Серия ежедневной практики, курс 03 — Размышление о практике даяния и принятия (1997, Коннектикут), занятие 4

[Speaker 1]
TZI ZHIN BU LA shi na tu pa chok namo namo namo namo namo namo namo namo namo namo namo namo namo namo namo namo namo e chodam sakhi chodam chanchu padu dhani tyab suji dhaki chudshe gibe sumangi do la penche sange du pa chok sange chodam sakhi chodam na chanchu padu dhani tyab suji dhaki chudshe gibe sumangi do la penche sange du pa chok sange chodam sakhi chodam na chanchu padu dhani tyab suji dhaki chudshe gibe sumangi do la penche sange du pa chok And it starts out by saying, help me define both love and compassion. Love being the desire to give people what they need, and compassion being the desire to take away their suffering. Now when you talk about developing bodhicitta through the seven steps, seven step method, which is really eight, because there's one before the first one called trying to think of everybody the same, equal.

Does loving come first or compassion come first? In the seven steps.

[Speaker 2]
The love comes first.

[Speaker 1]
And there's a big debate about it. Why are you giving them toys before you stop them from throwing up? Do you remember the answer?

Yeah, that's not just plain old jampa. That's yiyon jampa. Yiyon jampa means, yiyon means pretty.

To see them as pretty as your only child. And the idea there is that until you learn to see them as being as attractive to you, as the only child of a mother, then you won't be good at taking away their pain. See what I mean?

So in the seven steps they reverse it, but it's a special kind of love. It's called pretty love, which means until you see them as being, until you see the people around you as being very, very attractive to you, very beautiful to you, in the way that, you know, mothers are always, I'm a lama, mothers are always coming to me, sending me emails, right? Where is she?

Anyway. You know, I don't want to brag, but, you know, I don't know, my son just seems different. You know, and then they'll tell you this amazing story.

Oftentimes they are amazing, and I like to get those emails. But anyway, this is yiyon. It's a kind of a reverse blindness, where no matter what they do, they look amazing to you.

You see what I mean? And when you get that feeling towards everybody, then you're ready to start doing compassion. See what I mean?

So in the seven-step method for getting bodhichitta, yiyon japa, pretty love, comes first. And that's what he's referring to here. So find love, and then find compassion, which wants to take away their pain.

And then personal responsibility. Personal responsibility means, this is the final step in the seven, this is number six, before you get to bodhichitta itself. Personal responsibility means...

And by the way, if you're going to be a Buddhist in America, you're going to need this anyway. I don't care what people do. I don't care what people say.

I don't care if I have to pay for the whole thing. I don't care if I have to go to work to pay for the whole thing. I don't care if nobody helps me at all.

I will try to help other people. You know, I'll start all these projects to help other people. If nobody helps me, it's okay.

I'll go ahead and do it myself. Okay, and that's called bhagsam. Say bhagsam.

Bhagsam. Namdat. Namdat.

Bhagsam. Bhagsam. Namdat.

Namdat. It's just a decision. And if you're going to be a good Buddhist, especially if you're going to help start Dharma centers, or Arizona retreat centers, or etc., you're going to have to have this attitude. Because, especially in the beginning of Buddhism in a country, people are not going to help you the way they should. So you just got to say, you know, God damn it, I don't care. If I have to do it myself, I'll do it myself.

And if it takes 10 years, 20 years, if I have to go get a job, raise the money to start this Dharma center, and I have to pay for all the readings, and no one ever helps me, and if no one ever knows, no one ever cares, it's all right. I'll do it myself. And that's bhagsam.

That's bhagsam. Namdat. Or if even people give you a hard time for doing what you're doing, like you're giving away teachings for free, 1,000 hours, in the last seven years, people are still complaining, I don't like the free teachings, you know.

Okay, then you just do it. You don't complain about it, don't whine about it. It's very unattractive for a Dharma person to whine about it.

You know what I mean? Rinpoche is still cleaning the bathrooms at Rashi Gyempo Ling at the age of 76, 77, 78. He's 79 if you do it Buddhist way.

