Серия ежедневной практики, курс 04 — Семичастная практика развития доброго сердца (1999, Гоа), занятие 6

[Speaker 2]
This is the continuation of session 5.

[Speaker 1]
Last thing and then we'll stop. Emptiness is the massless protector. Okay, it also says see the deception as being four bodies.

土囊枯雪公敗亦動亦生而亂而滅, 終而心電貪欺, 全天下各共獨佔。 By the way, those of you reading the Tibetan, the small print is a nice little commentary, and the big print is the original. Okay.

Last thing I'll say and then we'll stop this class. We'll start again in the evening. You know, the first time I ever taught at a Lama Suppa Center, was it Vajrapani?

In Northern California. And you know, I was kind of nervous. I'd never been there.

I didn't know anything about the EFPMT. I'd been sitting in this monastery for 20 years and I got this invitation to go teach. So I'm like, what do you want me to teach?

You know, do you want Madhyamika Prasangika, or do you want mine-only school, or would you like six versions of emptiness, or would you like Buddhist logic? And this letter comes back and says, could you teach refuge? You know, and I'm like, you know, I felt like they were dissing me, you know, like, you know, refuge.

Like, you know, everybody knows refuge. And then, and then I thought, well, let me do it from the textbook. There's a monastic textbook on refuge.

It's in Abhisamaya Ankara, and it's this beautiful thing. And it goes into this, it's this long, long, beautiful book on how emptiness is, is, is refuge. You know, that the only true act of taking refuge is to take refuge in emptiness.

You see what I mean? And it's very profound, you see. And, and then I had the greatest time there.

It was like, it blew my mind, and it blew everybody else's mind. And now when I go, it's seven people showed up. Now it's like 150 or 200, you know what I mean?

And it, it was the, you know, it was this thing where they start to talk about the emptiness. And then I started to study, and I got really into it. And there's a distinction between Buddha and Buddha Jewel.

Okay? When you go for refuge, you go to refuge in the Buddha Jewel. You don't go to refuge in the Buddha.

So when you say Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, when you take refuge in the three jewels, it's not the normal Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. It's a special version of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, okay? And the Buddha Jewel that you take refuge in is the emptiness of the Buddha, the Dharmakaya, the Svabhavakaya.

And then when you take refuge in the Dharma, it's the direct perception of emptiness. It's the Dharma Jewel, okay? Not the Dharma, but the Dharma Jewel.

And the Sangha Jewel is any being who has seen emptiness directly. Monk or not, tantric or not, it doesn't matter. Anyone who's seen emptiness directly, man or woman, is a, is the Sangha Jewel.

When a Buddhist does the most elementary act of worship in Buddhism, and takes refuge in the Buddha Jewel, the Dharma Jewel, and the Sangha Jewel, they're actually taking refuge in emptiness. Okay? In all three cases, it's emptiness, you know.

So does that mean when you, you know, come up to the altar and say, Sanghe la gyab su gyur, gyur la gyab su gyur, you know, buddham saranam gacchami, which is the same thing, exactly the same words, okay? What are you doing? You know, are you supposed to space out and think about emptiness?

You know, you're supposed to try to see something black. Like, I think your left eye, look at the Buddha picture, and then your right eye, make it black, you know. And what does it mean to take refuge in the, in emptiness?

You know, what does that mean? I'll give you a very concrete act of taking refuge, and then we'll take a break. And you've heard it a thousand times, and it's a true story.

I'm away on a Dharma study at Sara Monastery. I get a call from my boss. J.C. Penney is going to order this special pendant. It requires like a 12-point diamond in the middle. It has to be J color. It has to be VS quality, and we need 10,000 of them by two weeks from now.

He was always doing this impossible thing of promising to order an impossible thing. One week from now, actually, on the day of the order, J.C. Penney artists, which Marie Placide can tell you, because she used to do it, will start drawing this thing on the computer and saying, unbelievable sale, 50% off, you know, best diamond in the universe, as big as a golf ball, limited supplies, only from April 3rd to April 5th, or something like that, you know what I mean? And that will go out to all these newspapers all over the country.

They're like Zales, 1,500 different outlets, and the thing will go out, and they'll place it in every major newspaper in the United States, you know, and you don't even have the diamonds yet, you see what I mean? Much less the jewelry. You don't even have the diamonds yet, and this thing has already been advertised in newspapers for a certain date, you know, and I'm in India at the monastery, you know.

So I get this phone call in Marrakech, Marrakech, which used to be the only telephone within 200 miles, and it's up on a hill like three hours away, you know, so I'm like on this ancient phone, you know, and I'm trying to hear him, you know, and he's like, call Israel, call Belgium, get these diamonds in the house by so-and-so, and you know, so anyway, the bottom line is I didn't do it, okay? And so here we are on Monday, April 3rd. The ads just hit the people's homes, you know what I mean?

