is. There is things there, and your mind is interpreting it in certain ways.

Even your body, okay? Whether your body is healthy or sick, is like your favorite song. This is just a bunch of shapes and colors, and random feelings.

And then, whether it looks old to you, or whether it looks young, or whether it gets old or not, it's something that's forced on you by your past deeds, okay? It's something that's forced... you're forced to see it a certain way, because of the ways you've been thinking, the imprints you've put in your mind in the past, okay?

So, how does that actually work in practice, okay? We skip from number two, down to number eight. Number eight is around seven o'clock.

What's happening there? Yeah, it's a guy having a food party, he's pigging out, okay? He's eating, drinking, okay?

That's called the GEPA SEPA. Say, GEPA. SEPA.

SEPA. SEPA means like, attachment, alright? And attachment is a long story in itself, we don't have time to go over it tonight.

But, you know, I was reading something today, you shouldn't be attached to... if someone says that you gave a good Dharma lecture, you shouldn't be... you shouldn't enjoy it, because then you're attached.

And, it's not true, okay? I mean, when Lord Buddha speaks the Four Noble Truths in India, he's happy, and he should be happy, because he's about to save millions of people, you know what I mean? And, that's not in itself attachment, okay?

What does attachment mean? In this particular case, it means... how shall we say?

These two, say GUPA. GUPA. LENPA.

LENPA. Okay, LENPA is number nine. These two guys come together, so I want to explain them together, alright?

So, at 8.30, just before nine o'clock, what is there? Yeah, it's a monkey, and he's grabbing fruit off a tree, that's called grasping, okay? LENPA means grasping.

So, you go from number eight, which is called attachment, and then number nine, which is grasping. Those two things do something, what are they? There's something about this karma that you made at number two o'clock, I mean, 1.30, okay?

Those pots that the guy is making, we call them inactive karma, okay? Inactive karma. It means, you can collect those karmic impressions all you want, no problem.

You can get mad all you want, as long as those impressions never come back to you, right? I mean, if you could find some way to short-circuit them, like, you could put all the lousy seeds in your mind that you want, and in fact, arhats, or people who reach nirvana, they have billions of bad seeds in their mind, they just found a way to short-circuit them, you see what I mean? The seeds could still be there, but they found a way to make them never ripen, you see what I mean?

That they will never come back to them, you see what I mean? And this is a whole story about the difference between inactive karma and active karma. Active karma means activated karma.

Activated karma means, like, you know, a bomb with a timer on it that's moving, okay? And, like, the difference—like, as I understand it, an atom bomb can't blow up until there's some kind of other explosion near it, you see what I mean? Or something like that.

Like, a detonator has to go off for an atomic bomb to go off. By itself, you could throw an atomic bomb out the window of a plane, and it could hit the ground, and nothing would happen. It's inert.

It's inactive. That's number two. But when you have the timer going, and all the necessary triggers ready, and the other explosion is set to detonate, everything is ticking, everything is on.

That's what we call activated karma. That's at number ten, which is at 930, around 930. What's happening there?

I don't know if you can see, it's a pregnant woman, okay? It's a woman with a big womb, her stomach is distended, alright? So there's something that happens between number two and number ten to trigger the karma, okay?

There's something that happens between number two and number ten to make the karma go off, okay? And those are those other two below it, okay? Those are attachment and grasping, okay?

Attachment and grasping. What is it exactly? It's responding wrongly, and wanting something to happen in a wrong way, okay?

It's an ignorant wanting something, okay? It's something that activates the karma and makes it happen. Let's say that someone has passed up your favorite song, and now you want it in a certain way.

Is it wrong to want your favorite song? No. But is it wrong to want your favorite song in a way that would hurt someone else?

And that's the whole point, okay? Are Buddhists supposed to not like anything? You see, this is a very important point, and I think it gets confused a lot.