He still goes down and cleans up after the holy Bodhisattva Dharma students after Seichu, because they leave the place a big mess. And you don't hear him whine about it. He doesn't get in class and say, Do you realize I've been cleaning the bathrooms for you guys for 25 years?

He just does it. You see what I mean? And that's bhagsam namdat.

And you're going to need to get that way. If you want to be in the Dharma business, you got to get used to that. By the way, if you don't whine, it turns around.

Then all these people are coming to you and asking to help. People are putting money in your bank account without telling you. Things like that.

If you do whine, it keeps going like that. All right. Then it says, use the crane machine of giving and taking.

Crane machine in Tibetan is trul dek. And you'll see in reading 7, Rinpoche Dharma Bhadra is trying to explain this word, because he says, look, who's ever seen this word? We're talking 1600 A.D. First Panchen Lama is describing this machine. Which in those days meant like medieval Europe, those catapults. Think of big gears, wooden gears, and donkeys pulling them, and people. So this is an image of building a house with this.

You know the cranes that you use for skyscrapers in New York? The ones that are on the street, and they pick up the stuff, and they build the first floor, and then they build the second floor, and then they build the third floor. Sometimes they put them on the first floor, and then they build it up.

And the crane goes up with it, and then they have to get it down at the end, which is always interesting. My boss had this problem when he put his jacuzzi up on his penthouse in Central Park. And this is a tool deck.

Tool deck means a big crane. Tool means a machine, tool core. And deck means to support something from the bottom.

So the idea of giving and taking a machine is to build up the seven steps for bodhicitta. You see, you start with trying to feel equal to other people, then recognizing that other people have been your mothers, and then thinking about their kindness, and then wishing to repay their kindness. And you go through these seven steps.

And what he's saying is, by calling it a crane, he's saying you have to build the stories up one by one. They have to be built on the foundation. If you try to see other people as your mother, having been your mother, before you do the step of trying to see other people as being equal, it won't succeed.

You'll have a second story without a first story. You see what I mean? So that's why he says crane.

Then he says, which ride upon the wind. And that's the part that I want to talk about. To me, in the scriptures they say, this is the thing that makes tonglen such a sexy practice.

This makes tonglen a very, very powerful practice, riding on the wind. What that means, we're going to go on to in a moment. He's also referring back to an earlier text called The Mental Training in Seven Steps, which was written down by Togme Sambo, this bodhisattva named Togme Sambo, in the 13th century.

When I studied it and researched it, I found that the text was there before that. So who wrote it? And then you find out that it has been passed on secretly from generation to generation, from India into Tibet, through the Kadampa's, and then finally Togme Sambo wrote it down 300 years later.

Why was it secret? Do you remember from the Lojong class? People weren't ready for the concept of tonglen.

And they would start to diss it. You'd come up to somebody and say, Hey look, you know what's the best thing you can do? What?

Give away everything you have to other people, and whatever crap they have or whatever problems they have, to the best of your ability, take them away from them transparently. Don't even let them know you're taking them away. Just do it secretly.

And most people would say, Yeah, you're nuts. You know what I mean? Sneak into people's house and put money in their wallets.

Sneak out. I mean, if you tell this to most people, they just say, you know, sounds noble, sounds crazy. The minute you say crazy, you've collected a very bad karma, because this is the highest way to reach enlightenment.

It is the holiest kind of behavior you can exhibit. So therefore they kept it secret. Because if people disrespect a great idea, it's worse than if they never heard it.

The karma is much worse. So leave it like that. So we're going to hear more about the breath, doing tonglen on the breath, in the next reading.

Then it just says, Please give me your blessing to develop bodhicitta based on yonjampa, that kind of love, compassion, personal responsibility. People help me, I don't care. People attack me, I don't care.

I'm still going to do this stuff. And then finally bodhicitta, meaning I will dedicate the rest of my entire life, every single moment, waking, sleeping, eating, pooping, I'll be thinking about how to help other people. And I'll attack or I'll work on the most powerful practices I can that will be of quickest benefit to other people.

