Серия ежедневной практики, курс 02 — Истинный смысл прибежища (1995, Ваджрапани, Калифорния), занятие 5

[Speaker 2]
This is the continuation of session four.

[Speaker 1]
Is the projection voluntary or is it forced upon you? It's forced upon you. I do mean that.

What I mean is that it's not like you have any choice at that moment. You can't say, I choose not to have this projection. I choose to shift my projection.

I understand there's just a lady out there, neither good nor bad by herself. I choose to project a nice lady. You can't do it.

Go try. You know, go try. Close your eyes and wish to the fairy godmother.

You know, and she won't change. You open your eyes and she'll be screaming at you for closing your eyes. She'll still be there.

And you can't do it. It is forced on you. Really, obviously.

Because you can't... That's why the idea... That's why this whole idea of refuge as, oh, oh, I wish it wasn't like that.

I wish it wasn't like that. I wish it wasn't like that. You know, you open your eyes and it's still there.

That's not the idea. Refuge doesn't work that way. It never will.

It cannot. It just won't work. You know, you try.

There's been tight times in your life. You're about to die or something. Or you got this tremendous headache or something.

And you just say, oh, I wish I didn't have it. And it won't go away. It won't stop.

It doesn't help. It's forced on you by your past karma. We'll talk about it in about 30 seconds.

Actually, maybe now. What do you do next? I mean, you see her emptiness.

Okay? Just remember her emptiness. If you don't get anything else out of this today, going for refuge at that moment is remembering that she's empty.

Just remember that she's empty. That's very easy because you've struggled with emptiness for many years. You're wondering what emptiness is.

Okay, she's empty. So, big deal. How does that help me?

Why do all these lamas run around teaching emptiness? Okay, it's a nice idea. What can I use it for?

She's empty. Which means what? Dependently, originationly speaking, she's my projection.

But what does that mean? I'm being forced to have this projection of this irritating lady due to my past karma. What kind of karma was it to have somebody screaming in your face?

It's that you spoke harshly to someone. You said something harsh to someone. Just by the law of all causes and effects.

They must be similar. You can't remember. You can't see it.

You can deduce it. By logic. You yelled at somebody.

Then, all this is happening before you open your mouth, right? So, what's the last thing you want to do to her? Yell back.

It'd be insane. It'd be crazy. It would be psychopathic to yell back at her.

And that's exactly what we do. We yell back. And that's the way the wheel of life is shaped, like a wheel.

We're self-perpetuating. Your natural reaction perpetuates suffering. That's the key to the wheel of life.

Your natural reaction to suffering, which is to hurt someone to get out of it, brings it right back to you again. And then what's going to happen the next time it comes back? You'll respond again with hatred, or you'll say something bad, and then it'll start into motion another wheel of the dependent, of the wheel of life, the twelve links.

And that's exactly how the twelve links work. Dambho marikpa. The first of the twelve links is ignorance.

It's required. Nipa duje kiles. The second link is creating karma due to your ignorance.

You don't understand her nature. You don't understand she's empty. You don't understand that she's your projection.

You don't understand that your projection was forced on you by your past karma. So you do the same karma again. And then you start the wheel.

It's like a roulette wheel. You spin it, and you start it again. And then sooner or later you have to go through the end of the wheel.

So that's the whole thing. I think when you take refuge, that's what you're taking refuge in. Refuge has to be intimately related to emptiness.

Because all three of the refuge's objects are either emptiness, or the perception of emptiness, or someone who has perceived emptiness. So it must be related. Emptiness must be related to taking refuge.

Morality is totally linked to emptiness. You can't talk about emptiness and not talk about karma in the next moment. Because something has to be filling in the empty.

There's a blank screen. Somebody has to be painting on it. That's karma.

And that's why the Buddha is always... I mean, people like Tsongkhapa and Nagarjuna, they're obsessed with emptiness and karma. They never talk about emptiness without talking about karma.

First moment of taking refuge with a screaming lady, you remember her emptiness. Second moment, you remember who's painting the picture. And the third moment, it's me.

And I screamed at someone. Fourth moment, take refuge. You take refuge.

How do you take refuge? What can protect you from having screaming ladies in your future? Restrain.

Restrain from yelling. Don't yell back. That's refuge.

That's the only refuge. There's two points about that refuge. One is, it's the only refuge you're ever going to have.

You can pray to visualizations of certain colored things and you know it won't necessarily work. I don't mean the great faith that you feel, which is a good karma and fits into the other kind of refuge. That's real taking refuge.

But the refuge of responding correctly and understanding the emptiness of this thing, that's wisdom. That's the sixth perfection. There's nothing more to Buddhism than that.

You are taking refuge in knowledge and you don't respond. And then slowly you use up all those those karmas that you have. It wouldn't be fair to end it though and not explain how you could use up those karmas a little bit ahead of time so you wouldn't have to wait for all the irritating ladies in the world to show up.

