Серия ежедневной практики, курс 03 — Размышление о практике даяния и принятия (1997, Коннектикут), занятие 2

[Speaker 2]
Lesson 2 Namo Buddhaya Okay, we're going to cover the third and fourth contemplations now.

[Speaker 1]
Third contemplation is about the benefits of doing this practice. And mainly, there's a sutra that it quotes called The King of Concentration, and it has some quotations from Lord Nagarjuna about what are the benefits of doing this practice. I've always felt a little jealous of Mother Teresa and people like that.

You know what I mean? Or Albert Schweitzer. People like Albert Schweitzer was my mother's hero.

He was a German, right? And he, a Swiss?

[Speaker 2]
You guys can find him around.

[Speaker 1]
Anyway, he was one of the world's greatest organ players, and a great scientist, and a great physician. And then he was wealthy. And at some point in his life he had this spiritual thing happen to him, and then he went to Africa and started a clinic and spent the rest of his life there.

And I was looking at the letters from his wife who didn't want to go. But then he spent the rest of his life taking care of poor people in Africa. He just opened a little clinic and just personally took care of them and played organ for them at night instead of for huge audiences in Europe.

And I've always been jealous of people who could do that kind of thing, like Mother Teresa. Everybody would like to be like that. That's what I'm trying to say.

Everybody in this room admires the great people that you read about like that. They have this capacity for love. And you feel a little inadequate when you read their stories, or you think maybe you're not doing the right thing.

You would like to be able to love like those people obviously love, that they could give up everything and go and take care of other people with no hope for any kind of awards or anything like that. Just go. And the point I've drawn is that it's very interesting.

Buddhism says that nobody was born with this kind of love. It takes practice, you know what I mean? And it's like learning baseball or learning piano or learning anything else, that even the people who come into this world who look to be very loving people and have a great capacity of compassion, that they were just like you and me at the beginning, and they practiced.

And they say it's just ordinary thing of practice, like doing scales on a piano over and over again. And so the promise of Master Shantideva, he has a whole verse about it, that anybody can learn this thing, you just have to practice. So Donglan has this additional...

This is your scales, you see? Just by sitting there on your meditation cushion and thinking of the people you know who have problems is itself a great turning point in your life. You're not even going to their house, you're not even calling them, you're not even going to see them.

You're just going to sit on your meditation cushion and think about them and imagine what problems they have. I think what you'll find is that you never thought about it before. You know what I mean?

I think what you'll find, what I found and still find, is that I don't think much about other people's problems. I'm a Dharma teacher, I enjoy translating, all this stuff, but I don't really sit there and contemplate other people's problems. And you'll find out that it starts to change your life, it starts to change your mind.

And that's the whole point. You can practice loving other people by taking one small problem. The problem should be specific, okay?

Don't generalize. Don't do all living beings, all sentient beings, okay? You can't imagine all their problems.

You can't take care of all their problems. Take one person you know who in 1999 today is depressed at home, or who lost their job, or who lost their boyfriend, or something, and do tonglen on them. It has to be specific.

And if you keep it up day after day after day after day, it has profound effects on your mind. It's like very, very powerful effects on your mind. Your world will start to change.

Your world is created by your mind. So it sounds like some kind of fantasy or some kind of Buddhist spaced out thing where you're not really working on the street to help somebody. You're sitting on your meditation cushion.

It's not like that. By contemplating tonglen, you change your reality in the coming months and years. And it's very, very interesting.

It's very profound. Your actual reality will start to change. And events that were going to happen to you in six months from now won't happen.

And different events will happen. And you're actually shaping your reality by sitting there on your cushion and doing tonglen. It's very profound.

And don't think it's like unreal, or it's not really helping other people, or something like that. This is how to get to heaven. This is how to get to a Buddha paradise.

And you can teach other people that. And other forms of help are good, and you should do them, but that's not ultimate love. You can teach other people how not to die.

You can teach other people how to reach a Buddha paradise. This is not just something that Buddhists say, and they pray, and then there's no way to make it happen really, or something like that. I think there's even a lot of Buddhists in the world who think that.

Like you meet Thai Buddhists, or Sri Lankan Buddhists, or even Tibetan Buddhists, and you say, what are you doing? You say, I'm doing tonglen. Why?

I want to change my reality. I want to become a tantric daddy. They're like, ha ha, you know.

Meditation is just to make your mind calm. And see, you're lucky because you didn't grow up in a Buddhist country. So you can evaluate what the Buddha said literally, you know what I mean?

And you really could reach a Buddha paradise in this lifetime, and you could teach other people how to do it. And the whole point of tonglen is, by doing tonglen, you start to create that paradise. When you get to the end of that process, you can teach other people how to do it.

And that's the ultimate gift to somebody, not to die, not to get old, to reach a Buddha paradise. This is big time charity, you know what I mean? And you should think in those terms.

That's why you're doing tonglen. So you'll see in Reading 3, Contemplation 3, they discuss the benefits of doing tonglen, and what they really contrast is the karma of the mind as opposed to the karma of the body. You see what I mean?