Like it's just a decision. I won't waste a moment of my time from now on. I'll do the most important things there are, like preserving the scriptures, like making sure that dharma is available to other people, and then of course your tantric practice.

Just a decision. I'll work on the most important things for the rest of my life, every moment of my life. I won't waste a moment of my life, and I'll do it for other people.

Just decide from now on. That's all I'll do. By the way, you can do that at work.

You can do that while you're watching a movie, especially if you know tonglen. As long as you're breathing, you can do it. All right, now the breathing stuff.

That's in Contemplation 8. By the way, in Meeting 7, you'll see a little bit different detail on the breathing. They'll start to talk about left nostril and right nostril.

That's sort of tantric. I wouldn't worry about it right now. If you've had some instruction on that, or you know about it, you can try it.

But in the meantime, breathing through both nostrils is fine. You'll see both instructions in this text. The one you see in Contemplation 7 is a little bit secret.

He doesn't go into detail. When he got to some secret words, I left them out or I put the Tibetan. So I wouldn't try it exactly like that.

Don't try that different nostril thing. Not right now. Now in Contemplation 8, we actually get to the mental training in seven points.

At the time, I didn't know it wasn't written by Togme Sampo. Sometimes they say, Togme Sampo's seven points. And then later they tell you it means he was the first one to write them down.

So he says, alternate the two of giving and taking, let the same ride on the wind. And then Pabongka Rinpoche gives a commentary on it from The Gift of Liberation. And he starts talking about how to do the breath while you're doing the meditation.

On page 34, he says the reason they call it crane machine is because it's so powerful. The fact that it's connected to your breath makes it so powerful that we can call it a huge machine. Machine in Tibetan also means something that can do the work of a thousand men.

It means more powerful. And he's saying that it'll be easy for you to get bodhicitta in your mind if you do tonglen, because tonglen is using the breath. And this is again a reference to the connection between the breath and the channels inside.

And I can't say a lot about it, but I think it's important to know a little bit about it. You have a subtle physical body. It's inside your other body.

You can't see it. You know, when you do an appendectomy, you don't run into it or anything. When you do an appendectomy, though, you could damage it slightly.

That's another point. But anyway, it's running in your body. There's a certain system of channels that are with you when you are born.

And in their present condition, they are choked. They are severely constricted. And every time you have a negative thought, every time you have a mental affliction, it tightens that constriction a little more.

It chokes it a little more. And that's actually the basis of aging. The reason people get old is exacerbated or aggravated by the condition that every time you have a negative thought, whether it be on the desire side or the anger side, there are certain channels that relate to that, they constrict on your main structure of your inner body and it damages your life.

It damages your health. That's why people who have good hearts look younger. Like that, people who've done good Vajrasattva practice or people who've done good Four Powers practice can actually start to feel younger and healthier and that's the basis of that.

That's why businessmen who work too hard get ulcers or lose their hair or have heart attacks because those are directly related to constriction of those channels. And that comes from worry or desire or greed or being too busy or something like that and it constricts the channels. When you do...

and there's an air or an energy that runs through those channels and that is very much related to your breathing. Some people say it is your breathing, that's not correct. Your breath is physical air, gross physical air, and the channels are in a different place and there's a subtle air or energy running in those channels.

And nimson jupa jipa means your mind, meaning your thoughts, and those airs are running in tandem. And Pabongka Rinpoche starts to talk about it and then he says, okay, that's enough. I can't tell you in public.

But they run in tandem. They work together. So in the Lojong text of Togme Sambo, he says, alternate the two of giving and taking.

Let these same two ride on the wind. Meaning the thoughts to take away other people's pain and the thought to give them your happiness are riding on inner winds. And every time you do tonglen, you open up those constricted areas a little more.

In Tantric enlightenment, they're wide open and then they do something else, which I won't talk about right now, and then you get a different body. Your body changes into an enlightened being's body. For whom?

For you. Will other people see it? Not necessarily.