I mean, can we accelerate the process? Could you just have them all come in the room today and yell and then get over it? And not respond, right?

And then that would be, that's actually deep med, that's getting rid of your dipa. Then there wouldn't be any more obstacles and you would start perceiving this room as a paradise. What's that called?

You call that dipa? Dipa merba. Dipa merba.

Oh, no, that's an obstacle, but we'll talk about it. So, you had a question there. So, I'm going to go into just a brief thing on how could you accelerate all those bhaktyaks.

How could you get all those mental seeds for karmas to ripen quickly without having your car blow up and get them over with. I mean, there's two sides to reaching your own paradise and the Diamond Cutter Sutra is very clear about it. There's two things that have to go on for you to reach your own paradise.

You must remove your past karmas. You must remove the seeds you have in your karmic pocket. The karmic pocket is very deep.

It's not like our wallets, which are usually empty. It's very deep and it's got millions of years of seeds sitting there. They're waiting in priority to come up next, and they will.

And that's why our world continues. That's why we have a perception of time. They're sitting there waiting, and they pop up one by one.

So, you have to clean out all your old karmas. What's obviously the second part? Not create new ones under any circumstances.

Taking refuge as we've just described it, will prevent you from creating new ones. That is protection. That's the best protection.

It's the only protection. And by the way, I wanted to say at some point, you ain't got no choice either. You have to take refuge.

What's your choice? What are you going to do? Are you going to stay like this?

It's not like a question that you have to go home and debate it. Am I going to become a Buddhist or not? When you take refuge, you're already a Buddhist.

You see, it's very interesting. We didn't have any weird guy with a bump on his head and long ears and any golden-colored body or anything. When you take refuge like I just described it, you are a true Buddhist.

It doesn't matter what you call yourself. The 93 glasses. Because you broke your refuge.

You know. You broke refuge. You're not taking refuge at that moment.

On an empty screen, you are choosing to create the causes to project some suffering. Because your Ksitigarbha means you're disregarding an obvious instruction of the Buddha. It's a special kind of bad deed to say, what the hell, this is a stupid rule.