They're pouring into JCPenney stores. There's nothing to buy. There's not, it doesn't even exist yet, you know, and then he gets called on the weekend, I get called in the morning.

He comes breaking into the room, and he's like curious at me, and he looks like angry, you know, and he's screaming at me, you know, where are these diamonds? I told you, you had to have them here. You told me you'd do it, and they're not here, and I'm so embarrassed.

It's a 20 million dollar account, which Palma used to be in charge of, and why are you doing this, you know? And I'm like, sorry, sorry, and he's getting angry at me, okay? Now, what's an act of refuge?

This is an act of refuge, okay? If you don't do it in front of an altar, you don't sit there and pray to a piece of paper that has a nice picture on it, or something like that. That doesn't do anything for you.

Lord Buddha himself could be sitting here, and you come up and hold his hand, and you'll still die. This happened in his own lifetime. You know, his village was attacked, people came up to him, hid behind his clothing, grabbed him physically, and they just got stabbed and killed in his presence.

So, he can't help you. You see what I mean? You're not taking refuge in some guy, and you're definitely not taking refuge in some piece of paper, or some piece of metal on your altar, okay?

They can't help you. They can't do anything for you, okay? If the idea is that you take refuge when something's going bad, when something's going wrong.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, The definition of taking refuge is you have a problem, and you go to somebody to help you, okay? So, actually, going to your mom when you have a problem is taking refuge. It's not Buddhist refuge, but it's taking refuge, okay?

So, how do you take refuge? When the boss is screaming at you, you immediately take refuge in emptiness. Okay?

The pente. Aha! He's just a bunch of noises and shapes.

And a lot of people leave it at that. They say, okay, now you understand, we'll take... we'll break the class.

He's just a bunch of noises. Okay? And you're like, come on, that doesn't help me.

I tried that. I understand he's just a bunch of noises, but I still get upset. I still get angry.

It still hurts my heart to have him yelling. Can you explain further? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's a bunch of noises, and the reason you hear him as negative noises, the reasons you see him attacking you, the reason you feel bad at that moment is because your mind is forcing you to interpret these noises and shapes as someone screaming at you. You see what I mean? Your mind is forcing you to organize these shapes and colors and noises into a screaming boss and hurting you.

Okay? So really, he's not the one who's creating this situation. It's your mind, which is organizing those shapes and colors into an angry person.

Okay? So how does that help you? I mean, does that make it better?

Does that lessen the fact that he's going to cut your Christmas bonus? No. It doesn't do the least bit.

Okay? You can sit there and imagine that he's colors and shapes, which you knew all along, and it won't help you. You can try to understand his causation.

Oh, his mother gave him birth. He's smarter than me, and so he's my boss. That doesn't help you when he's screaming at you.

That doesn't do anything. Okay? Oh, how about this?

My mind is forcing me to see these parts as a yelling boss. Does that help? Not really.

I mean, okay, I understand that. I understand that if I didn't have the karma, I wouldn't see him that way. And because I do have the karma, I do see him that way.

I understand that. Does that make it better? Not really.

You're still going to get your pay cut. You see what I mean? Functionally, he's still the same.

Whether he's coming from his own side, or whether I'm creating him with my karma, it doesn't really matter, does it? You're still going to lose half of your Christmas bonus. He's waiting for an excuse to cut your Christmas bonus.

The last two months before Christmas are very risky in a big company. You know, you're walking on eggs all the time. You know, you're trying not to mess up.

You know, because immediately there will be a reason why you shouldn't get this Christmas bonus. And everyone's like, trying to be good. So here's how you really take refuge, and here's why the emptiness helps.

And that's why this book says emptiness is the real protector. It's in the reaction. You see what I mean?

You have a choice. How are you going to act back to him? Are you going to yell back or not?

Okay? If you understand that these parts are being organized into a yelling boss, because I had karma from my past from yelling at somebody, then what's the last thing you want to do? You definitely wouldn't want to say anything back to him.

Why? Because you don't like him. You don't want to see him again.

Okay? It's very simple. In the American post office, how do you get rid of bosses?

You shoot them. Okay? No, they don't allow guns anywhere near post office, because all these guys are ex-Vietnam veterans.

They all know how to shoot a gun really well. And really, they shoot people all the time. It's amazing.

I always tell my friends at the post office, you don't have to do that. It's dangerous. You could get arrested.

Just stop responding to them with violence. Okay? Stop being negative to this boss, and he'll go away.

Because the reason you're perceiving him is a karma that you put in your mind the last time you yelled at somebody. So just stop it. Why?

Because it's the right thing to do? No. Because it's the moral thing to do?

No. Because His Holiness said to do it? No.

Because the government, or your church, or your principal, or your first grade teacher, or your parents told you to do it? Not at all. Very cold calculating logic.