Okay? Don't forget. You have the karma to see your body change.

You might look quite similar as you're used to to other people. It appears to us that His Holiness the Dalai Lama is getting older. It appears to us that Khen Rinpoche is aging.

You don't know what they see in the mirror in the morning. So don't assume anything. That's their emptiness.

There is no Khen Rinpoche and there is no Dalai Lama. There's the one you see and there's the one they see. But there's no real one outside of those two.

Get it? There's not like one Khen Rinpoche, and he's seeing it one way and you're seeing it a different way. There's only the Khen Rinpoche that he sees and the Khen Rinpoche that you see.

And if you see him aging, that's your problem. Because he surely doesn't. You see?

Okay? And there's no Khen Rinpoche beyond those two. And you've got to get used to that.

So, yeah, you can change the condition of your channels and you will change into a tantric deity. And that's the whole idea of Buddhist practice. You have to try to do it as fast as you can.

Every time you have a pure thought, every time you do tong len, you open it up a little more. And the result of that is you start to feel better and better. When those things are kind of flowing better, then you can much easier get high realizations like bodhichitta or the direct perception of emptiness.

It's the tail wagging the dog. What did I say? Yeah, the tail wagging the dog.

So you can work it both ways. If you get angry, what happens to your breath? Afraid, you see what I mean?

The breathing becomes irregular. That's a sign that the inner winds are starting to get choked. And in tantra, you work it backwards.

You work on the breath. You work on the physical body. And it forces the inner winds into line.

It's wagging the tail to move the dog. See what I mean? And you can work it both ways.

These things are choked. You work at it in two directions. My boss in the diamond business used to say, always attack a problem with ten solutions.

And between the ten of them, something will break down ten percent of the problem. You know what I mean? So you're working at it from this side.

You're trying to see emptiness by studying and meditating. But when you see emptiness directly, there's a profound change in your winds and in your body, physical body. So you can actually help your perception of emptiness and help get bodhichitta by working on your physical body and your breath.

So you're like working through the back door. It's very interesting. So you attack the problem from both sides.

And that's the principle here. You are using your breath and trying to breathe in a very regular, long way. If you can, try to make the in-breath and the out-breath equal length.

Equal length means you can visualize it as a piece of spaghetti. It goes out straight and then comes back. Make it about three feet long, three feet down from the throat, and then three feet out from the nose, and it's coming back again.

Like one piece of jello that's moving like this. Not like you're breathing and the air is going out or something like that. One piece of stuff going like this.

And try to make this the same length and this the same length. And it's hard. You have to use your whole breath out.

You have to use your whole breath in. You'll find that you're doing the in-breath faster than the out-breath. And you have to fix that.

The closer you get to being totally happy and contented, the closer that breathing gets that way naturally. When you're watching a really good movie or listening to really good music, you're naturally doing that. And your breathing is slowed down and sweet and nice.

And then when you start to get angry, you start puffing. And it starts to get jumbled again. So the idea of tong len, and that's what Pabongka Rinpoche is saying, is that if you do tong len using your breath in a very equal way...

By the way, equal can also mean time-wise and not quantity of air. One meaning of equal is three feet down of air and then three feet out of air. The other meaning of equal is four or five heartbeats out, four or five heartbeats in.

And you can time it that way. And some people get ten, some people twelve, some people two. Time it to your heartbeats.

If you're busy and you're in a bad mood, it'll be two heartbeats. At least try to make them equal in and out. If you're doing a long retreat, it could get up to ten, twelve, and then gradually it slows down to nothing maybe.

But the idea is try to make the out and the in equal. Don't hold your breath. That heart hurts you.

Don't try to hold your breath. Just try to force yourself to slow down on... usually it's on the in-breath, and speed up a bit on the out-breath until they're equal.

Then that has a reverse effect on your winds. And that makes your mind very fertile, very ready to get bodhichitta, and very ready to see emptiness directly. And that's why in the higher stages of Tantra you're using your body in special ways to try to see emptiness directly.