I mean the Buddha 90% cool, 10% those are silly you know we know nowadays that we can do those things you know that's a special kind of madness but I don't want those are the gray areas so you want to prevent from doing them in the future and once you do that mentally at work if tomorrow at work someone yells at you or says something unkind to you and you start to react and then you remember this talk and you restrain yourself through an understanding of the person's emptiness you've just taken refuge and whether you like it or not you're a Buddhist and you just join the ranks of the Buddhists okay it doesn't matter what church you go to or anything you already you are a true Buddhist then the opposite is also true if you never take refuge like that doesn't matter if you wear robes or whatever you're not really gonna get any kind of protection oh I like it I like it I like it because we've reached that point that we talked about yesterday about equanimity about really being able to sit in the room while the guy breaks down the door and has a phone ready to kill you I mean let's go back to that example I mean what what in the old man's mind given this discussion could have let him be so fearless at that moment I mean is he going to get up and try to find some sharp object and try to hold the stab the guy that's that's the opposite of taking refuge that's that's yelling back at the lady it's exactly the same thing it's a lot harder to let someone stab you by the way there's a famous story of King Udayana King Udayana and King Bimbisara were two great Indian kings they started giving gifts to each other and each one wanted to outdo the other and finally they reached a point where somebody had given somebody a million dollars in gold and the other one didn't know what to do so he went to the Buddha and said you know I gotta send something back more valuable what should I do Buddha said send my picture so he hired some painters and he said go to where the Buddha is and paint him and bring me the canvas and he waited for a few days and nobody came back so he went over there and there's these guys sitting in front of Buddha like that he's too beautiful you know we can't we can't take our eyes off him you know so the Buddha said don't worry and he put a lamp behind him and he put a sheet in front of him and he said just just outline it on the sheet you know the shadow you know the silhouette so they outlined the silhouette and the Buddha said okay let me let me draw something let me add something so he drew the Wheel of Life and and that's where the Wheel of Life came from up in the corner there's the Buddha pointing that's the silhouette of the Buddha and the Wheel of Life the Buddha added and he added all the twelve links and he added the five six realms in the middle and the four in the middle and he added everything he painted everything said send this to Udayana and something great will happen so Bimbisara sends it to Udayana and in Udayana opens the package he sees the painting he grabs it like that and he became an Arya on the spot he just boom you know so later on he reaches Arhat then he goes to he gives up his kingdom he goes to follow the Buddha he gives up his whole kingdom and he goes to follow the Buddha and he puts his son in charge of the kingdom the son turns out to be a bad guy and he starts doing too much taxes and hurting people and capital punishment or anything like that and he starts really hurting the people and Udayana hears about it he says I'm gonna go back to the kingdom and straighten out my son the two evil ministers hear about that and they tell the son watch out Udayana is coming back he's gonna take the kingdom back he's gonna dethrone you he might even murder you so the son says his name is Tsukpu Chin Shikhandi he says do whatever is necessary to stop him and they go to murder him Udayana so here's a person who's an Arya I believe he's an Arhat also and they're going he meets the assassins on the road he says are you here to murder me they said mm-hmm just give me a moment to collect my thoughts and and he and he tries to fly away he tries to he has miracle powers he can fly and and he tries to fly but they fail him at that moment I mean the karma over what do you call it the karma is stronger than his abilities and he can't fly and in fact when you study the five great sins the five great bad deeds that son is one person who collected both he killed an Arhat and he killed his father with one with one deed so two out of five which is very rare and and the point is that Udayana here is has all this power to to leave I mean he has all this power to to to get away and he tries to get away why out of compassion for the assassins it's it's stated in the sutra it's not like Udayana is worried about himself he says boy if they kill me my son's going to collect two of the five great bad deeds he'll definitely go to hell the moment he dies I don't want him to go to hell I'll do anything to try to get away so he really tries to get away tries to use all these supernatural powers he has to get away out of compassion for the assassins and for his son he doesn't want them to collect that which why did I bring this up the monk you really should try to get away I mean Dalai Lama did run away from the Chinese I mean it's compassionate not to let someone murder you you know and I'm not talking about that when I talk about when I talk about equanimity I don't mean that Udayana sat there and said okay just kill me you know he did try to use his powers to escape out of compassion so what I mean is equanimity doesn't mean to let someone abuse you or harm you in a way that would hurt them what it means is not to get angry back it when you get very very very good at it and you're not angry at the lady anymore you might want to punch her in the nose or something out of compassion you know but we we're not at that level I I guarantee you don't don't be one of those people who fools themselves into saying it's compassionate for me to yell back because I want to teach her a lesson because she's creating bank on I mean come on is that really your motivation you know I mean we I've heard a lot of people say that maybe maybe we could get to that point I don't think we're at that point so you have to just try to equanimity means as she's yelling at you you don't respond and but now equanimity has a reason and a logic and it's tied to taking refuge I mean now it's not hard to have equanimity it's just the intelligent thing to do it's the educated Buddhist approach you know when they yell at you just the best thing is to try to do something constructive that you know something kind that I don't mean to be we're not like Dalai Lama who can hug Mao Tse Tung you know but at least you can try to make something good happen in the next few minutes you know say okay I know maybe I did something wrong you know can I help you can we fix this you know can we do and and in that sense you you that's equanimity that's and that equanimity is is if you can keep your mindfulness you can achieve that tomorrow it's just the equanimity of knowing what's going to happen if you respond and you don't respond then people go around the office saying boy this lady's weird she never gets mad you know I don't know what it is but you're not getting mad for your own purposes you mean you don't want to get any more background Shantideva says when he talks about giving he says start with vegetables don't go around giving your eyeball to somebody you know you're not strong enough and you would start to regret it and it would become a bad deed the regret would be a bad deed so he says start with what you can handle and and they say that when the both bodhisattvas do something that would be to us painful they don't they're at already at a point where their karma is such that it actually feels good to them to do that when when I don't remember who it was Shantideva actually I don't remember but he actually pulled his eye gave it to someone who asked him for it and he didn't feel any pain I mean I mean by that stage you're not it's such a pleasure to do it that you just feels good and and if you don't reach that stage you're not allowed to do it you know because you would regret it later you would start to have second thoughts later and then that would be a bad deed it would be a kind of stinginess yeah so

[Speaker 2]
yelling lady if I can mentally go through seeing emptiness and doing all

[Speaker 1]
these things good not too many things bottom line yeah and walk away from it

[Speaker 2]
but later go you know have it naturally come up oh it's the opposite so you're killing at me yeah I mean is that not good too then it's you got a now then you