If I refuse to collect this karma again, I can get rid of this guy. You know? Get rid of enough of them, and you're in a Buddha paradise surrounded by 10th level bodhisattvas.

And ain't that the goal of Buddhism? You see what I mean? Eliminating the yelling boss is the first step in a journey that ends in a tantric paradise.

Okay? It's just the first cleaning up of your paradise. Okay?

It's eliminating the most obvious forms of suffering like a boss. Okay? And you do it.

And it works. Okay? If you work in a large company...

I worked in a company with 800 people in the building. And I think towards the end of my practice there, which is why my lama forced me to go to work, I can say that I think... I think I can say that I was on good terms with every single person there.

You know? And we still see each other. I was in Bombay a couple of days ago, and we were sitting there crying, me and some of the diamond dealers there, because we know we're not going to see each other for a while.

And that's how it ended. You see what I mean? And then that's just a short jump to a Buddha paradise.

You see what I mean? But it only works if you understand the emptiness of these people, and you stop responding badly, because you understand emptiness. And that's why emptiness is a real protector, and that's an act of refuge.

Okay? Your refuge vows say that you're supposed to take refuge what? How many times?

Three times a day, three times at night. Okay? If you're surrounded by at least six people, you'll be taking refuge at least six times a day.

Okay? No problem. You see what I mean?

At least six problems will come up. And then you protect your own rear end by not responding negatively, because you understand emptiness. You see what I mean?

Then you've just taken a real act of refuge. Refuge has nothing to do with bowing down in front of some piece of paper and reciting Gatami. Okay?

All right. I'm not making fun of Gatami. I love it.

It was profound. I was at Shravasti, and these monks were reciting it, and they taught me how to recite it. It was very beautiful.

But anyway. Yeah? What's the difference between the Buddha jewel and the emptiness of your own body and mind?

Technically, okay? Just very technically. The emptiness of your own body and mind is your Siddhagatagarbha.

It's your Buddha nature. Okay? The fact that you could have seen...

I always think if I could have had a V8, you know, you could have seen this cylinder as Manjushri's arm if you had better karma, because it's empty. Okay? So in a sense, the emptiness of your arm and of your own mind is your potential to become an enlightened being, and we call that your Buddha nature.

That's called your Buddha nature. It doesn't mean you're already a Buddha and you don't know it, or something like that. It just means that your condition, by nature, is that you're empty.

Every part of you is empty. It could have been anything else if your karma had been different. You would be seeing the same object in a different way.

Okay? So that's your Buddha nature. When you take refuge in the Buddha jewel, you're taking refuge, technically speaking, in the Buddha nature of a person who's already an enlightened being, in their emptiness.

That's all. Qualitatively, they're not... Yeah, no.

Qualitatively, 100% the lack of an arm that's coming from its own side. That's all. Qualitatively, the same thing.

And technically, when you debate it in the monastery, it's simply a difference in the thing which owns the emptiness. Okay? It's just a difference in the thing which is being empty at that moment.

Okay? The Buddha jewel is the emptiness that belongs to a being who's already enlightened. And your Buddha nature is the emptiness of your samsaric body and mind.

Okay? That's just... So, are they both 100% emptiness?

Yeah. Qualitatively, are they exactly the same? Yeah.

It's just that one belongs to a screwed-up normal human being, and the other one belongs to an enlightened being. That's all. They're hanging off of separate objects.

That's all. Yeah. Last question.

I'm just... Are you talking about impatience or annoyance with yourself as opposed to... People seem to have this idea, and I don't know where it comes from, that violence done to yourself is somehow better than violence done to others.

For example, people ask me about suicide. In Buddhism, suicide is just straight-out murder. And a very, very, very serious kind of murder because you are voluntarily destroying something that could have turned into a tantric deity in this lifetime.

You see what I mean? It's like... considered much worse than going to Bodhgaya and blowing up the stupa there.

You know? Because you are consciously and knowingly destroying something that could have turned into the next Manjushri. You see what I mean?

And that applies to being upset with yourself or hard on yourself or angry with yourself or things like that. It's not better just because it's aimed at you. It's also a bad karma.

If it's like some kind of dharma frustration, you know, like, I wish I could meditate better. You know, if it doesn't pass into anger, it's okay. It's a virtue, in a sense.

I guess you can judge its karmic repercussions on does it inspire you or does it depress you? You know, if it inspires you to be a better person or to practice better or something like that, I would say it's a good karma. If it inspires you to be more depressed and miss more meditation sessions and, you know, feel guilty all the time, then it's not productive and it's probably a bad karma.

How's that? Okay. We'll do some prayers, okay?

Dhammye ched lejuhwe Dhamme kundu Drum par shok This is the end of session five.

[Speaker 2]
Session six.