Like, if those of you who are keeping a book, which I'm sure is everybody, if you watch yourself, when you're doing not very well, you're writing down things that you did for other people, or things that you said to other people. And when you're in a really good state of mind, a holy state of mind, you'll find out you're writing what you thought to other people. Thinking is much more powerful karma than doing or saying.

Thinking is the source of all karma. sempai yuki le yu no, fourth chapter, Abhidharmakosha. Raw karma is thinking.

Anytime you have a thought, that's raw karma. So, it's a clue on your book. Start looking for the attitude things.

The last three non-virtues. Was I unhappy that someone else got something? Was I happy that someone else is having trouble?

And then wrong views. You see, because those are much more powerful karma. And in the reading you'll see, he says, you could go to a billion, billion planets, offer all the enlightened beings there some kind of gold and jewels.

And then Nagarjuna says, he mentions apparently some offering that was popular in his time. You would take 300 bowls of food and go to a monastery and serve it in silver plates to the monks. This is apparently some custom that was current in 200 A.D. And he says, come on, that's nothing. Compared to what? Compared to one minute of true love for another person. And he's adamant about it.

In the King of Concentration Sutra, they're adamant about it. And I think in the West we're starting to get into how many water bowls did you put out? And even how many books did you memorize?

And how many courses did you finish? And external things. And what they're saying is that a few minutes of true caring for another person is a much greater offering to the Buddha than making water bowls all day, with a neutral state of mind.

So it's really the mental karmas that are the most powerful. And it's really the last three of the non-virtues which are really nasty. Terrible non-virtue.

If you could stop those last three. What's number eight again? Eight is like being unhappy when other people get something.

Comparing yourself to others. Like driving yourself crazy because you don't like it that someone else has got more than you've got. You know what I mean?

And we do it all day long. And it's one of the three worst bad karmas. The number nine is like somebody else is having trouble and you don't mind.

Or you don't like somebody else, and then when they get some problem you're like, you know, they deserved it. You know, you feel like this karmic... What do you call it?

It's a kind of karmic satisfaction. You know, like, they're bad, I don't like them, they're screwing up. You know, karma's wonderful.

You see?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, like that. You know what I mean?

[Speaker 1]
Really. And you think that. Especially with people you don't like.

When you see them get some trouble, it's like a verification of your viewpoint, and you're happy. You know, and it's like, you wish ill on people who do you ill. And that's number nine.

And these two, if you reverse them, are like Dong Ren. Okay? Like, somebody gets something nice, you just get happy.

You know, and you know a few people like that. We have them around the world. Salim Lee, there's this guy in Australia.

He spends all day telling us about great people. You know, that's all he sees. His whole life is, he's surrounded by wonderful people who are doing beautiful things, and he just wants to tell you about it.

And it's such a pleasure to be near him. He's so full of joy, and he's always happy, and this is the karma of love. You see what I mean?

The karma, there's a very deep principle. Tawa begets tawa. Views beget views.

You see, what's the karma of killing? You get killed. What's the karma of stealing?

You don't have enough. What's the karma of sexual misconduct? Your wife or your husband is unfaithful to you.

Okay? But what's the karma of thinking right? You think right more.

You see what I mean? It's very interesting. Viewpoint begets viewpoint.

Worldview begets worldview. The more you think right, the more you'll think right. You see what I mean?

It's a very beautiful thing. The karma of love is that you love more, and you see more love, and you're surrounded by it. And what they're saying is compared to the physical and verbal virtues, the virtue of a few moments of true love for someone else is unmeasurable.

You can't measure it. And you sense that, because you want to be like that. And all I want to say is that just practice.

You see, you can't... It's not impossible for anyone in this room to reach ultimate love for other people. You just got to practice.

And you do tonglen. And you don't have to be a genius. You just sit on your cushion and think of other people's problems and fantasize about helping them.

Okay? What will happen? The karma of that is that he makes a whole long list.

Nagarjuna's list is huge. Arya Nagarjuna's list is huge. It starts out with, you'll be happy all the time.

You'll just be a happy person all the time. And then the spirits will all be attracted to you. The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are like...

You're like a magnet, and they're always like, Oh, wow, this person is... And they're always helping you, protecting you. Do they want to protect everybody?

Yes. Do they want to help everybody? Yes.

They help people who love more. Why? Their own karma.

Okay? They're trying to help everybody, but they can't help the people who don't have faith or don't hold love. And then the people who have true faith, true love, karmically they're able to help them more.

It's very interesting. They create the help of the Buddhas by loving. It's very interesting.

Then they say, You won't have problems in your health. You won't have any kind of... Your place you live will change.

The crime rate will drop. How much in New York these last few years? I don't know.

It's down to a third of what it was, or a quarter. Pizza parlors have opened up all over. McDonald's is carrying a vegetarian hamburger.

Sugarless ice cream is available everywhere now. No, you think they come from nothing. No, you think they're self-existent.

They're not. They're not. They come from your karma.