[Speaker 1]
have to use the emptiness thing on that yeah and and I promise you and you know at the beginning it won't work very well I promise you that if you don't do it regularly you will forget this day and you'll go on like you were before I can pretty much guarantee that if you don't keep some kind of logbook in the evening or in the morning how many times did you go for refuge you know you won't it will never change you won't change it's not enough to wish it's not enough to have a good intention on Monday morning you know you gotta keep some kind of record and don't make it long make it about two minutes long you know some people I know they go we discussed this and then the next day they got a list of a hundred things they're not gonna do and keep it under five minutes we'll talk about the purification I think every time I get upset I mean every time someone attacks me or they're not really attacking me but I feel hurt I don't know personally I work in a very busy office we go through these big waves of when everybody's upset or when everybody's happy and you know and in a bad day I guess about six seven times a day I don't have to I don't have to do it all day long because there's no one yelling at me all day long somebody some people I do have a boss the fact is though the more you do it and the better you get at it then naturally the karmic starts to weaken and you can be in an office which is chaotic and where people are being laid off and screamed out and failing and and you're just sitting there like everything's going right it's not supposed to be a Buddhist goal okay it is a side effect I'm sorry you know you're gonna be stuck with this side effect where everything goes pretty well you know it's not supposed to be your motivation failing to respond to her badly we'll prevent you from having a lower bonus but as a side thing karma does ripen in three stages one is called tongue your gillet that means karma you can see you ripen in this life one is Kenyan young Jackie lay means in the next birth you see it and then there's karma which is experienced in the second birth on to the millions you know but no tongue your gillet does exist there is karma which if you keep it up on a regular basis you'll start to see the results in this life and in fact the practice of Tantra is is the acceleration of all your karma into tongue your gillet it's to try to get a result in this life so that's I mean a side effect is that you I don't say that you won't have disasters in your life but but generally speaking your life will start to be much more pleasant you have certain illnesses they'll start to get better if you have certain personal problems they'll start to work out if you have money problems they'll start to work out things like that it's it's not not it doesn't work you do have other cameras in your pocket that are pretty powerful like the other did but generally speaking your life will start to get very nice no you actually change the karma the reality changes because things are empty it is just your perception and that's all the reality they ever had a good point that's all the reality they ever had yeah it's not a new right the problem no longer exists through your perceiving it which is the only existence it ever had it doesn't mean and I repeat it doesn't mean I don't mean perception in the sense of having a good attitude or not having good answer don't mean that I mean actually changing reality you know actually changing the world through your deeds and then I don't mean what's a guy's name that Christian guy Norman feel Vincent yeah I don't mean just have a cheery outlook on all these disasters that are having I mean actually changing

[Speaker 2]
the common they're not yeah I mean the object to whom you're praying or meditating I'm not I don't believe them on show me yeah right no no there is no

[Speaker 1]
such category there is no such category there is no object in the universe which is free of the rules that I've described you know there is no there is no such thing you would be saying that there is something that exists in the universe which is not a creation of a projection which is forced on someone by their past deeds there is no such that would be an object that did not have dependent origination and that would be an object that wasn't empty and there doesn't exist that's that's because of those four elements of common she's something she's something the main thing is something the main thing is your motivation the Lucy the actual event itself where that fly did go around that stupa and and because of that had a tiny bachata to be a student of the Buddha and to progress as a student of Buddha it happens because they did perceive the slide did have a some kind of primitive perception of going around a stupa and that's enough and that's that's used as an example in scripture of the minimum bachata I mean that was like the closest thing to not about time and as I remember showing put your was sent out of the gogi putu he had to interview all the students of the Buddha and that was the householder Pelican and he he came back and said this guy doesn't have it to be a monk you know I've I've used my ESP I've searched his mind he doesn't have the slightest sliver of any kind of good deed in his past life which would allow him to be a successful monk so he advised the Buddha not to make him a monk and the Buddha said you made a and that's where he goes into this yeah and very famous he became an eye in his

[Speaker 2]
life there's three levels in when we study monks though it's called if you

[Speaker 1]
ever seen that I don't know it's called concentric circle this is like monks morality about women okay for a male monk this is this is breaking your vow of celibacy this is being in a room along with the lady this is ever being touching a lady this is looking at a lady you know this is staying in a place where there is even any ladies if you if you always stay out here you'll never get to there you know there's this idea if you just never be around a lady you're never gonna break your vow of celibacy and and even if you get this far if you never stay in a room as well you'll never break your vows like that you know there's these concentric circles like that and and what it means for a normal person's morality is at the beginning if you're overcome by anger at the lady you have to leave the situation physically I mean the best thing to do if you're not strong enough yet don't come this far you know stay back here never be in the same room try to avoid the person don't go down the hall when the person's going down the hall it's not I mean if you're not strong enough to stand there and respond gracefully and helpfully then then get away don't try not to enter a situation where you might encounter the person as you get stronger in your practice try to reach a point where she could be in your face yelling and you're you're just keeping your cool and not in a way that as I you know irritates her more than anything I mean we know that the best way to irritate some of those people is to just not say anything and that's what you're that's what you're describing avoid the situation I mean avoid the situation go outside you know go for a walk you know when it gets heavy when there's yelling going on you just you just walk away that's that's the minimum thing to do the medium thing to do would be to stand there and just try to be a little bit equanimity I

[Speaker 2]
don't know the habit of walking away you still have to do something else because there's you can just do that oh but then when you get to the highest

