Серия ежедневной практики, курс 01 — Мандала шагов к просветлению (1999, Реддинг), занятие 5

[Speaker 1]
Session 5 Namo Buddhaya, Namo Buddhaya, Namo Buddhaya, Sangye Chödrang Sokyi Chö Nangla, Changshu Pardhu Dhanyika Suchi, Dharti Chöchen Gyüpe Son Nanggi, Prahlada Tengshe Sangye Chöpa Shuk, Sangye Chödrang Sokyi Chö Nangla, Changshu Pardhu Dhanyika Suchi, Dharti Chöchen Gyüpe Son Nanggi, Prahlada Tengshe Sangye Chöpa Shuk. Okay, we'll do a meditation on where we are so far. Okay, we'll do the whole preliminaries as well.

So, get yourself settled. Okay, start with breath meditation. The feeling of the breath in the inside of your nose at the front.

Keep your mind there. At this point you don't try to control your breath, you just let it go naturally. I suggest three rounds of ten.

Personally I find it good for bringing my mind down. Then see the inner courtyard with the fountain and greenery and sunlight and sky. Then you're seated there, and see your body as the most beautiful body you can imagine.

Make it very real like, you know, the ornaments you have on are scratching your body, and you can feel the... if you have long hair, you can feel it touching your back, or something like that. Make it real.

Then imagine that state of mind. No anger. Not capable of having a bad thought.

Try to imagine what it would be like to be happy. Totally happy. Then imagine what it would be like descending out, knowing that there are other versions of you acting in the world, all over the world, helping people all over the world, while you're sitting there.

Now visualize the first room leading out to the courtyard, which is Dzogrelam, Completion Stage room. And think about what you understand about Dzogrelam. Sit in that room, meditating in that room, and think about what you know.

Then get up, walk to the hallway before that, sit down there. And those are the four retreats. Think about how you can do them, how you might be able to do them.

Doing them, for an American, a lot of doing them means setting them up logistically, like figuring out how you're going to get the time to do them. Think a little bit about that. And then think about some kind of resolution that when you do do them, they're very strict, that you try not to cook for yourself, you try to not see anyone at all, try to be totally silent, try to stay inside, and learn how to do it properly.

All the protection circles, the tormas, the blessing of the seat and your rosary, understanding the mantra well, understanding the visualization. Think about all those. Then get up, go to the next room back, which is the kirim room, the creation stage.

Sit down, meditate there. Thinking about the technical aspect of kirim, you have to learn the sadhana, you have to learn the eleven yogas, if you're doing Vajrayogini. You might be studying Khen Rinpoche's book, you might be reading over the sadhana, trying to learn all the different parts of it.

And then finally the natural kirim that starts to happen to you, where you start getting glimpses into a different world, and making sort of tenuous contact with the beings in that world at the beginning, and then that's getting stronger and stronger. Get up, go to the hallway before that. Sit down, meditate.

This is the hallway of your vows, keeping your vows, keeping your tantra vows. And very, very important to think like, this is the only way to get those other things to happen to me. You know, so many Americans who seem to have tried to practice tantra and they can honestly say that not much has happened to them.

The difference is only the vows, keeping the vows, knowing the vows, checking them on an hour-to-hour basis. If you want to make contact with these other beings, if you want to come face-to-face with tantric beings and have them teach you, you must go through this hallway. No other choice.

You must learn your vows well, and then keep them. And the only way to keep them is to check them on an hour-to-hour basis with regard to the people right around you. Then go one step back into that beautiful crystal hall, crystal mandala, diamond.

In the center is the tantric lama, tantric master. And you go and meditate in front of him or her and think about what's going on in this mandala. This is the first glimpse you've had of that other reality.

You've been allowed into it by this master. They've given you an initiation. There are four parts to it.

They plant four different seeds in your mind to have the rest of the things happen to you. And they grant you your most precious gift they can give you, which is your vows. Because these are the guidelines that will make all the other things happen for you.

So all those things are going on. You've met your tantric master, been allowed into the mandala for the first time, received the ammunition you need to have the other steps of tantra work, which is your vows, and been empowered, gotten those four seeds from them. Now going backwards to the next room.