[Speaker 1]
O Sagibaki, Juchinmedo, Tra-li-ra-ling-ji, Ni-he-gen-ba-ni, Sang-ge-shin-du-mi-te-u-la-ni, Dro-kun-nam-na-chin-la, Cho-pa-shok-hi-dam, Gu-ru-rat-nam-ban-da-la, Kam-dir-ya-tum-ya-li, Sang-ge-cho-rang-so-ki-cho-nam-ma, Jang-cho-pa-du-dam-ni-kyap-so-chi, Da-gi-cho-nyen-gye-pa-so-nam-gi, Dro-la-pen-chir-sang-ge-dro-pa-shok, Sang-ge-cho-rang-so-ki-cho-nam-ma, Jang-cho-pa-du-dam-ni-kyap-so-chi, Da-gi-cho-nyen-gye-pa-so-nam-gi, Dro-la-pen-chir-sang-ge-dro-pa-shok, Sang-ge-cho-rang-so-ki-cho-nam-ma, Jang-cho-pa-du-dam-ni-kyap-so-chi, Da-gi-cho-nyen-gye-pa-so-nam-gi, Dro-la-pen-chir-sang-ge-dro-pa-shok. Okay, I'm going to read the next part.

This is the fourth of the seven parts. Okay, we've done five, and we've done the first three. We've still got to do four, six, and seven.

So tonight we'll do four, and then afternoon class tomorrow we'll do six and seven. I'll read it. Me-nga-ngi-mo-do-di-pa, Tok-nga-ta-tan-ja-wa-cha, Te-chen-po-i-don-nga-ngi, Tok-nga-ngi-yen-chir-lang-che.

Okay. In English, the brief essentials of the instruction are combined within five powers. In a great way, these same five are the advices for sending your mind.

Cherish the act. So we're going to start out. This category is called A Summary of an Entire Lifetime of Practice.

And it starts out as an innocent guideline for your daily practice. You now have a weekly schedule, and it's a very sweet thing. You can follow it for a couple, three, four months, and then shift off to something else.

But I think it's very useful to try to do this weekly schedule for maybe three, four months. At this point in the text, they're talking about how to structure one day's practice, the important elements that you need in one day's practice. Then suddenly he goes off in this thing called po'a.

Po'a is a special practice called sending your consciousness. It's a secret instruction in the tantras. It's a complicated story.

It's a long story. If you do certain checks about your life, and there are special ways of checking certain energies in your life, and if you come to the conclusion that you're going to die suddenly or quickly before you can finish everything, then there's a special practice you can do to send your consciousness to its next life. It's very popular in some traditions.

They talk a lot about it. They also seem to imply that you could send someone else's mind away for them, and that you sitting at the side of a dead person, a dying person, could catch their mind and send it to some beautiful place, or something like that. If it was that easy, we wouldn't be here.

We are in the desire realm. We are suffering. Everything bad about your life is bad.

Everything good about your life is going to end shortly. If it was as easy as sitting in a chair next to some dying person and do po'a on them, then don't believe that the Buddhas wouldn't have done it already, and we wouldn't be here. It's not that easy.

It's very, very difficult practice, and very rare, and it's much, much better to take care of everything now, while you're alive and healthy. Do your practice. Understand the emptiness of this particular cylinder.

Keep your vows very sweetly, purely, happily, and then turn this into Manjushri or Tara's arm before you get old, or sick, or almost dead, or something like that. I mean, I don't even like to teach my students po'a. I think it's unauspicious.

Inauspicious? I think it's just bad luck, you know? It's like saying you are going to die, or something like that.

And I don't intend... I don't want to see anybody die. I don't think anyone has to do it.

And, you know, we're all fairly young. We're still running okay, except for the ones who are down in their beds. And, you know, there's no reason why anyone here has to go through that.

If you're quite... You know, we know the score. We know what's ahead of us.

And you know you have to try to pull it off, and you know how to do it, and you just have to do it. Okay? And I don't like to talk...

waste time talking about something that's not going to happen. Okay? Anyway, we'll talk a little bit about it.

All right? Okay, so here's the... It says top ngah.

It says the five powers. The brief essentials of the instruction are combined within five powers. Now, some of you in Kathmandu or Bodhgaya, you had the four powers, which are how to clean up your old bad karma.

Five powers is a whole different thing. Okay? It's the same word.

Top means power. And I'll write the word up here. By the way, somebody asked me if I could lead a tonglen meditation.

And my official representative, Winston, he's got to be the best because I'm trusting him to do the Ireland teachings. He's going to do a tonglen meditation. If it's possible, Namgyala here tomorrow at 10.30. Okay? I think better in the shade. Yeah? Because then everybody's sleepy in the afternoon if you let them get sunburned.

Okay? So it'll be 10.30 here. And he'll go through the proper...

how to do a tonglen meditation properly. Okay? I've already made another commitment.