[Speaker 1]
point we're actually in the face of someone screaming at you you can respond with with care and and love and concern for whatever made them angry and and try to make the situation better you know in a very creative automatic instantaneous way while they're screaming at you and those are all levels that you go through and you have to know your own capacity you can't overestimate your capacity otherwise you're really going to screw up oh yeah sure I mean I'm just describing you know there's monks who should stay in a monastery and never go outside of a monastery you know who can who can come out of the monastery but should never be in a room alone and then it goes like that you know and you have to if you judge wrong you're gonna make a big mistake you have to judge your own capacity you have to know enough about

[Speaker 2]
yourself I think we'll take a last question we're gonna take a break and

[Speaker 1]
then we'll come back and do like 15 minutes of a quick purification thing just so you know if this is the last class we ever have together you know what to do about you know what to do about the old karma now you have the method to clean up to prevent the future commerce and I say if you don't start some kind of long tomorrow I keep a little book in my pocket you know if you don't record don't make it long record the three worst things you did that day record the three best things you did that day if Buddhism never lets you record the bad things without recording the nice things okay you got it and don't let it go on for more than five minutes you have three things you did during the day where you should have taken refuge and then three times where you came close to taking refuge and if it takes you more than two or three minutes to do it you'll give it you'll quit okay just started started like that that's for the future bad comments bad past bad comments will do in a minute okay let's take a break and then we'll do it will help me remember what I'm supposed to say