I would put a red door there between those two rooms. That's the border of secret and non-secret. So we're about to leave the secret Mahayana teachings and we're moving into the open Mahayana teachings.

So I would put some kind of special door there or something. Move into the six-sided room. Go to where the other door starts.

And on the left side as you come in I put some kind of a table there or something and on top of it a gift to represent the perfection of giving. And inside, four different objects to remind you of the four kinds of giving. Material things, protection, love, and dharma.

Then you move across to the right side, the door coming in. See, I kind of like the bonsai tree. And that represents your living and ethical way of life.

In three stages, the roots are your pratimoksa vows, your freedom vows, especially keeping the ten virtues. And then the chunk is your bodhisattva vows. And then the branches and the leaves and the fruits are your tantric vows.

You look at that and think about keeping them. Then across to the left in the middle, something to represent patience, the art of not getting angry. I personally like a little quiet pool with rocks around it and like imperturbable state of mind, silent, still.

And sit next to it and think about it, how to stop anger even as it arises towards animate things or inanimate things like traffic jams or weather or things like that. Credit cards. And then across the room to the right side, the perfection of joy in doing good things, joyful effort and some kind of face or person to make you think of joy.

Joy at doing good things. I think anything becomes joyful if you do it often enough. So the idea is to get used to doing good things and then it becomes a pleasure.

Then across the room to the left, towards getting closer to the door that leads into the mandala. And there's a, I use a microscope and it represents the ability to meditate. Has a little tag on it that says, use one hour a day.

By itself, neither virtuous nor non-virtuous. You can concentrate on anger, you can concentrate on virtue, but it's just a tool. We didn't put anything under it yet.

Not to mistake the tool for the goal. Take the microscope across the room to the right side, the last of the six walls. There's a diamond.

Put the diamond under the microscope. Look at it. And just reflect on the fact that if you could see emptiness directly for half an hour, you would see directly your future enlightenment.

You would meet the Buddha directly. You would see your future lives. And you would gain some kind of guarantee about everything.

That's why they call you stream-enterer at that moment. You gain a written guarantee that all these things will happen to you soon. It's called Deng in Tibetan.

And then you start to walk back towards the outside, leaving to the next room. You see the... I like a big waist-sized pillar in the middle of the floor and on top of it a big incense sensor, like a big incense metal oriental pot with incense in it burning.

The smoke is permeating the whole room. And this is compassion. And it's the decision that you will get enlightened to help other people, that this is the best way to help other people.

And it fills the whole room. Every other part of the room is filled with it. Because it would be a very strange thing to get enlightened by yourself and ignore everybody else who's suffering.

And then leave the room, walking back towards the next room. And it's a little bit smaller. And it represents the medium-capacity thoughts.

And it's the understanding... It's a mirror room. And I think we said there's glass and china all over the place.

You have to walk through carefully. And that's the understanding that everything around you is coming from your own karma. And that you have to be really careful with your Pratimoksha vows, with the vows you've taken not to hurt other people.

You can't blame anything on anyone else anymore. Once you've been in this room, you understand that all objects are empty. Whether you see them as painful or pleasant is being projected from your mind.

You can't blame that self-existent external person for being irritating or unpleasant to you. Because that's being produced by your own mind as you speak, as you watch them, as they irritate you. You are the conductor of that symphony.

You're creating that as they do it. Then the cause of thinking like this, the cause to think about it is the hallway before. I see it like glass panes separated with frames and looking outside.

And I choose my three favorite things. I mean, one would just be myself. I'm looking at my own body getting older.

Maybe one of my friends or my laptop or something. And I'm looking out and seeing it a year from now or five years from now or ten years from now. And do a midupagamba.

If you have time, start with the center of your forehead. Work out. If you don't, then just choose a few things and observe the effects of dirty good karma.

All the things you like will age and they'll be torn away from you. They'll get ugly and broken. And that's all you have to look forward to.

If you don't move on through the rooms going to the courtyard. If you stay here, then this is what you have to look forward to. And that's all that you have to look forward to.

Even the good things will rot and get old. Even your own mind, your own body. Everything you love.