And then, you know, I was thinking about it this morning. If you take a lot of Buddhist books the way they're written, then you'd have to go crazy or something. You'd have to be some kind of...

you'd have to not want anything including Buddhism, or to be a Buddha. You see what I mean? Like they say, it's attachment to like ice cream, it's attachment to eat pizza, it's attachment to listen to good music, it's attachment to watch a movie.

You shouldn't be attached, you know? Well, so what are Buddhists doing in a Buddha paradise, you know? Are they like neutral all the time?

What do you think? You know, by the way, I'll give you a clue. Tushita, Sukhavati.

What's the name mean? Tushita means having a good time. Sukhavati means blissed out.

You see what I mean? So, do you think that in a Buddha paradise, Buddhists are sitting there just being neutral? You see what I mean?

I'm not attached. You see what I mean? It's not the point, okay?

Of course they're experiencing perfect ecstasy and bliss, and you should, and you must, and your heart tells you, I want it. You know what I mean? That's what you want, and you don't want to get old like that.

You know, that's what you want. You should want it. You're supposed to want it.

You're supposed to want to be out there. He's not like some ugly guy, he's all light and everything. You know what I mean?

Beams coming off of him. Okay? You should want that, okay?

So, what does attachment mean? What does grasping mean? It means to grasp towards things in a wrong way, okay?

Now, here's the crux, and it's very difficult. Up to now, everything's been easy, okay? When he goes past Neil Young, and goes to 50s bebop, really bad music, I swear, okay?

When he goes—and it happened just yesterday, I think—when he goes to that other song, and you're listening to it, then what do you do? You see? What is attachment at that moment?

See, attachment gets angry, you know? Attachment says, I want my song. You should play my song.

My song is, from its own side, self-existently, inherently, innately, better than your song, okay? And you believe that. You really believe that.

Otherwise, you wouldn't get upset, you know? Any fool could see that Neil Young is better. You see what I mean?

And your mind believes that. So, what does that kind of attachment mean? What's going on there?

It doesn't understand the nature of where the song is coming from, okay? It doesn't understand it. It's a stupid attachment.

It's a stupid attraction to that song. So, we divide in Buddhism between stupid attachment to a song, and intelligent attachment to a song. Stupid enjoying a song, and intelligent enjoying a song.

Where does the song come from? Where does a good song come from? You see, your mind tells you that you should reason with Michael Wick, you know?

Come on, Michael, you know? Nobody listens to that stuff, you know what I mean? And I only come in your car once in a while, and you just pass up my best song, now you're putting it...

you can listen to this later, after I get out of the car, you know? I really wanted... I really wanted my song on now, okay?

I mean, this is... by the way, those of you who are practicing Buddhist, serious Buddhists, this is a self-existent manipulation of reality. It never works, got it?

If you want to frustrate yourself for your whole life, then try to manipulate reality that way, you know? Try to reason with Michael Wick, you know? Come on, Michael, you know?

I only come in your car once in a while. Neil Young is really... you probably didn't hear Neil Young, you know?

You should turn back to Neil Young, you know what I mean? And this is how... this is...

you want to talk about ignorance, or seeing things as self-existent, or how does that state of mind think? That's it. It wants to manipulate things in a self-existent way.

If you reason with Michael Wick, and explain to him why Neil Young is better, then you'll get what you want, okay? Does it work? No.

That's Buddhism in a nutshell. Just that example, and I'm not, you know... I'm not just trying to use some modern example or something like that.

If the Buddha were standing here now, the Buddha would use the same examples. You see what I mean? Because it means something to you.

It means something to me, Neil Young, okay? So, does it work? It's a $54,000 question, you know?

Does it work to reason with Michael Wick about Neil Young? Do you get Neil Young? Do you get Neil Young?

Maybe. Maybe means it's not the cause of getting Neil Young, okay? I always say, this maybe crap, okay?

What's that? You go to the airport, you're about to get on the plane. This morning I was in Newark Airport, and if there were a lady at the door that said, do you have more than two carry-ons?