They come from your good karma. I mean, I'm not joking. We worked on it.

We did it. McDonald's came out. It's still kind of expensive.

We have to work on that. More giving. But this is the result of karma.

So anyway, what I want to say is everybody in this room would like to be able to love like the Buddha. You'd like to be able to reach into your eye socket, pull out your eye happily, and give it to someone who wanted it. But you're just not at that level.

You're afraid. Try it. I mean, you get scared.

I try it. It's just practice. It's like learning baseball.

It's like learning piano, an instrument. It's like anything else. It's just practice.

So just do it every day. It's like all kinds of exercise. I call it Charles Bronson principle.

You know Charles Bronson, right? Rinpoche loves him. He's second to Clint Eastwood.

But he's ahead of... Who's that guy? Steven Seagal.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So they had him on a talk show. Okay, I don't watch talk shows, but I was in this store and they were watching it. And they said, Mr. Bronson, you're 65 years old. You look like you're 40. You've got these muscles. You're still running around on the screen and making great movies and beating up these guys.

Could you give us the details of your exercise program? And he doesn't speak much in real life. He really is a tough guy.

And he goes to a lady and says, I do it. And he wouldn't say anything else. Because that's the difference.

You just do it every day. 15, 20 minutes. And you don't have to stand in front of a mirror and wait for the muscles.

They just come automatically. You know what I mean? Just do it 15 minutes a day.

And then you don't have to think about it. In a year or something, you will love other people to a much higher degree. In maybe two years or three years, your love will be getting perfect.

You know what I mean? And it's just practice. And what I mean to say is that anybody can do it, no matter how bad a schmuck you are now.

Practice. And it's just, Rinpoche says it's the cheapest form of practice. It doesn't cost anything.

Sit down on your butt and fantasize about helping other people. It has profound effects on your subconscious that you don't even know about. And then it actually starts to change your whole world.

So that's the benefits of love. Did you have a question? Oh, oh, oh.

Like Kennedy had a bad back and Gandhi was sick all the... Gandhi, before he started to fast and kill himself, was weak, you know, in Africa. So they killed a lot in their last lives.

They didn't respect human life. That's all. But in their last lives, they had beautiful worldview.

That's all. So now they're born with a sickly body and a wonderful worldview, like a very, very sexy, beautiful, exquisite worldview. You know what I mean?

And totally different karmas. You see what I mean? Okay, next thing I'd like to cover is Contemplation Four.

In Contemplation Four you get the text of a very famous prayer called Lama Chirpa. Say lama. Lama.

Chirpa.

[Speaker 2]
Chirpa.

[Speaker 1]
Lama Chirpa.

[Speaker 2]
Lama Chirpa.

[Speaker 1]
Lama means lama. Chirpa means offering. And it's called the Offering to Lamas.

And this is a special prayer. It was written by the first Panchen Lama. And it's the source of the current practice of tonglen in Tibet.

Like there are older lojongs that we're going to read that also teach tonglen. Master Shantideva talked about the principle and the Buddha talked about the principle. But the real, you know, live source where the teachings on tonglen come from is this one prayer by the first Panchen Lama.

This is a very, very holy ritual which is done in major monasteries in Tibet still every two weeks. I was at Sri Jaya Rinpoche's house. He was the teacher of the Dalai Lama.

And I was living there during the winter debates with his second reincarnation. And rather than doing tantric practice on the certain special dates, they do this because they think it's more important. It's very interesting.

And when we asked Rinpoche to teach us Lama Chöpa, he said, you aren't ready for it. He taught us tantra. He didn't teach us Lama Chöpa.

This is a very holy prayer centering on Lamas. How to do Lamas. Geshe Lothar told me a rumor that he had agreed to teach it if we got him back here.

He would be good, I mean, in a special way. He has served his Lama immaculately. You know what I mean?

Since the day he was seven or something, living in Sara Monastery, living with Ken Rinpoche. Ken Rinpoche was like twenty or something when he got Geshe Lothar given to him. And the story of Geshe Lothar risking his life during the bombardment of Sara is extraordinary.

I mean, he walked back among the bombardment. After they had already left, he went back because Rinpoche said, go, I need these things. The monastery is being bombarded.

There are already looters with guns running around the monastery. And he's like walking back to the room because Ken Rinpoche said so. You know what I mean?

He's like the only person I know who gave up a green card because his Lama said, they need you back at Sara, go. And his Lama yoga is extraordinary. Twelve years working in the kitchen because Ken Rinpoche asked him to.

You know what I mean? Buying the food for every monk, fifteen hundred monks, every day. You think they don't complain about the food?

Anyway, just like the army. It would be nice if we could do it. If Rinpoche agrees, it would be nice to have him teach it.

But I think Rinpoche is hesitant to teach it because he's the Lama, you see? And most Lamas are hesitant to teach how to treat a Lama because it would seem self-serving. All right.

These are the sources of some of the most beautiful lines in all of Tibetan writing from one of the greatest poets of Tibet, First Tibetan Lama. And I'd like to read you a few of them. It's like a blessing, okay?