[Speaker 2]
this is the end of session for session five

[Speaker 1]
ah this is a good way to do it or anytime you you do something that you you didn't take an emptiness quick enough which most likely happen then you can you can do these like when you write it down in your little book you can do that I have like volumes of these books of bad deeds they're very depressing but I think by working on it you at least you prevent yourself from getting worse and and you do get better and then I I believe that there's this what do they call that inertia what's the point at which something rolls on its own you reach a point of momentum or something where because you've been trying so long finally one day you it works and you just don't do it anymore and it and many times you will fail before that momentum gets to that point you know and just don't get discouraged keep going keep keep recording it keep trying to fight it the fight is very glorious I think that's the Dharma person's shining moment is when you're fighting your own bad habits and you don't feel very good because usually you lose and and it's not pleasant why it's going on but but and you feel that you fail later on but imagine what you would be if you weren't fighting it you know and I think that's our that's our great moment of a Dharma practice thing you nobody knows except you I mean you don't get any certificate or anything but uh but if that's your shining moment when you're fighting your own instincts and and the fight is glorious and sooner or later you win but you don't come out without casualties you have it hurts and you have some failures but you got to keep going you actually as I said before it's not a choice you don't have a choice you have to take refuge there's no choice what else you're gonna do you're just gonna get old and die quietly what's the option you know what's the what other things do people have to offer there's no other kind of refuge the doctors can give you refuge up to a certain point and that's about it and then they say they give up they say that's it I can't help you after that so you got to have some other kind of refuge it's so the refuge is not an a luxury it's a necessity you don't have any choice it's the only thing that can help you that's the whole idea so we look like the bad karma first thing is called thing you don't think it means means power or force and 10 means support like it's the force of the support and support means like when you fall down you need something solid ground to get back up there has to be something to to push back up against and this is explained in two different ways one way is to imagine the people that you hurt and they're usually two broad categories I mean in the in the short run there's the person that you actually yelled at for example in the long run if you're trying to become a Buddha you just let down every living being in the universe you know you just belayed your Buddha in for another day or another week or another month you know actually you're hurting all the people around you it's like a pebble in the middle of a pond any bad deed you do has broad ramifications no it's not just hurting you it's having when you allow yourself to do something wrong it it it ripples through thousands of people unknown to you you can't see it I saw this movie somebody told me I should see it called it's a wonderful life the show that the angel comes and shows him what the town would have been without him and unknowingly he has affected hundreds of people you know and the bad deed is the same it's not only you who gets hurt it's every to have people see you you know when a monk checks out a girl on the street people see your eyes subconsciously people know everybody knows people sense what you're doing and it affects them and then it affects the next person the next person he goes on so you've let down a lot of people and then secondly the Buddhas are all wincing you let them down again you know if they're omniscient then they're they're probably wincing a thousand years ago actually you've let down a lot of people thank you told means you try to think of who it was that what was the basis on which you who you harmed and really the harm is very every harm you allow yourself it's very broad effects the effects are very broad the second meaning of thank you top is to take refuge and and try to generate bodhicitta that's just basic Buddhist mental health you know so as a start of a as a start of any class as a start of any purification you just try to remember those two things you take refuge as far as you understand refuge hopefully it's not too fuzzy anymore and then secondly you you try to think of bodhicitta which is to just think of all the people in the world who are really they are going to get old and die quietly they have no other option they're not aware of any other option and you just think of them okay so that's thing you don't number three Jimmy don't say that by the way thank you don't thank you don't we have this thing in New York it's called Friday night class and the nickname is cookie class so we just eat cookies and talk and that's what the people who don't want to study to them and they all end up in the Tibetan class Jim Bay that was the same it means power or force okay number so Jim is a really nasty word it's the word for ripping something out or it's actually the word for rape in some cases but it's it's the word for taking a big weed and ripping it out of its roots it's to rip something out and in and when you have herbs and you're extracting the essence of them it's called Jimbo also you're sucking out the essence of the herbs so numbers from Jimbo means to rip out something called the destruction force sometimes it means to it means regret intelligent regret okay it does not mean guilt okay distinction between guilt and an intelligent regret intelligent regret is understanding karma you understand if you happen to yell back at the lady you know 30 seconds later you know very well what's going to happen you just planted another seed in your mind stream your mind does not end when you die that seed will be carefully preserved and carried on in your mind stream and sooner or later when the causes are all conditions are right it'll come out and someone will scream at you it'll be worse than what you did because things grow seeds are always smaller than the results so it's an intelligent Buddhist regret it's not some kind of anxiety or worry or fuzzy bad feeling it's a quite intelligent educated knowledgeable understanding that you just screwed up yourself you know and you're gonna get a bad result from it and and it's a weird feeling when you get pretty good at it it's like you yell and then 10 minutes later you know because you know quite clearly what's going to happen and it's very hard to get that seed out of your mind stream you know once it's planted there it's very hard to get it out and so it's just knowing that you've put little cancer cells into your body and they're gonna grow and they're gonna get you and you just did it yourself so that's like intelligent regret that destroys a lot of the force of the deed what you said the day just the understanding that you did a stupid thing it's just helps to remove it say now nipa nipa nipa nipa nipa nipa nipa nipa nipa nipa nipa nipa nipa nipa means power nipa means a bad deed or a bad habit nipa nipa nipa nipa nipa means to literally it means to walk away from it to turn away from it what it means is don't do it again not to do it again if you had to pick the one force here that was most effective and is most powerful and really really does stop the karma that you have in from the past it's this one okay if you have any pick your main bad habit if it's getting angry suddenly if it's desire for food or or ladies or whatever it is or whatever you have pick your own worst bad habit and and try to stop it okay this number three involves like a personal vow a personal commitment and it's saying I will not do this thing again and the great lamas of history have said set a time limit you'll definitely do it again set a reasonable time limit in which you can police yourself and prevent yourself from doing it again I've done the same bad deed again before I got to number four I had the same bad deed occur to me you know the same desire or something occur in my mind before I reach number four in that case I should have said about a three second time limit you know lamas often say 24 hours or something like that something reasonable you know something you can really keep because otherwise you're just going to collect one it's another bad deed of what it's lying it's lying it's taking a vow and breaking it you know so they say make it a reasonable vow you know don't swear you're never gonna yell at work again because you're gonna break it you're just gonna collect another bad deed no I know I know but the only requirement for really taking the vows you're talking about which are you know Pratyamoksha vows or Bodhisattva vows or other vows is that you as you take them you truly understand that they are valid and important and that you want to keep them it's not a requirement to take a vow to believe that you're always going to keep it it's certain vows if you break them you lose your vows but but but the only requirement for those kind of vows is to it's just to believe in them and want to keep them but anyway this this kind of vows you should set a time limit that you don't want to say I'll try my best better not to better just to say okay if it has to be an hour and