And you say, no. And they say, are you carrying Annie Palma's carry-on, which is like a huge piece of suitcase, you know? And you say, no, no, we really checked it in this time, okay?

And then they say, okay, last thing before you get on the plane, could you just sign this waiver? You know, and you say, what? You know, and they say, well, this plane flies almost every time, you know?

But maybe it'll fly, maybe it won't. But we just, to make sure we don't have to do a lot of suits, court suits, you know, and payments, we make everybody sign a waiver saying, I understand that it doesn't always work, and it might fall down, okay? You know, would you get on the plane?

Seriously, I'm not kidding. I'm really not kidding. Would you get on the plane?

I mean, if you... suddenly a new airline opened up, and they had this kind of procedure, would you get on the plane? No, you'd think it was stupid, you'd think it's foolish, you'd say, you work on it, when you get it straight, you...

I'll come back, you know? Okay? But this is the way you live your life.

You are undertaking actions to get what you want, which only maybe produce what you want. You see what I mean? You're doing the same thing every moment of the day, every moment of the day.

When you try to talk Michael Wick into turning back to Neil Young, because you think it causes Neil Young, you're doing exactly the same thing, exactly the same thing, and that's why you suffer. Because why? Because it doesn't work.

It just doesn't work, okay? So what's the real way to get Neil Young on the radio? And I'm dead serious.

Let him turn to his channel, and smile, and be happy, and be sweet, you know? And next time you get in the car, turn it to that channel, okay? It's...

it's brilliant. It always works, okay? If something caused another thing, it should always work.

You see, it's called replication in science. If you undertake the same actions, you should always get the same results, okay? Then it's a real experiment.

Then you can say that this causes this. If this causes this only part of the time, it's not its cause. If this causes this all the time, then it's its cause.

And you gotta... you know, I can stand up here and talk about it, you got to hear it a thousand times, and then you got to do it, which is very hard. To really, honestly believe that the only way, for example, to get any money is to be generous, is very difficult, you know?

You kind of want to cheat, you see what I mean? You say, okay, 10% of the time I'll do it that way. 90% of the time I'll work harder.

You see what I mean? Your mind says that, and that's why you only give away 10% of your stuff. You know, you're like hedging, and it doesn't work, you see?

It really doesn't work. If you're a real Buddhist, and if you understand emptiness, you have to go after the real causes of things and buy into it, 100%, you know? Don't say, oh, I buy this stuff about giving stuff to Lama Sopa 10% of the time, and 90% of the time I'll work harder at work, or I'll get a degree, or I'll play the stock market, because this one's going up, or this one's going down, and it doesn't work all the time.

Invest in Lama Sopa service. Always works. It's like the infallible investment.

It's very interesting, it's really cool, but you have to understand emptiness before you can do it, okay? You have to really understand emptiness. The six perfections, giving away your stuff, keeping your vows, not getting angry at people, and having a good time when you do virtue, meditating, and understanding this stuff, always works.

It always works. It's very weird. It's very weird.

That's the whole point. And manipulating reality in a self-existent way. Oh, talk Michael Wick into changing it back to Neil Young.

What happens? What happens? It just doesn't work.

I mean, he says, yeah, yeah Michael, next time, okay, or something like that. If it doesn't work every single time, it's a self-existent cause. Get it?

If it doesn't work, then drop it. It's not a method. It's not a...

it doesn't... it doesn't help. You want something that works every single time.

So, what's happening here? GEPA, SEPA, GUPA, LEMPA. These two guys, 730, the guy drinking and eating, which means attachment to something happening a stupid way.

These eight and nine are like talking to Michael Wick. Come on man, turn it back to Neil Young, okay? That's eight and nine.

What happens? Number ten, okay, the pregnant woman is triggering karma, okay? The karma has...

is about to go off. That's what the pregnancy represents here. Number two, which is just a plain old pot that was just made, has suddenly become extremely volatile karma.