I did Lama Chopo with Rinpoche for like twenty years. We did it every two weeks or so in the temple for the Mongolians. So I'll read you some things.

So it's a blessing like that. dukngel tra mo tsam yang min duk jing dey la nam yon chok she mey pang ni dak ten shen la kye par yu min she shen dey gawa kye par jin gyi lob This is where His Holiness often is talking about this verse. The third line says, there's no difference between me and other people.

Why? dukngel tra mo tsam yang min duk jing Nobody wants even the smallest problem. Like, there's a democracy that runs the world.

Nobody wants the smallest hassle. So in that sense, we're all totally equal. You know?

We all want the same thing. Everybody wants to avoid the smallest kind of hassle. dey la nam yon chok she mey pang ni And we're all equal in the sense that we all want something that makes us happy and we're never satisfied.

Okay? So in that sense, every person in this room is totally equal. You know?

We don't want a pinprick on our finger. We don't want a single bad word from the person sitting next to us. And we want food, fame, money, position, friends, relentlessly.

I mean, every time you get A, you want B. Every time you get B, you want C. You're insatiable.

In that sense, we're all equal. You know, there's a big democracy going on in the world. There's no difference between me and other people.

chen ni galakye war ching gi lob Therefore, when other people get something that makes them happy, you should be happy. This is like a joint effort of humanity to try to be a little happy. And every time someone gets a little happiness, which is so crummy and hard to get, be happy.

Okay? Like, that's cool. All right?

That's a breaking misdeed number eight. You know, that's working against that. Number eight says, compare yourself to others and be unhappy all the time.

This is where you switch it around and say, hey, look, some size is... David Sykes would say a bad word here. Okay?

Venerable David Sykes. Uh... would say a bad word here.

But I mean, samsara is a very, very bad place. And we're all going to die. We're all in that airplane, and we're going down.

So somebody has a nice orange juice. So what's the problem? Why can't you be happy about it?

You know what I mean? We're all going to die. Let the guy have his orange juice.

Don't begrudge other people small, little pleasures they get. Okay? Some guy in Damsala, first class I ever took, Geshe Dagge, in 1974, like raised his hand.

He says, I don't think we should give orange juice to people. Geshe Dagge says, why not? He says, it doesn't help them.

It doesn't get them enlightened. It's just a little pleasure. It goes away in five minutes.

Geshe Dagge says, you're a fool. Let them have their little happinesses. Let people have their little happinesses.

Samsara is a crummy place to be. Ninety-nine percent of our life is suffering. So somebody gets a little nice thing.

Be happy. Try to help them get those little nice things. It's okay.

Yeah, it's not nirvana, and it is suffering. But it's nice for a while. Be happy when someone gets anything.

That's that verse. rang yin chepar dzinpay chok ne ni men du dung yak kepa gyur thong ne le len de la kun du sung che te dang dzin dun chen jung par jin gyi lop rang yin chepar dzinpay chok ne ni chok ne is a special word in Tibetan. It means chronic illness, chronic disease, like a wound on your arm that won't heal, like a hole or something like that, or some kind of pneumonia that won't go away.

And he says, rang yin chepar dzinpa means watching out for number one, just caring about what you want. He says, that's the ultimate chronic disease of mankind. men du dung yak kepa gyur thong ne And he says, that functions to cause all the things you don't want in your life.

Every time you've had trouble in your life, every time you've had any kind of pain, karmically, you can trace it back to looking out for yourself and not caring about other people. le len de la kun du sung che te He says, you should get pissed off at what's really causing you your trouble. kun dzin means to not give up a feeling of hatred towards somebody.

But he says, this is a good kun dzin. You should hate this disease you've had for so many lifetimes. dang dzin dun chen omar jeng gi lap Please bless me.

Who is he talking to? Mainly his root lama. And all the emanations of his root lama.

He's saying, please bless me to smash the great devil. dang dzin. What's dang dzin?

Seeing things as self-existent. Seeing things as self-existent. Which is implicit when you watch out for yourself.

You must be ignorant if you're watching out for yourself. You must be an idiot about karma if you're watching out for yourself. You must be Mr. Know-Nothing. If you choose to, if you have any Buddhist teachings and you're still watching out for yourself and ignoring other people, you didn't get it. Because that's what causes you all your trouble. And taking care of others is what gets you everything.

So he's like, bless me to wipe out this stupid idea in my head. ma nam che su de la gopay lo thay yun nyen jungway gor thong ne dro wa di da dak gi drar lang kyang sung lai che par dzin par jin gyi lo ma nam che su de la gopay lo He says, as opposed to watching out for yourself, watching out for all your mothers, meaning all other living beings, is the door to every happiness. And it's the door, I should understand that it's the door to getting every personal high quality, like compassion, great meditation, seeing emptiness.

It all comes from taking care of other people. dro wa di da dak gi drar lang kyang Then he says, by the way, if those people who I'm supposed to serve all decide that Michael Roach is a bad person and start to attack me and start to try to give me trouble, every single one of them starts to go after me. sung lai che par dzin par jin gyi lo Please bless me to have the intelligence to love them more than my own life.