let it be an hour you know but let it be something that you're really pure and then what you know this is the exercise of building up your mindfulness you start with an hour for an hour you can remember that you weren't supposed to do that that's the idea of the one day when it's not about taking so jump where you okay for one day I'll try to act like a Bodhisattva do you try to keep that for that period that your mindfulness can can spread to that long and and you work really hard at it this is the main force obviously you know the karma of not doing it again really helps destroy the seed that you planted from doing it before you know I've had bad deeds big bad deeds in my early life that I only did them once but I spent the rest of my life you work on it you know you you say okay that that bad deed I will work against that bad deed I will never even come close to that bad deed again you know and that's that helps destroy that the force of them that's the main the main direct force that works against it okay number four is a number don't say nimble nimble nimble don't okay nimble don't means antidote okay antidote means you do something to make up for what you did all right for example there's a I live in a Mongolian community in New Jersey they keep sheep to eat I mean they keep them in their backyards and then they slaughter them they're Buddhists but they still do this and they there was a mongolian there was a lot of them were sent to Vietnam they didn't know how to get out of it and they went to Vietnam and we have one student who was in firefights in Vietnam he doesn't know if he killed anybody but he came to my llama he said you know what I do as a nimble don't what I do to make up for that he says I happen to know that your father's keeping two sheep in the backyard you you buy those sheep from him and you keep them until they die and you feed them and that's a nimble that's a symbolic action to make up for what you did something similar to make up for what you did so he took these sheep you know how long she I didn't know that if you don't kill them they live like 20 years we kept them for about 12 years and then they died a natural death and that was a number thing here you can do you can do mantras you can do prayers you can try to do something symbolic to make up for what you did but the most powerful one in all the scriptures is a meditation on emptiness okay to review what we said about emptiness for example formally I don't mean just ruminate about it okay go into say I'm for 10 minutes I'm going to think about the meaning of emptiness and what are its ramifications as far as my behavior as far as karma okay no what does emptiness have to do with why I'm doing this purification you know what's emptiness got to do with the good deeds and bad deeds you know what's the connection what that's supposed to be the most powerful antidote force you can do that's supposed to be the very best one why what what if you reviewed that process that you're supposed to go through as a lady screaming at you absolutely I mean you wouldn't it would help you it would help you do all of those you wouldn't do it again if you really understood the lady's emptiness the last thing you do is yell back you know and that's why that's the most powerful force that can actually destroy the karma and all the scriptures say diamond color sutra says you can read it there's a process by which these four forces in combination actually speed up the right meaning of those karmas that you have that you already have in your mind stream there are scenes in your mind stream flowing along through time they are lined up in parody like airplanes at the airport you know they're waiting to take off next they're coming to you next and you actually can force them to dub cheap means they accelerate they join together and you get a you get a quick maturation a quick ripening of the karma and it's much much less than what it would have been so the example in the diamond cut of sutra is a karma that would have taken you to hell ripens as a headache or a backache you know like for a half an hour or something and it's that kind of fun it's that kind of powerful I think it's can you know I it's listed in scriptures under number don't it's sort of an opposite action that you do by the way this is not a morning after pill okay it means people they do not have this teaching it's true it's in the Mahayana sutras they don't have this teaching they don't accept this teaching they say oh you Mahayana you you think you can do anything and the next morning you do this little four things and everything's okay why is that not true which one of these tells you that's not true the third one okay the third one says you're not going to do it again if you're doing something the night before and taking the pill the next morning and then do it again the next night you didn't take the pill okay you you it's not working it won't work it won't work over and over again you know if you if you can't just do whatever you want at night and confess it in the morning purify it in the morning it doesn't work that way if it's not improving you're not using these four powers so that's why that's why the third one is there you're slowly weaning yourself away it's like cigarettes okay you're not going to give it up the first night you got to go who was it the lady there went from high time to low time to low low time and it's got to be like that we asked the Lama somebody asked if one repetition of these four is enough to get rid of a and they said no it's a process of stuff that means wearing it away you have to do it over and over again if you have a heavy bad deed that you did if you've got something really powerful and you know what they are you have to try to you have to keep applying this over and over again you know if you were involved in an abortion when I was a kid I was involved in abortion okay and you have to keep that's a huge bad deed that's it that's a murder so you have to keep doing it over and over again you have to keep wearing away on it it's not like you do this once and everything's okay you know you can sense that you you can feel that it's not just going to go away like that you have to keep applying it over and over again and it gets stronger and stronger and then it eventually wipes it's not against teaching people too much about emptiness if it's a bodhisattva vows if it would lead them to give up the search for enlightenment you know I mean if it would lead you to give up your search for enlightenment it's improper I break my bodhisattva vows if I mentioned emptiness or describe it to you so you scare me but I'm trying to say this it's only emptiness which allows paradise to or buddhahood to to happen things couldn't change if they weren't empty because when things change it's as a shifting in your perception and not a changing of them this world could never become a Buddha paradise for you personally if it were not empty so it's quite the opposite because things are empty they work because things are empty they can change because the this world is empty your world can become a Buddha paradise you can experience the same raw data as a glass of ambrosia because you can set up the causes to see it that way and then it will be and that's actually how an enlightenment is possible to say it the way the Diamond Cutter Sutra says it because you are empty you can have an experience of yourself as a Buddha I mean one day you will look down and see a Buddha a lady Buddha right and and that'll be a perception forced on you by your past dues it permits it permits it permits paradise to happen emptiness leaves a place for if things were fixed then we'd be stuck in a rainy day and you know all this stuff not because they're empty they can change they can become something else I think there's a practice that you studied something you know you studied how to how to reach high levels of concentration on meditation and there's two steps in there of the antidotes one of them is to take action when it's necessary what's the next one you remember I mean when you're having a meditation and things are going bad you're supposed to take action that's one but but then when you reach that stage and then you go to the next stage what's the next stage do you mean it's it's to not take action you know it's to lay off when it's time to lay off and then taking action becomes a fault you know and and Buddhism is full of that if you reach a point in this tracking of your bad deeds where it gets depressing or it's obviously overwhelming you are required to lay off you know go to a different subject and I'll give you that advice to change it every few weeks I change it maybe every two months or you're not going to get rid of your worst bad habit like that work on it for like a month or two it'll become dry it'll become repetitive you won't be making any progress quit and go to another one we have plenty of material to work on and variety is the spice of life so you know go on to the next one and let that one go for a while and you'll find that you stay fresh and if you get too hung up or depressed about one concentrating on one bad habit you have them go to a fresh one and you have fresh solutions and fresh attacks and fresh approaches and don't think don't get when it starts to get dry and depressing and because you know that you know the same old thing and it turns out after a while you're just recording it every day you're not doing anything about it then go on to the next one okay last question then we should stop okay