It's been loaded and armed by those two attitudes, okay? What? Trying to get Michael Wick to do what you want, in a self-existent way.

And now things can go off. What? In a worst-case scenario, you die, okay?

And that's number 1130, okay? It kills you. How does that work?

I mean, the last time I heard bebop, it didn't kill me, okay? I mean, it was close. But, okay, you know, how does it actually kill you, okay?

I mean, I'm standing up here saying, and the Buddha said—by the way, people say, oh, this is Michael Roach's take on Buddhism. Forget it. MA RIG PA MED MA RIG PA SRED PA MED PA NE, GA SHI MED GA SHI SRED PAS DU YANG MED DO Buddha said it, I didn't say it.

You stop number one, you can stop number twelve, okay? He said, you stop number one, you stop number twelve. What does that mean?

Stop being ignorant. Stop trying to manipulate reality externally, self-existently. You want to get rich?

Give away your money, okay? Take care of other people. It's profound, and it always works.

It's incredible. Try it. It's amazing.

It's really amazing. I mean, you could have—I have seen people do it, and people come up and give them millions of dollars, free. You know, I mean, I've personally seen it many, many times, okay?

It works. It's weird. It always works.

You see what I mean? It's the real cause of money, is to give away things. How does that work karmically?

You should understand, okay? I'm not giving a lecture about karma, but just briefly. The money is empty.

Giving away that money is empty. It means, what's going on? When you see yourself give money to somebody, an impression is put in your consciousness, okay?

And it stays there for years, all right? And then suddenly, you're seeing someone else give you this green paper that has no inherent value, no inherent meaning. I don't even know why they made it green.

They should have made it red or something. You see what I mean? But you're seeing somebody give you these green rectangles, and suddenly you're rich, okay?

This is the emptiness of money. It's very interesting. You're seeing that green rectangle as money when you give it away, and when you give it away, you plant a seed in your mind to see much more come back to you.

And everybody interpret it as money. It's very interesting. It's just green rectangles, okay?

And songs are just random chords. That's the emptiness of money. And it's all a very interesting process.

When you give it away and see yourself give it away, and your consciousness of your generosity, and your intent is really intense, it definitely will cause you to see more come back. It always causes you to see more come back. It's very interesting.

This is how you get money. This is how money works, okay? Otherwise, it's just green rectangles passing hands, you know?

Why does it have meaning? Why do people accept it as money? It's all karma.

It's very interesting. It's stored here, and it works, okay? It's very interesting.

Okay, last thing. What's it got to do with dying or not dying? Every time you do something good, every time you have a good thought...

Now I'm gonna teach you tantra, okay? High-level tantra. Dzogrim, okay?

Dzogrim. Nel Numba is a very secret, high tantric teaching. So I won't teach you.

But anyway... Roughly speaking, when you actually have a pure thought... For example, when you understand what I just said about money...

By the way, that's one of the purest thoughts you can have, is to understand how that works. When you really understand why your favorite song can keep coming on the radio. How are you gonna get your favorite songs to come on the radio now?

What's the smart way to do it? According to Buddhism, keep letting somebody else put their favorite music on. Stop fighting.

Just be generous. Give it away every chance you get. Then, whether you want it or not, all your favorite songs are gonna be played all day long.

It'll drive you crazy, okay? No, really. It's very weird.

It works, I swear to God, it works. So... That's the way to get it to happen.

Now, what happens when you understand that stuff? What happens when you start to think that way? We say it clears out your psychic body.

You have a spiritual body inside the physical body, okay? You have a... You have a...

What they're called channels, drops, and winds. Inside your physical body, there's a parallel body going on, on a much more subtle level, okay? Every time you have a thought in which you understand reality as I've just described it, every time you have a true thought for the first time...

Oh, oh, I didn't get it. Oh, if I wanna get money, I should give away as much as I can. And not 10%, okay?