And think about that in this hallway. Sorry, there should have been a door between the hexagonal room, the Six Perfections room and the room before it, the mirror room. That should be a door there.

That represents moving from bodhisattva motivation into what we call medium motivation. And now we're going to pass through another door which leads into the corridor where you just were standing. And that's going to be the door that separates medium motivation from what we call lesser motivation.

And remember that lesser and medium are always called shared. Shared means even Buddhas have lesser motivation. They share the lesser motivation and they share the medium motivation.

Shared means they have those attitudes also. For example, a Buddha doesn't want to watch their loved ones die and does what they have to do to stop that. On top of that they have Mahayana motivation, but the other two are foundation.

And even a Buddha has the lesser motivation, which is to keep themselves out of a lower realm. We'll stop there and we'll read one verse from the book. We're to lesser motivation, okay?

In the root text there's two verses here. They go together. It's page 45.

By the way, you just did a really, really good lamrim meditation. And now you have it in your toolkit, you see? And you don't have to say, I don't remember which comes before what.

I can't tell you what the lamrim is. This is the most powerful thing to teach to someone else. If you have like a day or two to teach a new person, this is the best thing to teach them.

So you have that. And you have it in the right order, which is very important. Okay, we're going to read 3 and 4, page 45.

My body and the life in it are fleeting as the bubbles, the seafroth of a wave. Bless me first thus to recall if it will destroy me soon. And help me find sure knowledge that after I have died, the things I've done, the why and the why, what these deeds will bring to me, follow always close behind, as certain as my shadow.

Grant me then ever to be careful to start this life from as many wrongs we do, and try to carry out and stay each and every good of the many that we make. I'd like to take a break there, and we'll explain it when you get back. So take a 5-10 minute break, and stand up and get something to drink or something like that.

Okay, we'll start again. So we had that gross room where you're looking out the window at all the wrecked up stuff, okay? And outside, that's a corner, right?

And then right before that, it's going to be a triangular room, okay? This is the smallest room, and this represents the lam gyi rimpas, the steps of the path, which are shared with people of lower motivation, the least capacity, okay? And all their stuff, which is three different lam gyi rimpas, are contained in one room, okay?

So that's going to be smaller than the mirror room, which is smaller than the hexagonal room. And there'll be a door between the corridor that you just got done with, and this small triangular room, okay? So this is like the lowest motivation.

These are people of lesser motivation, which we share their motivation, and we expand upon it, okay? So, as you come in from the outside, right? I'm talking from the other side of the room, okay, away from the corridor, okay?

It's the point of the triangle, like that. So the corridor we've just been in will be coming off of the flat part of the triangle, and you'll be walking into the room, ultimately, when you go through the steps in forward order, loop jung, at the tip of the triangle, okay? So there's a door there.

So you've got to imagine yourself coming into the triangle from the tip, and there'll be something at each point on the triangle, and then you'll be going out into the corridor we just came in, where we just were, from the flat part of the triangle, okay? From the side, got it? Is that alright?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
If you're going lung dok, backwards, from the center of the courtyard out to the outside, you'll be walking into the triangular room from a flat side, from the middle of a flat side. And if you look across, you'll see the point of a triangle, okay? If you're coming in, which you should practice doing, okay, lung jung way, forward order of the steps of the path, you'll be coming in through a point of the triangle, okay?

Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
The corridor of the midupa gompa is... there's two distinct kinds of visualization, and one is a corridor with glass, you're looking at, observing all the things that are rotting, and then there's the meditation of the...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, which is really just an extension of that, you see? If you have time, do the midupa gompa, which will include all your friends and family, okay? And everything you like, including your body and everything else.

But if you don't have time, I'd say choose two or three things that you think are all right with samsara, and prove to yourself you're wrong, okay? Just by watching them get old, you know what I mean? And that's all.

Because when somebody says everything is suffering, every American mind tends to say, Oh yeah, you're right, except... you know, and... So that's the triangle, the corridor with the glass frames is here, and here's a door that we haven't got to yet, and that's leading out.

So, this way is the inner courtyard, and that way is the outside, okay? So, we're going to talk about three areas, here, here, and here, okay?

[Speaker 2]
And those are the windows that we just came from.