You're also studying like crazy and meditating like crazy. So you're working at the problem from both sides, from the back door and from the front door. And we have to try to do that.

So that's why tonglen is such a holy practice. You're combining the sutra methods and the tantra methods of seeing emptiness and of reaching bodhichitta. So using your breath is very important.

During the day then be aware of your breath. And you can get into a point... Buddhism is great for transitions, meaning during the time you get to the dentist's office and the time they finally come out and say you can go in and have your face drilled, those 15 minutes, use them.

If you're a Buddhist, this is the way to get some time. If you're waiting for somebody to serve dinner or something, sit down in a corner and use it. There was a guy traveling with us.

We got to the Santa Cruz airport, and he's over in the baggage claim area in the corner meditating in a corner. He's using the 15 minutes he has. You see what I mean?

And do that. That's a great time. Tonglen is great for wasted time.

Waiting for the bathroom, waiting for somebody to call you, waiting on the phone on a call to IBM while they're... Your call is important to us. And please wait half an hour.

And then just watch your breath. And do tonglen. Imagine the good things coming out, serving them to other people, and the bad things coming in, and you're eating them away from other people, destroying them.

Just use the time. And then that has a profound ripening process on your practice of tantra later. You're already used to what you're supposed to be doing.

And then when you get the proper instructions for those practices, you say, oh, yeah, I've been doing that for five years already. That's easy, okay? Yeah?

When you're doing tonglen in those spare moments, and you don't know how long that's going to...

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Is it important to be going through a whole formal procedure? No. Yeah, it's a good question.

Don't have to do the preliminaries. I'm doing the classic one with you when you have 45 minutes at home. But when you're doing it on the phone, use the instructions here, which is out-breath, giving them something, in-breath, taking away their pain.

And they reverse it, see? So out-breath, giving this operator patience for the next person who calls. And in-breath, taking away her stress for today, or something like that.

[Speaker 2]
So it's specific, you're giving her something specific.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, specific is always better in Buddhist practice. You know, this thing, all sentient beings, the people in Ireland, this lady raised her hand and said, I get it. I said, what?

She said, I can't do an Irish accent. I know who's... How do I say?

Paddy. What do you know? I know who this all sentient beings is.

I said, who? The people in my kitchen. I said, you got it.

Yeah, you got to deal... Frankly, if you can deal with the people that you live with, or work closely with, you can deal with anybody. See, they're the most difficult.

So it's a lot easier to do all these practices with the people that you're with all day, than with all living beings, you know? All living beings, it's easy after you did it with your wife, or your son, or your boss, or your parents, okay? Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
So what if the operator comes back online before you finish? Oh, just...

[Speaker 1]
You know, it's okay.

[Speaker 2]
You just stop.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, well, don't leave any black in you. That's the main thing. Say it's important for me to talk to you.

Could you hold a few minutes? Yeah? Could you just give a quick example, a mean example, on how you did that?

Oh, that's just... A quick situation to breathe in and breathe out. Yeah, like if I'm at the dentist, you know, I sit down, they say, it's going to be with you in ten minutes.

You know, you have a choice. You can read these, like, six-month-old magazines, or... That's the only time I get to see people magazines.

And then... Or you could use the ten minutes, you know, and just sit back, and try to look impatient, and... No, I'm saying, breathe out, which we're going to practice now.

Breathe out and give comfort to all those people who are getting their teeth drilled today in that office. You see what I mean? People there in the office, who are walking in and out in pain, say, okay, I...

I breathe out and give them some kind of happiness, give them all your good karma, make the pain a little less for them. And then when you breathe in, say, okay, I'll take all your... I'll take your root canal from you today, and take it in.

And that's all. And... No.

Just very simple. They say just black, white, and light, and white light and black light. White light going out of your body to your nose, and black light coming in, and just exchanging.

The black light shouldn't stay in your body, destroy it. Turn it into white light for the next round. You know what I mean?

Like that. And very simple, very beautiful. And the Buddhists shouldn't waste their transition moments.