We're talking... You want 10% return? Give away 10%.

You want 100% return? You gotta give away 100%, okay? By the way, I'm not talking...

And no lama ever said, give away all your money and get broke, and grub off other people, and bother people. That's not it. But responsibly, in a responsible, reasonable way, give away as much as you can.

And still have enough comfort and money to practice well, and like that. That's the middle way, okay? But within those parameters, give away as much as you can.

Every time you realize that, something happens to your spiritual body. Certain things get straightened out. Certain connections are made.

Certain winds start to move, okay? If those... If those don't move, you die, okay?

The process of going through life and misthinking constantly, is pinching off certain parts of your spiritual body, and sooner or later, it chokes it, and you die, okay? And if you can start now, today, releasing those. Every time you have a right thought, and you know how rare they are, okay?

How many times did you really believe that if you gave away all your money, you'd get more? You see what I mean? How many times did you really do it?

But every time you do it, you open up something in that parallel body which is going on. And if you open up a certain amount, you don't have to die anymore. And that's how you become a tantric daily, okay?

It's very interesting. It's very cool, okay? Rigpa, okay?

Rigpa creates that. It's very interesting. It's a good name he gave to this place, you know?

It's knowledge that creates that. And then you don't have to die anymore, okay? You really won't die.

And you will enter some kind of other plane. Where? How many miles from here?

Right here, okay? Right here. It won't look like this place anymore to...to you. But what about to the other people? It might look the same as it did before. If they don't buy this stuff, it'll look the same as before.

They'll go on struggling to get money by ways that never work. I'm sorry, they work sometimes and they don't work sometimes, so they don't work. Get it?

Okay? So, they'll go on struggling. Big question, will they see...how will they see you? The same. How will you see you? You'll be in this tantric paradise.

It's very interesting. It's very, very interesting. And that's the emptiness of this reality, okay?

You can be experiencing a totally different thing than I'm experiencing, okay? And whether or not you experience what...whether or not you get out here, depends on whether or not you become a blind...you know, if you get out of the condition of being a blind man, if you stop being a blind person, okay? And start...stop trying to manipulate reality this way. Make the causes happen this way. And then you can have anything you want. It's very interesting.

Buddha's message is, you can have everything. And the meaning of attachment is...the way they're teaching it is dumb, okay? It's really dumb.

You can have all your favorite songs, you can eat all your favorite ice cream, they'll only play your favorite movies, okay? It's...it happens. That's the way it happens, you know?

It...you don't have to give up those things. You...you just have to give up the ones that don't last. See the difference?

You can be attached to them, to the ones that you know how to make again. The ones you know how to keep it rolling. And that's what a Buddha paradise is, okay?

So, that's not attachment. That's what I have to say. You don't have to die, okay?

By the way, we didn't do...11 o'clock. That's a rebirth, okay? And that's...that's a long story. I'm not gonna do it tonight. We say it's good to leave one out, and it means that we have to meet again, because something is left undone between us, okay? So, I think we'll stop there.

And we'll do a short prayer, okay? We do a...we do a dedication. We did a big good karma tonight.

Like, X number of people heard at least some kind of claim that you don't have to die. If it's true, we did a very powerful good karma. So, what we do now is invest it for a future return.

So, imagine light coming out of your heart. Imagine it affecting all the people in this area, okay? And that's like giving away the good karma immediately, which is the best way to...

double it, triple it, quadruple it, okay? So, right after you do something good, you should dedicate it, okay? So, see some kind of pure light coming out of your heart, and it's touching the other people in this city, and helping them, okay?

Like, you will affect someone who sees you on the street in 10 minutes from now, even if you don't say a word to them, because you just heard the holiest thing that a person can say, okay? So, a person who looks at you, you'll look slightly different. Subconsciously, they will feel something, and then you're dedicating that.

You want that to happen, okay? So, we'll do a short prayer. Who's the umdze?

Palma? Yes.