[Speaker 1]
This is the window corner here, okay? All right? And there's a door here, which separates what from what?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, smaller scope and medium scope. Yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Colors to the doors? Somebody asked me that. I don't have any opinion, actually.

How do you want to do it? You know, I like red for tantra, personally, but...

[Speaker 2]
How about blue bodhisattva?

[Speaker 1]
Going into the bodhisattva, right? Separating the medium from high, and then what from high to low?

[Speaker 2]
Yellow for...

[Speaker 1]
wimpy. Okay. Caution.

All right. Okay, here's the three things in this room. First thing, if you're coming in from the outside, okay, from the point, the first thing you'll see is a...

You ever been to a funeral, and you had a viewing, and there's this mice box with a glass over it, and... So you're going to come down and sit next to this coffin and look down, and it's going to be you. Okay?

And that's going to be a death meditation. So at that point, you should do a death meditation. That's a long story.

There's a brief... I believe there's a brief one in this book, in the notes. Okay, there's a brief one by Pabongka Rinpoche.

It should have nine different points. If you have time, sit there and do a good death meditation. Okay?

If you want to, there's a death meditation course in North Carolina two weeks from now or something. I think it's pretty much booked up, but if you call and complain that you have to get in, they might move it. I think the problem is they don't have a bigger space right now.

But if you call, maybe if enough people call, we can... they'll move it. Anyway.

So, you do a death meditation. Death meditation, you know, there's all these Tibetan Book of the Deads flying around, and some of them are good, some of them are mixed up, and some of them are flatly wrong. And you have to be able to distinguish between them.

Study this death meditation. It's from Je Tsongkapa, the book that we have. The book that we'll be using in North Carolina is a direct translation of Je Tsongkapa's death meditation.

And it's done and it's nice, and you can use it. The main thing is only this. When we visualize it in the next ten minutes or so, all you have to do is look down at that corpse and say, did he or she do all the things she wanted to do?

Okay? Because death meditation is not about... This death meditation is not the tantric one.

This one is not about what kind of lights you're going to see, or who's going to come up to you, or blah blah, nothing like that. It's... This death meditation means on any given day, at any given hour of your life, are you doing the single most important thing that you should be doing?

And that's all. Okay? That's a successful meditation.

Death meditation. Like, are you prioritizing your life properly? You know, that's a real death meditation.

You know, if you can sit here right now and say, if I was going to die tonight, this is what I'd want to be doing, then your death meditation is fine. And if you say some kind of hesitation, like there's a but, or there's something I still wanted to do tomorrow, or something like that, then you didn't get death meditation yet. So a real person who's good at death meditation is always on the cutting edge.

They're always doing exactly the most extreme Buddhist thing they can to get themselves enlightened. Because they're not waiting for tomorrow. You see what I mean?

Because they don't believe in tomorrow. Okay? It's the idea that there is no tomorrow.

And got to do it now. At all costs. Do it now.

Okay? And don't get caught with your pants down by Lord Death, you know, and say, gee, I always thought I'd have another day to get to that other meditation, that, you know, that last room. You know, I always thought there'd be time later.

Don't, you know, move as quickly as you can. Death meditation is for that. Under the inspiration of the Lord of Death chasing you.

And they sometimes say, visualize him as this huge, oversized, what's the dog that kills kids in New York? Pit bull. Pit bull, you know, with huge fangs and, you know, rabies and HIV on the tip of his fangs.

And he's like chasing you. And they say, visualize him like that, and like, voracious, you know, waiting for you, trying to get to your life, they call your life essence here, you know, just dying to get there, you know, and running after you. And then, and the point is not to get scared or something like that.

They say a person who has good death meditation dies better than anybody. You see? And it's not because they've practiced the pain of dying.

It's because they have a totally at peace. They did the best they could, you know. On that day and on every other day since they learned true death meditation, they jumped all the unimportant stuff, and they concentrated on the most important stuff, and they can die at peace.

They can say, okay, maybe I'm not a Vajrayogini yet, but I gave it my best shot. You know what I mean? I spent my time, I did the most important things with every hour of my day as if I was going to die that night.