You know, it's a lot of driving in a car, waiting in an airport. You know, it should be a skill that you don't waste that time. Because actually about a third of your life is spent like that.

Okay? All right. Yeah?

Well, I mean, the tendency is, if you watch your in-breath and your out-breath, the tendency in a normal samsara state of mind, which is like not actively evil, but it's just sort of irritated, is that your in-breath is faster than your out-breath. If you timed it by your heart, check it out sometime. When you do the ten breaths before meditation, you'll see that the tendency is to breathe in in a snort, and then breathe out a little slower.

And that represents an imbalance in your own peace of mind. And the closer you get to true contentment, you know, you're sitting with somebody out in a meadow, and you're like, you know, looking at the sky, your breath starts to equalize. You see what I mean?

So, the trick is to force it into that condition, which forces your mind to be more contented. It's very interesting. You see, it's going through the back door.

Instead of being contented and having good breathing, you force your breathing into a good point, and it kind of makes the dog wag. It forces your mind to be more contented. It's very interesting.

That's why they say count to ten when you get angry. That's the ten breaths. Okay, something like that.

Yeah? If you don't visualize the flame, what's the stroke? How are you destroying it?

Oh, just what Rinpoche calls it, the switch-on. Just a burst of light, and the thing is gone.

[Speaker 2]
What about if you're doing yoga, pranayama, and sometimes you're supposed to do the opposite?

[Speaker 1]
I'd say that you should do it the way you were taught, and not fool around with it, because it's two different systems, you see? And it'll be good for you. It'll be helpful.

I believe that that would be quite helpful. When you take another system's teachings like that, follow them well, and they have their own good result. And then do the Buddhism well, but don't try to...

Yeah, it's just not... They have their own efficacy, and they work on their own lines, and ultimately they will complement each other. Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
Did the Nadasam you mentioned?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, they mentioned the Nadasam, and I don't know much about it. It's like a universal music or something. How's that?

Seriously. It's like a universal OM sound or something like that. That's almost a tantric thing, and you split it with tantra, and it'll come.

Can you do it with sound and water smells? Instead of breath? Well, I mean not using your breath, but you're visualizing black and white light, but can you visualize sound?

Oh, I haven't seen it written that way. Every time I say that, I find a text the next day that uses it. I'm not aware.

I haven't seen one like that, but it may well be there. It might be fun to try, but I haven't seen a text like that. I haven't seen a text like that, but every time I haven't seen that in scripture, I see it the next day.

[Speaker 2]
Can you describe in brief what's happening in the background?

[Speaker 1]
There is a big significance. There's two channels that run down here and go back, and they're connected to certain kinds of thoughts, mental afflictions, and whether you use one nostril or the other affects that mental affliction, and you have to study that with somebody for a while. Somebody was asking me before if they have a friend who's sick, to teach that person to do tonglen but visualizing themselves as well and doing tonglen and themselves in the future being well, looking back on the past of themselves sick and doing tonglen on that person.

She's talking about someone who's sick now. Someone told them it would be useful to do tonglen in the sense that you imagine yourself in the future when you're well, and then you look back when you were sick and you try to do tonglen on them. But there's two answers to that.

One is in the... I think it's the 13th reading or something, which we'll get to tomorrow afternoon, just before we leave. There's a very long section on turning illness into an opportunity to do tonglen, and death.

Death is the ultimate time to do tonglen. And if you read the description of tonglen at death in the Lojong text, as we said in Ireland, there's a precedent for it. Some guy dying and taking on all the sufferings of the world.

This is very, very appropriate tonglen. Very, very appropriate. So when you're dying there's a special instruction for tonglen.

In the meantime, when you're very sick, there's another special instruction. We'll get to it tomorrow. But generally, it's a good time to do tonglen visualizing yourself as sick.

And the idea is that you say, all right, it worked. I've been trying to take on other people's bad karma all this time, and obviously I've succeeded. I'm so happy.

You know what I mean? And you're supposed to think like that. And then you're supposed to make a dharma and put it on the altar and say, please send me more and worse.