We have several. I always have a couple of classes in the morning. And that's with the people who are going into three-year retreats.

And we're kind of on a tight schedule to make it to the end of their training. They've been training for about two years now. Okay.

Top means power. Nga means five. Five powers.

Okay? Now I'll give you the first word. Say penpa.

Penpa. Penpa. Penpa means to...

It's like a daily resolution. Daily resolution. Literally penpa means to shoot something.

Like dapen means to shoot an arrow or throw a spear. And dapen lopen means archery master. You know?

Archarya of dapen. You see what I mean? And this refers...

This is the... You remember that this section is how to do your daily practice. So it can apply no matter which day in the week you're in.

You know, it doesn't matter if you're on Saturday and you're doing your emptiness meditation or if it's Sunday and you're doing your foundation day or it's Monday and you're doing your compassion day or we didn't talk about Thursday yet, which is... Or did we? I think it's good karma day.

I'm not sure. Okay, anyway. Good karma day.

Good karma day. All right? Thursday is...

I always used to like Thursday because every Friday in my college we would get drunk or smoke marijuana. And then we started doing it on Thursday too. So...

Thursday was always a special day. Okay. It's like getting out of school.

Of course, I haven't done that in 30 years. But... And don't suggest it.

It's a bad habit. Okay, but anyway. Pemba means when you wake up in the morning, again, on top of your quick death meditation, which is what?

I'm going to die at 6 o'clock today. What should I do? Pemba means setting the tone for the whole day.

Okay, you set the tone for the whole day. It's good to do it before you open your eyes even. I like to run through maybe half an hour to an hour meditation before I get up, you know.

I mean, people may think I'm sleeping. Of course, I'm not. Anyway, you're just laying there.

And you know how it's kind of cool to stay in bed, especially if it's bogey and it's freezing outside. And you just lay there with your eyes closed. And you think sweet thoughts, you know.

And it's a great way to start the day. You know what I mean? It's a really nice way to start the day.

You don't know how important it is before you get out of bed that you have these sweet thoughts. And it's very, very useful. So, you decide you're going to die at 6 o'clock, which is not such a sweet thought, right?

And then you say, now, what's important today? And the main job for any person who's doing lojong is to crush their number one mental affliction, which in the lojong is what? Yeah, worrying about yourself first.

And this is so easy because we have so much to go. You know what I mean? Since I haven't really started yet, anything I can do, like if I just give another person the tea first or do one nice thing that another person might like, then I've already doubled my net time that I think about other people.

I mean, what I mean to say is we have a lot of progress to make. So, it's not much effort. You sit there for two minutes and think about what somebody else might like today.

You know what I mean? Like, okay, 2 o'clock I might meet this person. Probably they'd like this.

And then get up. Okay? That's called pemba.

Pemba means set the tone for the day. I want to smash or starve my tendency to take care of myself first. I will make one symbolic act today.

You know? I'll have Coke instead of Pepsi because so and so likes it. You know what I mean?

Or just something like that. Okay? Something concrete.

Start out in the morning. Just to spit in the face of my tendency to take care of myself first. You're not going to run my day.

I'm going to run my day. And my day is going to start out by thinking about somebody else. Okay?

Rangchen dzin gupa tham chek gi go means... This is a very famous line. All of your problems come from your tendency to take care of yourself first.

All of them. So, first thing in the morning, I don't like that way of thinking. I reject that way of thinking.

Even before my feet hit the ground, I've already decided I'm not going to live that way today. Okay? That's very consistent with deciding you're going to die at 6 o'clock.

Because that's what you should be doing until 6 o'clock. You see what I mean? That's the most valuable thing you can do until 6 o'clock.

Okay. Second one. Say gompa.

Gompa. Gompa. Gompa.

Those of you who are trying to learn Tibetan, the word meditation in Tibetan is gompa. Gompa. And this is kompa.

You see? Because there's gompa, kompa, gompa, gompa, ngompa, and ngompa. And they all mean different things.

Okay? That's the problem when you learn Tibetan. It's ka, ka, ka, ga, nga, and nga.

Okay? There's like five, six of them. Okay?

You take off the hardness of the sound and it becomes kompa. This is kompa. Kompa means to get used to something.

Okay? To get habituated to something. To get used to something.

And this is a trick, okay? I call it transitioning. Okay?

Transitioning. From one state to another. And in scripture what it means is, you know, if you think about your day, you transition through activities maybe ten, twenty times a day.

You see, when we finish this first half of the class, you'll all get up. Like you'll transition from the chair to standing and then you'll go do something and then you'll transition from doing something and you'll sit back down on the chair. And this is a method of raising your awareness during the entire day.

Get used to transitioning properly. Okay? Like, when you change your activities during the day.

So, you know, my day is like, get up, wash, meditate, study, class, study, class, study, class, okay? And, you know, meditate, go to sleep. Something like that.