Okay? That's hard. Alright?

He's saying, I mean, karmically it often happens that when you're on the cusp of getting to a great spiritual level, things will flip around for a while. People will hate your guts. People will attack you.

People will say you're a bad person. You might get crucified or something. Okay?

When you're on the cusp of a great thing, it often happens. You should know that. That's diamond cutter principle.

When you get close to something really good, you'll be purifying your past bad karma big time. And then you're going to have some really bad reactions. You might get in a car accident.

You might break your leg. You might get cancer. You should be happy.

Great. My practice is working. Especially if other people start to attack you or your lama starts to pick on you.

Wow. Wow. The dynamic is perfect now.

Okay? All right? Yeah.

People often ask me that. Suppose you get in a car accident. How do you know if there's a car accident caused by bad deeds and a car accident caused by purification?

The scriptures are not too clear on it, okay? I'd say this. Just after purification, things get very sweet.

You see what I mean? Like noticeably, it's like the hurricane before the calm or something. It's the other way.

You see? I would say this. Your practice is going well.

Your mind is sweet. You feel love for other people. You are becoming a more gentle person.

And then this big disaster happens to you. That's a good sign. I'd say that's a purification sign.

And then right after the disaster or as you come out of the disaster, your spiritual level feels much higher. You feel lighter. And your own mind is getting more and more pure.

Basically the answer would be how do you experience your own mind? Is your own mind getting a more pleasant place to live? Is it happier?

Are you more loving? Are you more patient? Are you able to put up with this disaster more better?

Then it's a sign of purification. The main sign is is your mind getting more happy? If it is, then it's okay.

Then it's purification. Okay. He says, to put it briefly...

By the way, this is not the whole Lama Chopra. This is one of the sweet parts from the middle. But there's more.

Very sweet. Okay. dor na jiva ranggirin konadang jiva means kids.

And it's put down in Buddhism when you call somebody a jiva. It either means they didn't see emptiness directly, or it means that they are like a normal selfish person. I don't know, there must be an insult in English like that.

Infant or infantile? Yeah, such a baby. Yeah, like that.

He says, babies are only watching out for themselves. tuba shendu bhajik jepayi Whereas Buddhas are always watching out only for honors. kimdang yinrung yewa tok You should be able to distinguish between the benefits of the two approaches.

Do you want to be a two-year-old? That's what it is. Or do you want to be an enlightened being?

Because two-year-olds are always watching out for themselves. That's my toy. And the enlightened beings are just trying to give away everything they have.

And then he says, look at the difference. Like, wake up. Look at the big difference.

dak chen rim je nupar jing gi lob Bless me to practice exchanging self with others. That rope thing. By the way, once you redefine yourself, being a good person is no big deal.

You see what I mean? Okay, I got to feed this other mouth. You know?

It just becomes part of your life. You don't think of them... If you think of other people as not being you, it's hard to do good deeds.

And if you take the time to redefine yourself, then it's just natural, you see? It just flows after that. It's a lot easier than trying to think of them as another person and then trying to do a good deed for them.

I have to listen to this song because half of me likes it. I don't know why. But...

Okay? And then you put on the song that we like.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And it's only possible if you've redefined yourself. You can't go on very long, you know, okay, I'll play your song. You know?

You can't get much mileage out of that. You have to redefine who you are. You know?

You have to include other people in you. Don't go hog wild. Start with one or two people.

You know what I mean? Share your food, for example. Something like that.

Like, I won't take a bite, but you take a bite. Something like that. And really you start to get the experience of being two people.

And then being three people. And then try like that. It's very profound.

Then doing a good deed for them is really just serving yourself. It's much easier. Yeah, he's saying like this.

Like, suppose you're a Buddhist and you're throwing your rope around. Maybe a person is not a Buddhist. And you have a daily practice and they don't have a daily practice.

And they want to wash the car, but you want to practice. Now what should you do? Fifty percent of you wants to wash the car and fifty percent of you wants to practice.

It's not improper to say that... I happen to know that meditation would be of more help to us now. And do that.

That's okay. And you'll get some heat for it. And as a Buddhist, you've got to be a little hard-headed.

We're in a new society. We're in a new culture. The highest practices of Buddhism are even more difficult and even more likely to be misunderstood by other people.

And you just have to live with that. You're going to be called all sorts of weird things before you reach the end. You have to do what you understand to be of greatest benefit, even if other people don't understand it.

And there will be many, many cases like that. Created by you. Created by your karma.

But that's the way it is, especially in a new culture. Later they'll say, It's okay. Go do your one-month retreat.

We'll work it out at the office. In Thailand, there's a required... Three months, is it?

The government is required to give you three months for your retreat, if you're a government servant. If you work for the IRS in Thailand, you get three months retreat time. And you become a monk for that time if you're a male.

So, you know, it'll come. But in the meantime, you better expect a little heat. Taking care of myself has been the source of all the problems that I ever had in my life.