Okay? And there's actually a practice for that. You'll read it in the reading.

I think even for someone who's not a Buddhist, you don't have to ever say the word Buddhism. I think it'll be a skill in America to get people to think like Buddhists and don't know they're Buddhists. And that's all that really matters, isn't it?

You know what I mean? So try to talk to them in a way that you never mention Buddhism that gets them to do the right thing. And they'll get the good results from it, and they'll feel better, and they'll keep doing it.

You know what I mean? Also, one more thing about... There is a practice of doing tonglen on your future self.

And that is, in fact, the most important way to begin tonglen. And we'll talk about that later. Like Ellie in the afternoon can do tonglen on Ellie in the evening.

And this is a very holy practice of tonglen. And we'll get to that. Okay, get ready to meditate.

Try to be very quiet, very still. If not for yourself, for the person next to you. Make sure your shoulders are equal.

Make sure your mouth is loose. A lot of people get this thing, you know. Make sure your forehead is loose.

Happy, be happy, you know. Be loose. And, you know, like, giggle a little, smile a little.

And head up, don't let the head slide down. That'll increase your sleepiness, okay? Try to push your belly button in just a touch, it helps.

Make sure your back is straight, chin up, okay? Left hand down first, right hand on top of that. If it's not comfortable right now, then change.

Do something else. Sit on a chair, put your legs up, something like that. You see, it just gets worse, right?

You know that. But that's a good test. When you go into meditation, are you comfortable when you started?

Was it like the nicest? Don't be in a rush, you know. Don't start till you're really comfortable.

If you find this distracting, this used to be very distracting for me, they would fall down, I'd think I was a bad person. Okay, this is okay, on your knees, okay? Or like this on your knees, or like that on your knees, okay?

It doesn't matter, okay? That posture is found in the scriptures also, okay? You should have loose clothing on.

Make very sure that below your ankles and your calves is some kind of padding. If they're right on the floor, or even on a carpet like this, it won't work. You'll start to have pain in your knees and your ankles, okay?

Okay, then now we're going to do a full, we're going to do len and then some tong. Okay, we're halfway through, we can do some tong. Here we go.

Ten breaths. Make them honest breaths. If you cheat on the breath and you go to ten without concentrating, you won't have a good meditation, okay?

Seriously, be very strict with your mind. If you have to start over six times, start over six times. If you get distracted and you count, go back to one.

Try to do deep breaths, try to equalize the breaths. Don't hold breaths. Then take refuge.

We're going to play a game on this preliminary. I'm going to snap my fingers for the next preliminary, and you're going to try to remember what it is, and then I'll tell you what it is, okay? I'll give you the first one for free.

That's taking refuge. Okay, so imagine doing an act of refuge. Someone does something to you.

You refuse to respond the normal way. You respond with knowledge, meaning kindness, and you break the self-perpetuating cycle of violence. That's a true act of refuge.

Think about a specific one that you've done or you could do today. Try to think of what the next preliminary is. That's bodhicitta, and think about...

It's good to think of someone in particular that you would like to be able to help as an enlightened being. The next preliminary is inviting a holy being to meditate with you. The next preliminary is the mental prostration by admiring one of the good qualities of an enlightened being that you would like to be able to have, like being able to emanate in thousands of places to help different people at the same time.

The next preliminary is offering to your lama, to this holy being, something you own, something not in nature, or perhaps part of your practice, small successes in your practice. The next preliminary is to think of something negative you've done. It's pretty powerful if you think of something since the last meditation session.

It can be something small. It's more powerful if it's a thought you had or an attitude you're holding. Try to catch yourself and try to think exactly what it was you thought.

The next preliminary is being happy about small success you've had in your practice or in your thinking, something kind you said to someone, something good you did, and especially little improvements in your attitude, the way you view the world. Think of something specific since the last time we meditated. Play the tape back.

This is a bit of a trick. On the second half of the rejoicing, you can also, and you should sometimes veer off onto other people's good deeds. Be happy about someone in our group that you've seen improving, someone that you've seen especially trying to have made some progress in their attitudes.