So I've transitioned like, fifteen, twenty times during the day. Now what happens with normal people is that when you transition, you lose your awareness. You see what I mean?

When you're sitting there listening to a class and your mind is on something virtuous, most of the class, and then the minute you move your body to standing and walking, you lose it. You see what I mean? When your body transitions, your mind transitions.

And usually your mind goes from concentrating on something to concentrating on nothing. You see what I mean? So the trick with number two, kompa, which is habituating yourself to the idea that every time you move positions, every time you go from sitting to standing, every time you go from the kitchen to the living room, every time you move from the living room to the bathroom, every time you come into meditation, every time you go out of meditation, you think about crushing your habit of taking care of yourself first. You get up and you say, what can I do for somebody else right now? You see what I mean?

You use the transition as an excuse to think about what you pambat, what you decided to do in the morning. And it's beautiful. It is a very, very profound practice.

There's this very famous line in sutra, the Buddha never walks, the Buddha never sits, the Buddha never stands, the Buddha never goes, the Buddha never comes. The meaning is, the Buddha is aware during all the transitions. You see what I mean?

Every time you transition. If you're keeping a book, the transition time is really good for that. Before every major activity of the day, meaning before meditation, before class, before I eat my Cheerios, I always do a book.

And I just link it to changes in the day. I link it to starting a new activity. And now in this lojong, if you're going to be a serious lojonger, then you just get in the habit that when you move positions, when you go from sitting to walking, you say, what can I do to help somebody right now?

What can I do to stop my tendency to be selfish? And this is a very, very holy, sacred, powerful way to change your tendency to think of yourself all the time first. Normally, your awareness drops when you move positions, until you get settled into your next position.

And the trick here is that during the transitions, you remind yourself of what you're doing today, what's important in your life. And it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. You know, in the highest levels of Tantra, actually, the next to the highest level of Tantra, you're actually trying to maintain a certain vision all the time.

Kirin. And it's very powerful if you start now. It's very powerful if you start...

Every time you change positions, every time you move to a new room, every time you move to a new activity, you remind yourself, that's what I'm here for today. I'm here today to get rid of my selfish mind that caused me trouble my whole life. Like that.

Just remind yourself. Just get up and say, what can I do for somebody else right now? Who's walking around that I can help?

Sit down. Who's sitting around here that I can help? Go to the kitchen.

Who's sitting around here that I can make a cup of tea? Go back to your bedroom. Who's around here that I can help out?

Get on the telephone. Who could I call that I could help? You see what I mean?

Every time you move, you think of a new idea of someone to help. Okay? That's very, very powerful.

The net effect is that you move quickly into a tantric perception of the world. Okay? Number three.

Say, karpo. Karpo. Sabun.

Sabun. Karpo. Karpo.

Sabun. Sabun. Karpo means white.

White, the color white. And sabun means seeds. Okay?

White seeds. And this is a special practice. It has two parts.

We call it Soksak Dibjang. Say, Soksak. Soksak.

Dibjang.

[Speaker 2]
Dibjang.

[Speaker 1]
Soksak.

[Speaker 2]
Soksak.

[Speaker 1]
Dibjang.

[Speaker 2]
Dibjang.

[Speaker 1]
I don't know if you know this story. There was this guy. He was really, really stupid.

I think he was the most stupid guy in Bihar in 500 BC. And he was so stupid that his own family threw him out. He's the father of the family.

And they threw him out. And he ended up at Buddha's doorstep and said, you know, I want to become a monk because nobody else will take me. And Ananda had the job of screening people, like protecting Buddha from too many people.

Like, this thing's been going on a long time. If you go to Shravasti, Ananda's cottage is right in front of the Buddha's cottage. And they say that he used to guard the door to keep admirers from bothering Buddha all night.

And then at night he would actually walk around the Buddha's house to fend off people trying to jump into the courtyard to talk to Buddha. So anyway, the Buddha's disciples used to sit at the door and somebody would come in and say, I'd like to join this group, this crazy group, walking around India on foot with no money, talking about emptiness and karma all the time. And so they'd say, okay, we've got to check you out.

And the method was to get, I think it was Shariputra, to read the guy's mind and see if he's got any potential at all. So they'd bring him in and they'd put him in front of Shariputra. Now this guy, he got in there, I think he's called, I don't remember his name, anyway, Bhajan, and he came in and he looks in his eyes and then he gets up and he says, hopeless.

There's not a single iota of aptitude in this guy, cannot become a monk, it's impossible. Cannot join this gang wandering around India without any money, talking about karma and emptiness. And then Buddha goes, from the inside room, I saw the inside room in Shravasti, it's very cool, he used to hang out in this inner room, and he's like, and they come in and they say, what, you made a mistake, this guy has potential.