And I've been doing that there for the last 10 years, and I have no regrets about dying right now, you know. I'm sorry I didn't make it, but I did the best. You know, I have no doubt that I did the most advanced things that I could do, given my level, you know.

And I have no doubts about it. I didn't have any questions about what was the most important thing to do in my life. And I acted that way every single day, as if I was going to die that night.

And that's when your death meditation is perfected. So you don't have to, you know, try to get that in mind when you look down at the corpse. Say, you know, just look down and say, did this poor guy do the...

did he die doing the most important thing he could have done? Maybe he didn't make it to tantric paradise in his life, but he certainly was doing the most important thing he could have at that moment, okay? When he died, okay?

Second meditation, go off to the left hand, this one here. Do you know what I mean? Remember you came in...

well, you're going to be coming in here, right? Then you go up to this one, okay? Go to the left one first.

Left as facing the courtyard, okay? From the outside, okay? So you're going to be going up to this one next, over here.

As you look down in this... under the glass, there's... see all these ugly worms, and scorpions, and spiders, and centipedes, and...

and these are your bad deeds, okay? And then on the other side, all these jewels, and diamonds, and rubies, and sapphires, and these are your good deeds. In the coffin, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
And... So there's three coffins?

[Speaker 1]
No, there's one coffin, you're laying there, and over here all these ugly things, over here all these beautiful things, and... and you've got to get rid of them, okay? You mean, you don't want to go on with this baggage, okay?

Especially the bad ones. Okay? So, the idea is purification.

The next step is the teachings on karma. This is the next lamrim, okay? After death meditation, you do the four steps of karma.

You think about karma, okay? And this is the lesser motivation person's next practice, is karma. Thinking about karma.

I don't want to die with those things with me, okay? I want to die without those things, alright? And so you go up to the next...

station. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
One coffin.

[Speaker 1]
One you. They're at the tip of the... Coffin's right here, as you go in from the outside.

Then you move up to the left. Oh, no, the bad stuff is here. You're going to take it with you up to here.

And you're going to get rid of it, okay? It's not that you take the coffin. That's a real hassle.

You need four guys usually. Okay? Alright?

You're taking, open up the glass, take out these ugly things, run over to this one, okay? And up here there's a fire. Okay?

A fire. Up here in this place.

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
You're taking the ugly stuff out of the coffin, and you're going to burn it.

[Speaker 2]
Over here.

[Speaker 1]
I see it right here next to my face, and it's like really gross, and I want to get it out. And you take it over, you run over here, and this is where you do your purification, okay? Those of you who are in Washington, you know, this is where you do a fire, okay?

This is a special fire that you use to get rid of your bad deeds. And Elizabeth's an expert at it, and if you want to know how to do it, talk to her during the break or in the afternoon, okay? But it's a little fire that you can do at home.

You can do it in your living room, because you do it with ghee, with clarified butter. And you use these special... This is a Ketup Jey practice.

This is one of Je Tsongkhapa's main students. And you take your bad deeds in the form of some kind of mustard seed, which is traditional, or sesame, black sesame, and you put it in a can a certain way. You can use a...

I've even used a Twinnings tea can, but you can also use a diamond cookie tin from Puerto Rico, if you find one. And any of them, you can use either one. And then you pour in the ghee on top of these bad deeds, which are normally...

you use mustard or black sesame or something, and then you light it. In this visualization, it's like a permanent, you know, eternal flame fire over there, and you're just throwing in these ugly creatures, okay? But it's good if someday you do it really...

like once a week it's fun to do, and it's very, very beautiful. You get the can out. It can be at night.

I used to go out on a beach and do it. Nobody's around, you know. Put the can there.

Put in the bad deeds, which are represented by seeds. Yeah, sure. And get some ghee.

Dump it in there. Light it. And then I write down my worst bad deeds on a piece of paper.

And I fold it up, and I sit there, and I look at the fire. And it's very peaceful. It's very nice.

We did one in Mongolia for the Mongolian people. It was really beautiful. We did it up on a big stage, and they were all watching, and they figured out how to do it, and it was fun.

And we couldn't put it out. But anyway... Then you just...