Also you can rejoice in the great deeds of the great lamas in the world, the very fact that they're spending their lives trying to help other people. Next preliminary is asking for teachings, asking for help on understanding something. Next preliminary is praying for the long life of your teachers and the great good people in the world, and especially the people around you, your Dharma friends who can help you.

Okay, take a fidget break, one minute. Save all the fidgeting for this time, okay? Then when you're ready, go back to your breath.

Make sure you're comfortable before you start. Again, visualize someone with a problem. You're in the same room.

They can't see you. You're a few feet away. Get their problem very clear in your mind and try to feel a little bit about how it feels to them.

I would suggest doing a new person. When I snap my fingers, try to remember the next step by yourself. Now bring all the problems they have into their heart.

Thin black streams coming along their blood towards their heart, collecting in the heart into a black ball. Then take about ten long, slow breaths and start to draw that blackness out of their heart, up to their throat, to their nose. It approaches your face and forms another small black ball.

Now see the fire in your own heart. It represents your own tendency not to think about other people's problems but to concentrate on your own. Underlying that, the tendency to not understand what really causes things around you, what really prevents you from being happy, a tendency to see things as coming from their own side or having their own nature.

The next step when I say go will be one long out-breath to prepare, then a very long, slow in-breath. Bring the blackness down into your heart rather quickly. Bring it down into slow motion when it gets close to the flame.

As soon as they make contact, there's a burst of light and then the blackness is gone and the flame is snuffed out. Your selfishness is done and their pain is gone. Then there's just a puff of smoke that dissipates quickly, gray smoke.

Go ahead. Next step is to refocus on the person and imagine how they feel now. That problem they had or problems they were having are gone.

They don't know why. Just suddenly all those things are lifted from them and they're happy and they're relaxed. For the first time in maybe years, they feel light.

They feel very contented. No pain in their body. Totally happy.

Concentrate on them that way and feel proud in a good sense that you've been able to do that. Now we're going to do just a small touch of dong. Focus on the person again.

Try to imagine something they would like to have. Maybe it's something material like a car or a new home. Maybe it's a friend.

Maybe it's a dog. Maybe it's a husband or a wife or a child or a parent. Maybe it's some spiritual goals.

Maybe they'd like to be able to recite the whole dakya backwards or something like that. Imagine something they would like to have, knowing them as well as you do. I think you'll find that you haven't thought about it very often and you're not very good at guessing what they would really like.

But the exercise will make you better at it. So imagine what they seem to enjoy and the goals they seem to have. Then try to get that very clear in your mind.

Two or three things that they don't have that they might like to have, even spiritual qualities. This involves a certain judgment about where they're at, and you may be vastly mistaken about that judgment, but the exercise is valid anyway. Now on your out-breaths, take very long, slow breaths.

As you breathe out, see white light coming out of your body, like your body is filled with white light. No more guts, heart, lungs, stomach, bowels. Just white light, filled with white light.

And every time you breathe out, the breath itself is white light. And imagine that white light cascading over them. Some of it's going into their nose, they breathe in.

It's giving them the inner qualities that they're hoping for and the health that they wish for. And then some of it, like cascading over their body, like streaming down their body and giving them the outer things they wish for, like material things that they're hoping for. So your breath is like Santa Claus, and it's just pouring over them, pouring into them from the nose and giving them the things they wish for.

So do that now. Now we'll do the first of the two concluding parts, and that's asking the holy being that you've been meditating with to come up into your head and then down into your heart. Very important to get the part about them being very happy that you asked, and they're being very attracted to you.

Like they've fallen in love with you, they want to stay inside your heart. And then dedicate the good karma of this meditation. I think it'd be nice to dedicate it to them getting what they hope for, the second part, the tong part.

And then relax. So before the next class, which will be at 7.30, before 7.30, try to read 7 and 8. That's what we did just now.

And then we'll go on to 9 and 10 in the evening session. Please don't eat too much. This is the end of Session 4.