And they said, impossible, I read his mind, there's nothing there. He said, yeah, yeah, it's not direct, it's hidden. And they said, this is the story of the fly, who landed on the cow pie a million years before, and there was a big rainstorm, and the cow pie came down the hill and floated around a stupa, and so the fly actually did one circumambulation by accident of the stupa, and that's the only seed in this guy's mind.

That's the only thing he's got. And Buddha says, you know, properly cared for, this seed could grow into something. And then he uses a word which means, doi sapke rubey narsing, means like the bones of a frog in the middle of a granite boulder.

And this was, you know, in ancient India when they split a big rock and there were prehistoric fossils in there, you know, that's a reference to that. So anyway, Buddha said, I'll give you something to memorize. And he gave him this thing, sok sak jip jang, sok sak jip jang, jip jang sok sak, sorry, jip jang sok sak.

And then the guy goes, jip, jip jang. Buddha says, great, great. Now say sok sak.

He goes, sok sak. He says, now, do it again. He says, sok sak.

He says, no, no, do the whole thing. He says, I don't remember the first part. He says, jip jang.

He says, oh yeah, jip jang, jip jang. Now do the whole thing. He says, no, do the whole thing.

He says, what whole thing? He says, you forgot the second part. Oh yeah, the second part.

He says, sok sak. Now do the whole thing. Sok sak.

So Buddha is like very patient. He says, okay, look, here's a broom. You know those little Kusho grass brooms?

He says, take this broom, go in the temple, and say to yourself, DIP JANG SOG SOG. And if you can't remember the whole thing, just say DIP JANG in the morning, and say SOG SOG in the evening. And then later, try to see if you can get up to DIP JANG SOG SOG.

See if you can memorize four syllables instead of just two. And so he started doing it. Then after a while, he got it down.

SOG SOG DIP KARMA. Sorry, SOG SOG means to collect new good karma. And then DIP JANG means to clean away your old bad karma.

So after like six months, Buddha calls the guy back and says, you got it? Yeah, SOG SOG DIP JANG. Now I'll teach you what it means.

He says, oh, okay. You know when you were sweeping the temple? Yeah, I remember.

He says, well, when you sweep the stuff into the corner and get it all out, that's like cleaning away your bad karma. And then when you got everything piled up in the corner, that's like collecting all this good karma. So you got it?

He says, yeah, yeah, I'm cleaning away my bad karma. He says, yeah, the second part. He says, what second part?

Anyway, you get the point. After a while, he really got it down. He's sweeping the temple, but he's going, aha, DIP JANG, I'm cleaning out my old bad karma.

SOG SOG, I'm piling up good karma. He later became an arhat in that lifetime. He started doing this directly, arya, and then he went on to remove his mental afflictions, just because of his faith in the Buddha.

So anybody can do it. And if you think about it, you only have two jobs in your life. If the pen thing is true, if this is just a green cylinder, and your karma is forcing you to see it as a pen, and the dog's karma is forcing them to see it as something to chew on, and if that's in fact what makes a dog a dog, and if that's in fact what makes a human a human, then in theory, your arm could become Tara's arm, golden arm, or green.

I like the gold one. Or white, actually. I like the white one.

And that's the emptiness of your arm. Forget everything else you ever heard. It's irrelevant, isn't it?

Who cares if you're a bunch of dogs? Who cares if you came from causes? Those are lower interpretations of emptiness.

This just means your arm is a cylinder. Your mind is forcing you, under the influence of your past karma, to see it as a hand. And when that karma wears out, this thing will stop moving and will call you dead.

And you will be dead. Then your karma will shift again, and you'll see it as a paw or something else. And of course you won't remember your past, because you're a different being now.

You look at this stick, and you'll want to chew on it. You're not going to say, oh, that's the thing I used to write with. Now I want to chew on it.

No, your mind just shifts and you're not even aware of it. You are the other being. You are that now.

It's not like you can remember stuff very well. It just changes. It just shifts.

And you're a dog on the Goa beach, instead of being a person in the hotel room. And it's true of this thing also. So really, once you understand this principle, there's only two things left to do in your life.

One, collect the most powerful karma you can. Big time, powerful karma, fast. Second, get rid of your old bad karma.

Those are the only two jobs you have in the rest of your life. Once you understand emptiness, then how do I shift that perception? How do I manipulate those perceptions?

Collect good karma, saksat, and get rid of your old bad karma. We're going to cover both of them right now. They are two of the days in your schedule.

What day is it? I think Thursday? What day is purification day?

Wednesday is purification day. And then Thursday is good karma day. So we're going to go over that right now.

Then you have a whole week's practice, I think, pretty much set. Your karma is almost finished on the ink perception. By the way, here's a hard sutra type of question.

Did this pen run out of ink? Is this pen about to run out of ink? If you're really a karma and emptiness person, is this about to run out of ink?