When you're ready mentally, you go through the four forces of purification, okay? You go through them mentally. And then you just throw the paper in there, and you watch it burn.

And then you sit there, and you think for an hour, or half an hour, until it burns out. And it's very, very peaceful. It's very fulfilling.

It's very nice to sit there, and it's very quiet, and the fire's sort of cheery, and you don't have to bring marshmallows or anything. And you just watch it, and it's very meditative. It helps you meditate, and you think about that bad deed, and you think about it.

You purify it with the four forces, because you don't want to take it with you. That's the main thing. That's why it's in the same room with the corpse, okay?

With the coffin. You don't want this in that coffin when you're going on. You want to get it out of your mind stream before you die, okay?

Aside from the fact that it's multiplying every 24 hours, exponentially, okay? You don't want it. You want to get rid of it as soon as possible, okay?

So you... And if you've done a very bad deed, like an abortion or something like that, then you have to keep doing it for... for a while.

You can't just do it once and think it's going to go away, or something like that. You have to keep going at it for a while, okay? So, you're going to take all those ugly creatures out.

This is very traditional teaching. Usually, it's called, दुच्चि बेप्जान्मान्दे, but you take all these ugly creatures, and you go over and throw them in the fire. And then that guy is not going to move on with those creatures in his box, okay?

That guy being you. But it's very important in this meditation, what's the small-capacity person's motivation? What is their goal?

They want to stay out of the three lower realms, you know? I say, keep my rear end out of the three lower realms. If you want to accomplish that, you cannot die with this stuff on your heart, on your conscience.

Your conscience must be free of those things. And since you don't know when you're going to die, you better get your box ready. You know, get one, do it now, you know, and start doing the four forces of purification, okay?

Get the oral transmission from Elizabeth, and these guys had it in Washington. Do you feel comfortable to teach people that? Yeah, okay?

They just had it in Washington, it's fresh, okay? And, you know, during the break, you can talk to them or something. But this is a method for wiping out old bad karma, okay?

What about the jewels? We're getting there, okay? They always sprinkle a subuddhi in the audience.

Now the jewels, the good deeds, you got to park them, okay? Go over to the last triangle, the last corner of the triangle, which would be this one over here. On the right, as you face the courtyard, okay?

The third Lam Rim for people of lesser capacity is taking refuge, okay? Taking refuge. So, so far you've had a death meditation, dealing with karma, thinking about the four principles of karma, and getting rid of your bad karma, okay?

And now you're going to move over to the other corner and take refuge, which is the last thing, like, who can help me when the poop hits the fan, you know? Who can I turn to when I need help, okay? Especially when I die, okay?

And that's on the last corner there. And then you take all the jewels from the coffin, because these are your good deeds, these are protection, okay? Go over there, mix them up with this special robe.

What's that guy in the Bible, what's his... got this robe, colored... Joseph's robe, yeah, okay?

So it's like this robe, it's got diamonds all over it, and this is protection, okay? And you put it on, all right? And this is protection, this is taking refuge.

Now, what is taking refuge? We talked about it the other night, but an act of taking refuge, is it to, you know, bow down in front of a picture and say, please, picture, please help me. Does it mean, Lord Buddha, come and save me from my bad karma.

You know, I've been a bad boy, you have the power, come and cancel my bad karma for me. Can't do it. Even Lord Buddha can't do it.

If he could, what? We wouldn't be here. Okay, very, very simple.

The proof for the non-existence of a supreme compassionate being is... me. Period.

Okay, I wouldn't be here getting old, if they could have done anything about it. And they can't. There's no such thing.

I prove it. No such thing. Unless they're sadistic or something, okay?

Which they're not. So, they can't do that. Buddha cannot take away your bad karma.

Buddha cannot cancel your bad karma. Buddha cannot cut you some slack. Karma is relentless, ruthless, total ecology.

Karma works like gravity. You might as well ask the planet not to pull, you know, these things down. Please don't pull them down, you know.

It's just a law of the universe. The planet can't cut you any slack, you know. It doesn't work that way.

Karma is the same thing. So, who can give you refuge? What's the coat represent?

The robe. To doing an act of refuge. What's an act of refuge?