Taking care of other people has been the source of every good quality I've ever been able to develop. Therefore, please bless me to make exchanging myself and others the essence of my practice. That should be my main practice.

Now here comes the verse about tonglen, and I'd like you to look at it. It's reading number four. It's page 21.

I'd like to recite it together. You see there's the English there, the pronunciation? By the way, when you do the offering to lamas in any monastery, there can be 3,000 monks there, there can be two monks there.

When you get to this verse, you always recite it three times. It's considered the most important verse. You go back and do it three times, you see?

You can tell a newbie because they keep going on and the other 1,499 people are repeating it three times. Okay, here we go. We'll do it slow.

de na jetsun lama thug je chen ma gyur dro we dig drip du ngel kun ma lu tha tha dag la minpa dang dak gi de ge shen la tangwa yi dro kun deng da denpa jing gi lo de na jetsun lama thug je chen means, therefore my holy lama, you who are so kind to me, ma gyur dro we dig drip du ngel kun let me take all the life sufferings and the sufferings to happen, which means the karmic bad days that they have in their mind already, let me take all those, ma lu tha tha dag la minpa dang may all of them ripen on me now. You're asking, this is a very bizarre question, okay? You're praying to your lama and you're saying, let it happen that every bad karma in the minds of every person in this room ripen on me instead of them, okay?

Like, if he's supposed to get cancer, let me get the cancer. If they're supposed to lose their friend, let me lose my friend. If they're supposed to die, let me die.

I mean, this is kind of a heavy prayer, okay? And it says, tha tha, which means what? Right now.

Right now. Okay, tha tha means this moment, okay? dak gi de geshe la tangway yin And may I give away all my good deeds and all my happiness to other people.

Good deeds are happiness to happen, right? We're talking happiness in the future. When you say good deeds and happiness, what are you really saying?

Current and future happiness. You see what I mean? That's all.

May I give it away to other people. And may other people be happy, okay? And that is the root text for tonglen, okay?

And in Tibet, this has become a mantra. People go around Hwasa city seeing how many of these verses they can say in one day, okay? And later you'll see in the text, they'll say, you can take the English and memorize it and go around all day saying it, under your breath, okay?

It's a mantra. And it has a holy effect on your mind and on your inner winds, you see? It'll help you create your indestructible deity body by saying this thing over and over again during the day, okay?

So memorize it, say it during the day. It'll ring a sympathetic note on the inner body. And by the way, when you start clearing out the inner body, your health changes, your mind changes, you know?

I mean, you start getting healthier and healthier and then finally your body changes completely. It doesn't happen in a day, but it happens slowly. And it's a lot of fun, you see?

Like, oh, wow, I could do that, I couldn't do that ten years ago. And then, oh, I could do that, I couldn't do that my whole life, you know? And then, oh, I don't have to eat anymore.

You know, stuff like that. So slowly this starts to happen. That's the idea of getting enlightened.

The body also changes into a physically perfect thing. And then you just get lighter and lighter as the years go by. It's very interesting, okay?

So this comes from changing the inner winds. Those are very much affected by changing the breathing. And that is very much affected by using the breathing to say this holy verse over and over again.

You see what I mean? You're using your air to say this verse over and over again. And that strikes a sympathetic cord in your inner body.

And then you start, your health starts to change, and your world starts to change. It's very interesting. Yeah?

Yeah, you won't want it after a while. The nice thing about Buddhism is you don't have to force yourself into anything. You don't have to go cold turkey or anything like that.

If you do this practice of tonglen, you just lose interest in it. It's a lot easier than trying to hold yourself. It's the same with your vows.

There's two ways of keeping vows. One is to be uptight all the time, like you want to break it, but you're holding yourself back. And then the other way is just to know why they help you, to see why they help you.

And then you enjoy keeping your vows. You see what I mean? That's the difference.

Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
Okay, it's a very good question though.

[Speaker 1]
Can you take the karma of other people? To me, this is the most important question of tonglen practice. When I first heard about tonglen, I was like, I don't get it.

I've read hundreds of scriptures that say you can't take other people's karma. I've read hundreds of scriptures that say you can't give anybody else karma. So what's the thing?

What's going on with tonglen? Why does it help you? Why does it help others?

We're not going to talk about that tonight. It comes later. I thought it was so important that I went and researched it and put it in a separate chapter.

It's a separate reading. I think it's so important. This is the world view of tonglen.

This is the ultimate question of tonglen. You must understand the emptiness of tonglen. What's going on when you do tonglen?

Can you really take someone else's karma? Can you really give someone else karma? And if not, why do this thing?

This is a very delicate question. If I answer it briefly, you might get the wrong idea about tonglen. I'd rather answer it in like an hour.

So we will, I promise you. To me, you have to, or else you can't have faith in this practice. If you don't understand how it works, to me, understanding something is the ultimate way.

That's my attraction to Buddhism as opposed to any other path. Understanding is the whole thing. You understand how it works and then you do it.

It's not like somebody tells you, you have to do tonglen. You say, but yeah, but how does it work? And they say, we don't know.