[Speaker 2]
so you promise that you will never do it again

[Speaker 1]
for a time period

[Speaker 2]
no, let's say it was the abortion thing you aren't going to do it again you can almost be positive but still that's not going to do it you still have to keep having regret and trying to make reparations

[Speaker 1]
right, you have to keep working on it you have to apply those other three but then every day you should review this one I mean because or you could come close to it you could encourage somebody there was a very dangerous article came out in Tricycle magazine I didn't read it but it was like oh in Japan this is what we do for abortions I didn't read it but I have a feeling it was sort of well maybe this is okay Miyamir Chakra it's clearly stated in the sutras you cannot kill a being who is either in the womb or out of the womb those are the two divisions of murder

[Speaker 2]
I didn't read that I felt like what it was trying to do was to it is to that there can be a wrong extreme of having so much regret that you're almost paralyzed and that you go crazy or something or you're impaired for the rest of your life because of it that kind of therapy they were offering that's what I got

[Speaker 1]
but I'm just thinking

[Speaker 2]
in my past I don't know why I picked this one particular thing but I remember in high school my best girlfriend went away on holidays and I stole her boyfriend from her that's how it was called in those days and as soon as they got him I didn't want him but anyway she came back and of course this happened and she was no longer my best girlfriend anymore and the whole thing was just a total mess I mean everything and so I tried to be very careful about this kind of thing but I keep wondering what if I overdone it? no you're still lurking there I'm waiting I mean am I still going to have to pay for that one? I mean do you or do you try and work on it?

I mean is that the ultimate of

[Speaker 1]
it doesn't hurt to keep, overkill doesn't hurt as long as it doesn't get into paralysis it doesn't hurt make sure it's gone and then it reaches a point where you have to believe it's purified and it's important to know that it's purified the big thing is at the moment of death how much you consciously a large part of it is at the moment of death how much is still on your mind and you know if you have a near-death experience and you start to regret all these things about your life then they're not purified yet and you probably have to work on them

[Speaker 2]
well I feel it's important to put it in that perspective it's like for many of the things I've done in the past that I have regret for I can't say that I've purified it but I can tell if I truly have regret I mean that's the one thing that I can feel

[Speaker 1]
that's the best thing ok anything sorry let me wrap up just that it's a really you know I felt kind of weird coming to teach here because I'm really just an American guy and I I was a little nervous about coming to teach here and I repeat what I said the first night when I came Vajrapani is very famous all over the world I was part of a small center we were very jealous of Vajrapani because they did so many good things and it's really a great thing you know everything you've done here is really really great the place is great the stupa and the dedication to your root lama is the highest practice you can do and everything is just really really perfect and all the teachers who have come here the whole scene is really great and I know that it doesn't happen it's not samgye drupa it's not spontaneous it takes work and it still takes work and many people struggle to make this place here and just for the opportunity for us to have a few hours of classes there's many days and months of work that go into maintaining the place and things like that so I think we should rejoice in that it's a great institution it's more important than the White House or something you know seriously if you think in terms of ultimate good this place here is more important than that institution or Wall Street or whatever these houses are more important than that and just keep it up the whole world, I mean the Dharma world is hoping that you keep it up and it's not easy you don't get any positive reinforcement much you don't get anyone coming and telling you how great it is you know mostly if you're in charge of a Dharma place or you help with the maintaining it or you help with financing it all you get is complaints you get people telling you that isn't how you should have spent your money or I don't like this place this place is too cold or too hot or I don't like the food or why didn't you do this the last thing you get is somebody saying what a great thing you did and you got to just keep going on that's kind of refuge when you start to get depressed about no matter how much you do it doesn't seem to no one's happy that's a kind of refuge too in other words you have to take refuge in your knowledge that you're doing the right thing that you're doing the very best thing and taking refuge in that means not getting discouraged and not ever allowing that to happen you know when you're doing the right reaction to the lady and you're nice to her and then still she attacks you take refuge again refuge to me means that in the face of repeated disappointments you keep doing what you know is virtuous you just keep going that's really refuge and keep it up with Vajrapani alright

[Speaker 2]
chanting

[Speaker 1]
chanting chanting chanting