Very simple. We talked about it a million times. I still didn't get it, personally.

Boss comes in, yells at you. You're looking at the boss. You understand that this boss has been created by your bad karma.

And then at that moment, you do an act of refuge. Which means, I choose to break the cycle of life at this moment. I refuse to yell back.

I refuse to get angry, okay? And that's an act of refuge in the universe that can protect you, okay? Wisdom, okay?

And if you want the details, he's empty. You're seeing an ugly boss because you have the bad karma to project that. His wife thinks he's wonderful.

The guy in the room next to you that's hearing him yell at you who doesn't like you thinks he's wonderful. He's empty. He's blank.

He's neutral. And if you see something unpleasant, it's only because an understanding of emptiness and karma. That's all the Three Jewels are, okay?

You just took refuge in the Three Jewels. Okay? It doesn't involve bowing down to a statue or a painting or praying that somebody will help you who can help you.

It's that action at that moment with understanding of emptiness and karma that is the only thing that can protect you. Okay? So when you go to the third triangle, third point of the triangle, think about it.

And then all day long, you can do acts of refuge. If you want to fulfill your commitment to take refuge all day long, six times or something, just think of people who irritate you and take an act of refuge, you know. That's real refuge.

That's the only thing that can protect you. Okay? So when you put the coat on, think about it.

Don't think, Oh, buddhaya namo dhammaya namasagaya. Okay? Well, it can't help you.

The essence of the Three Jewels is an understanding of emptiness and karma. Why? Buddha Jewel is the Dharmakaya of the Buddha, ultimate emptiness.

Dharma Jewel is the direct perception of emptiness, and reading about it, and studying it, and doing it. Sangha Jewel is all the Aryas who have ever seen emptiness directly before. Okay?

Is there some kind of pattern here? Theme? Emptiness.

Okay? And karma. And that's the only thing that can protect you.

Buddha, Dharma, Sangha is not the same as Buddha Jewel, Dharma Jewel, Sangha Jewel. Okay? The Jewel is the understanding of emptiness and karma.

And that's the one that protects you. So now you got in this room. This room is complete now.

You have all the Lamrimbas of a person of smaller scope. By the way, some Lamrim shifts some of them into the medium scope. Don't worry about it.

Okay? This is the way this Lamrim does it. Okay?

You go in, you do a death meditation. And the essence of that is, let me die, or I shouldn't say that. Today, am I doing the thing which I would choose to do if I knew I was going to die this afternoon?

Is this what I would be doing if I knew it was for sure I was going to die this afternoon? Is my practice cranked up to the level that I'm at my breaking point almost? You see, I'm at the most advanced thing I could be doing at this particular moment within my capacity.

You know, I have truly pushed myself to the point where I know if I died this afternoon at least I could say I tried. You know, I did my very best. Okay?

Yeah? The stages on this path, I mean, a year ago when you were teaching the Lamrim at the Open Center, you got the little book where basically it is you know, renunciation and elevating burning wood for enlightenment and then right view.

[Speaker 2]
How did these steps in this match those three stages in that?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's a good question. They all basically relate to renunciation. Because you're worried about what's going to happen to you after you die.

This three, this room, mainly renunciation. So, go through the room, do your death meditation, which, very short, I'm not going to give you much time because I want to eat breakfast, lunch. So, it's going to be it's going to be something like can I honestly say that what I'm doing today or this week is what I would be doing if I knew I was going to die.

By the way, that takes out a lot of the pressure, peer pressure, you know, do the people around you think you're crazy or weird or something like that. It doesn't matter. If you're going to die, you do not worry about them so much anymore.

You're concentrating on what's the most important thing at that moment. If you were going to die today. When you get to that state of mind all day long, every day, you have perfected death meditation.

Okay? It's not like trying to pretend to be cold or something like that. Alright?

It's... Okay? It's...

It's... Am I doing at every given moment the thing which is most powerful for me to get enlightened? Okay?

As if I were going to die tonight. Okay? That's death meditation.

Then you take all the grungy things out of the... under the glass, run over to the fire, throw them in, think about a few of the worst things you've ever done and watch them burn. Because I don't want to carry that with me.