That doesn't satisfy me. Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
Can you put it into the Six Perfections?

[Speaker 1]
Can you put it into the Six Perfections? Yeah. It's a kind of giving, right?

Dong is a kind of giving. I don't know what you put in Lenpa, but I haven't seen it. Actually, yeah, it is in the Perfections.

Go like this. There's the Six Perfections, which are how to act out your wish to save all living beings. And then before that, there's how to get bodhicitta.

These are the two big categories. We say the wish in the form of a prayer and the wish in the form of action. Speaking like a bodhisattva and acting like a bodhisattva.

You should just put it that way. Acting like a bodhisattva is the Six Perfections. To do it the easy way, you just keep your bodhisattva vows and you've covered the Six Perfections, which is your book.

No kidding. And then singing like a bodhisattva is getting bodhicitta, and this goes in that category. So this precedes the Six Perfections.

Tonglen gets you to the point where you want to do the Six Perfections. Tonglen is designed to get you to bodhicitta, which is necessary before you can really practice the Perfections.

[Speaker 2]
So are there two levels in which Tonglen is not a Perfection and Tonglen is a Perfection?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah. What would make Tonglen a Perfection is a long story. It's seeing the emptiness of the three spheres, the three elements.

Tessie's an expert. You talk to her. She's a three-spherer.

Spheres? Anyway. Okay.

No, it's like the person doing the Tonglen, the person getting the Tonglen, and the Tonglen itself, and the emptiness of each one. If you understand that, it would become a Perfection. You did it in the diamond cutting.

Okay. Didn't there's some nice verses about turning problems into opportunities? Lama Sipa wrote a nice book about it, and we'll be covering that also.

That's very intimately connected with Tonglen. The ability to take disasters and turn them around into opportunities is an art form in Buddhism, and it makes your whole life happy. I mean, it's a really, really good skill.

Whatever bad thing happens to you, you turn it around and use it for something good. You see what I mean? I used to do this in business, okay, like at work.

We would have a big loss. Somebody would steal something from us, or I'd make a big mistake, like a million-dollar mistake, like buy the wrong diamonds, like brown diamonds. This happens, you know.

And then a week later, I'd figure out this product where if you use this color of gold, we found out that Arabs like brown diamonds. They put them in dog collars, okay, in Saudi Arabia, and we made a killing off it. You see what I mean?

And this is taking a problem and turning it into an opportunity. And a Buddhist has to be good at this, you see what I mean? So any time you have a problem...

I mean, I didn't sell them personally to the Saudis, all right, but somebody did. Anyway, we made money off it. You take a problem and you turn it into an opportunity.

And then people would accuse me of knowing it was going to be an opportunity and creating the problem so I'd look good, which is not true, okay? But if you get really good at it, people think you're setting the problem up so you can look like you solved it or something like that. So that's intimately connected with tonglen.

The skill of taking a problem and turning it into an advantage is part of tonglen, okay? And we'll talk about it later. It's in like 13 or 14, something like that.

I'd like to take a break there. So now you know the ultimate source for tonglen. If you need something to recite all day long, memorize it, walk around doing it.

It'll affect your inner winds, okay? And that way you don't waste your breath, see? You don't have to waste breath.

Every single breath you take for the rest of your life can be meaningful, okay? It's very interesting. Use it.

Oh, there's one verse at the end. The very last verse is where the penchant lama is flirting with you. He says, uh, it rides on the wind.

The crane machine of giving and taking, which we'll talk about, rides on the wind. He's hinting something in that verse. You already have a clue, right?

He says, oh, it rides on the wind. And he's talking about this phenomenon that I talked about. And we'll talk more about it.

So in the next, we'll do a meditation. It'll be the same meditation. I'll lead you through.

I suggest you take another person, rather than the same one, okay? Try to get the scene very clear in your mind, like chairs, beds, shelves, you know? Try to make it very live, okay?

And you're like their guardian angel, and you're sitting on the bed with them, or sitting next to them, okay? Try not to move after you take your position. You'll be getting a break after the preliminary.

And watch your breath. Ten breaths. If you get major distraction and lose count, then you have to start over again.

The next preliminary is to go for refuge, and I think very basic refuge is to think about the fact that there are enlightened beings around you, and that they are trying to help you. You may not recognize them or be able to see them right now, but they are always trying to nudge you and guide you in the right direction in all sorts of different forms, different kinds of people around you, and take refuge in that fact. The next preliminary is bodhicitta, and try to do a very short meditation on someone who's having a problem, and wish that you could help them in an ultimate way.

The next step is to invite a holy being, whoever you consider a holy being, to meditate with you, and when you ask mentally, they do come, and picture them as perfect. Imagine every quality, every detail of them is perfect. And then you bow down to them in your mind, and the way is to think of one or two of their wonderful qualities and admire them.

[Speaker 2]
This is a mental prostration.

[Speaker 1]
And then make them an offering, something physical you put on the altar, or something of beauty or value in the natural world, like the ocean. And most importantly, an offering of your own practice, perhaps some problem in your own spiritual practice that you will try to fix today or tomorrow, and make them an offering of that to them. Next is to purify your mind of bad karma, bad deeds.

So think of one that you've done since the last meditation, which is only a few hours ago. I think most likely it's a thought that you've had that you'd like to not have that seed in your mind, and then admit it to yourself, describe it to yourself carefully. What words did you say in your mind?

Play the tape recorder back, and just observe it sort of as a third party and see how silly it was, or how harmful it is, how unnecessary, and look at the thought like that, or something you may have said to someone.

[Speaker 2]
Now do the opposite.

[Speaker 1]
Think of a really good thought you had, something you're proud that you thought, something you said kindly to another person, and be happy about it, rejoice in it, especially the thoughts.

[Speaker 2]
Then ask for teachings.

[Speaker 1]
Personally, I like to ask for help on my main mental afflictions on that particular day or month.

[Speaker 2]
Ask for teachings like that.

[Speaker 1]
And then lastly, make a prayer for the long life and health of the great lamas in the world, and also for the, I think more important maybe, the people right around you who are a good influence on you, people around you who are spiritually minded and can support you when you don't feel like practicing. They can urge you to practice.

[Speaker 2]
Pray for their long life and that they stay near you. This is where you can move your knee or scratch your nose if you need. And when you're ready, go back to counting your breath.

Then we'll start tonglen.

[Speaker 1]
Try to visualize a person that you know who's having a physical or mental, emotional problem, and picture them clearly in their home, and you're sitting near them, and they cannot see you.

[Speaker 2]
You're like a guardian angel for them.

[Speaker 1]
Now picture all their trouble, all their suffering, all their future suffering and their current suffering as leaving their body and collecting as a black ball in their heart. Now start to suck it out from them by taking long, slow breaths. Every in-breath you take, there's some stream of the black is coming up their throat, up their nose, out of their nose and towards you, and it collects in front of your face in like a small cloud of blood.

So take about ten long breaths and draw their suffering out of them. Now look into your own heart and see the flame of selfishness there. It's about an inch high.

It's like a candle flame. It represents both your habit of only taking care of yourself and ignoring the needs of others, and also the misperception of reality that that habit is based upon, which doesn't understand emptiness. We'll talk more about that later.

Some people have asked me, they're doing another special visualization regularly, and this particular parking spot in their heart is taken up by a special visualization that they're supposed to be doing. We say in such cases you keep the nāgyel and lower the salnam, meaning keep the awareness that that's there in the back of your mind and lower the visual perception of that for the time being until you finish this meditation, then go back to that.

[Speaker 2]
So go ahead and picture a flame at your heart.

[Speaker 1]
And after I say go, then we'll be taking a long breath out and then take a very slow breath in, and on the in-breath the blackness comes into your nostrils, comes down to where the flame is. Turn it to slow motion at the end. See the tip of the black, touch the tip of the flame, and then suddenly there's this burst of light, golden light, and your body is filled with this beautiful light, and the blackness is gone and the flame is snuffed out.

The flame is snuffed out, and there's just a little puff of gray smoke and that just quickly dissipates like cigarette smoke, and all their suffering has been destroyed.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, go ahead, and then focus your mind on them again and think how good it feels for them.

[Speaker 1]
They didn't expect that to happen, and they don't understand what happened, but they feel very, very light, some great suffering has been lifted from them, and enjoy the picture that they're sitting there without that problem they had, and then come back to your own heart and enjoy how it feels not to have selfishness anymore. Just by doing this imaginary action, your own selfishness is being beat up, and enjoy that.

[Speaker 2]
You always take the visualization back to the holy being in front of you.

[Speaker 1]
They're very happy with you, they're very proud of you, they're smiling at you, they're in love with you,

[Speaker 2]
and sit for a moment and enjoy that, and then ask them to come into your heart and stay with you

[Speaker 1]
until your next meditation, and imagine that they very happily agree, and they start to rise up into the air, and they get smaller and smaller, and they turn around to face the same way as you, and they come down on the tip of your head, and then smaller and smaller, down like an elevator shaft that's running in front of your backbone, and they park in a small chamber at your heart, it's no larger than a pea from the outside, but when you go inside it's huge, and there's a beautiful, huge lotus flower or rose, and on there is a moon disc made of the moon, but it's a velvet cushion, and they sit on that, and just focus at that place, behind your heart, towards your backbone, and it's warm, you can feel their presence. Anytime you have a problem before your next meditation, you can think of them, they're there, they come when you think of it, and they really are there, and they'll bless your body and bless your mind by being there.

And the very last step is to take all the good karma we made, you know, for a group of people to have the opportunity to come together and practice a holy, ancient practice that's passed down through very pure lamas, and great good karma, and we did a great good karma by working on our own minds, so take that good karma and dedicate it to the welfare of that person you were meditating on.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, relax. Any short questions about it?

[Speaker 1]
No. Okay, we'll do a prayer.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you. This is the end of session 2.