Okay? I want my conscience to be clean when I die. Okay?

Yeah? The signs of success at death meditation...

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
...is it that you are asking the question constantly, that, am I doing the best thing, or is it that you feel that you are doing it? I think that you feel that you are. I mean, but of course they're related.

You know, I think that the question... To reach the question, constantly questioning yourself, is really close to perfecting it. And then to honestly answer...

then you know you're doing good death meditation. Okay? And that's...

What I just said is not... You know, now you understand a real death meditation. And it's not like closing your eyes and seeing some kind of bright lights and, you know, wishing that at the last moment you could get rid of all your bad deeds.

Poh! Forget it! You know?

You're choosing the worst moment of your whole life to do the most difficult practice of your whole life. You know, you're hallucinating at that point. You're out of it.

Your mind is 50% shut down. You know? You're just in...

You are literally having hallucinations of being swept off by huge floods and, you know, weird things happening. You're like... It's like in the middle of a heavy LSD trip to try to do the most difficult practice of all.

Do it now. Take care of it now. You know?

That's all. That's a death meditation. Then you go to the second...

Throw in your bad deeds. Watch them burn. Think of at least one specific bad deed.

The whole thing about purification doesn't work unless you get specific. You know? I had students who come up to me and in their book all that's written is, I'm a bad person.

You know? That may be true. That's not what I'm interested in.

Purification involves isolating the major bad events, karmas that you have and wiping them out very distinctly. You know, on April 3rd, 1985, four o'clock, this thing happened and I'm burning this up. Okay?

Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
So, next time I come to do the death meditation, do I take these same ugly deeds and burn them again?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, that's a good question.

[Speaker 2]
Or do I finally get rid of all these?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. If there are big ones, like killing someone, something like that. And I think, again, in our culture, it's something like abortion is very common, or things that you didn't realize were wrong at the time.

You know? Those take time. We asked a lama in Serang.

We asked one of the high lamas there. And, you know, can you just do one fire and it's canceled? And he said, no.

It's like wearing away a rock with a cloth. And he said, you have to keep doing it over. So, for the major ones, you should bring them up once a week or something.

And then the minor ones, you know, like you yelled at somebody yesterday, those you can do once. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
But then you still have full faith as you cast it into the fire that it is being absolved.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, very important to think, I'm out. I'm clean. You know?

And when you do really die, this whole Catholic thing of having a priest there to absolve you is very Buddhist. That's very Buddhist. It's very important to die thinking, yeah, I did my fire thing yesterday.

I don't have a thing left. It's very important as you die to believe that.

[Speaker 2]
Could you just not dissolve everything in one go at that moment?

[Speaker 1]
I think you could visualize it that way, but in practice the Lamas say the heavy ones you should do it frequently. Okay? Until you get some signs of purification.

Okay? Which are... What are the signs of purification?

Some kind of disaster happening to you. Okay? Seriously.

Diamond Cutter said so, right? And then... a feeling that it's gone.

You know? Like a feeling clean and happy. Your dreams change.

Your attitude changes. Your life changes. Everything feels better.

You know? Okay? Those are the two good signs.

Okay, third corner. And then we're going to go to the third corner and put on the robe. And think of at least one act of refuge.

An act of refuge. Okay? Cancel the old idea that came from your childhood of throwing yourself before an altar and saying, Namo Dharmaya Namo Sanghaya.

You know, forget it. Those pieces of paper can't do anything for you. Take a real act of refuge.

Okay? Next time this person comes up to me and says that stuff, I'm going to protect myself. I got this special coat now.

And... I'm going to break the cycle. I'm going to break the cycle by refusing to respond.

Does that mean you have to be a wimp your whole life? No. It empowers you to respond with power without anger.

Okay? Like, if you see someone hurting someone, you're required to step in and take action. But not with anger.

Okay? Not allowed to have anger. And that's the difference.

Okay? So, until you can do it without anger, you have to be a wimp. And as soon as you can do it without anger, you have to be a Spiderman or something.

Okay. Alright? Okay.

So, we're going to go into that room. Okay, we'll stop there. It's okay.

It's lucky. Chanting.

[Speaker 2]
This is the end of Session Five.