No, for anybody, for her. It's down to here. No, what's the proper way to say it?

My karma to perceive ink in that cylinder is about to end. And that's how everything in the world works. You don't collect virtue.

You don't change your mind. You don't have mental training, lojong. You change your karma and then you perceive your mind differently.

Lojong doesn't improve your mind. It improves your karma, which improves your perception of your mind, which is the same thing as improving your mind. So why go through this whole exercise?

If you don't understand how things work, you won't be able to do it very well. Once you understand, you can pull this off faster, this tantric stuff. Here we go.

Let's do the easy part first. Thursday is good karma day. The cheapest, cleanest, easiest, lazy man's way to collect good karma is rejoicing.

Sunday you had an option. One of the three meditations could have been rejoicing. Thursday is just cheap, clean, good karma day.

Lama Yeshe used to say, it's one of the teachings he gave that I most admire. Somebody said, I work in an office. I fight the traffic in L.A. I get home at 7, 8 o'clock. I'm a wreck. And I know this. I did this for 15 years.

Frankly Lama, I can't meditate. It's not going to work. I can't do that.

So Lama Yeshe said, make yourself a coffee. Put lots of sugar in it. Lay down on the couch.

Prop your head up. Drink the coffee. And think that you'd like to help all living beings.

For half an hour, 45 minutes, just sit there. Space zone out and think, I'd like to help living beings. My Lama also taught very, very, very often that the easiest way to collect good karma is just to sit there and be happy about all the good things you're doing.

Say, today I had a good dharma day. Every time I stood up, I thought about helping somebody else. Every time I sat down, I thought about somebody else.

Before I woke up in the morning and before I put my legs off to bed, I thought, now what can I do today to help somebody else? What can I do to lower my tendency to think about myself first? I had a really good day.

I got mad, how many times was it? Four times today. But there was that one time that I shut my mouth and didn't get angry.

I did succeed once today. I'm doing pretty good. I rejoice.

I'm happy. And that's all. You just sit there in your deep meditation posture after your preliminaries and you say, in the last week, I can remember like six times when I didn't say what I wanted to say to the person who irritates me the most.

And I'm doing pretty good. The score used to be six to zero, and now it's six to two. And that's not so bad for a person who's been here a zillion years at the mercy of their mental afflictions.

I'm doing pretty good. And be happy and rejoice in all the good things you're doing. Then the cheapest, cheapest, most efficient way to collect good karma.

All the scriptures say that if you're happy about the good karma being collected by a great Lama, or by a great saint, Mother Teresa, anybody, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Serpa, Khen Rinpoche, think of a great Lama, think of a great being. It could be somebody in your office. I have a guy, you know, D.S., and just extraordinary, virtuous person, you know, working next to me in the diamond business. And you just think of them and say, I'm just really happy about how good they are. You know, I'm really happy that there's some crazy guy who's just a normal guy that they chose at two years old, who won the Nobel Peace Prize by coincidence, I'm not sure, who's wandering around the world teaching people how to be happy. And, you know, I'm glad.

I'm glad there's a guy like that. You know, I'm happy for him. I'm happy for everybody he ever talks to.

All the scriptures say that you collect 10% of the Dalai Lama's karma. If you compare 10% of the Dalai Lama's karma to 100% of your own karma, it's probably, it's a lot better deal to be happy about the Dalai Lama's karma. So they say, by the way, they say do both, do both.

Be happy, you know, rejoice in what the Dalai Lama's doing. Or Lama Tsogpa, you know, if you get close to seeing all the things he's doing, you can't imagine it. You just can't imagine it.

You know, like, I go from country to country, center to center, I see all the things he's done, and it's just awesome. It's unbelievable. You know, one Lama helping tens of thousands of Western people learn Buddhism.

You know, one Lama, his whole life. You know, and there's all these myths about him. He doesn't sleep.

He takes off his shirt and lets the mosquitoes eat him all night. And I'm like, yeah, right. You know, and then I get this call, you know, you have an appointment with Lama Tsogpa at 6 p.m. I say, okay. So 6 p.m. they come in and say, it's been moved to 8 p.m. All right. 8 p.m. they come in, it's been moved to 10 p.m. Oh, okay. They come in, you know, here's Brian.

It's going to be 3 a.m., Geshe Michael. I'm like, are you for real? Yeah.

Yeah. And then, you know, you get first-hand confirmation. You know, he really doesn't sleep.

I met his teacher and he said, I said, this sleep thing, is that for real? You know, and he says, I'll tell you something. He was at Baxar refugee camp.

He was like 12 years old or 10 years old and we'd tell him to go to bed. And so out of politeness to his Lamas, he would lay down, you know, and then we'd go away. And then, you know, we'd come back in half an hour and he'd be up studying something.

And all the other kids are asleep, you know. And he'd do that all night long and we couldn't get him to go to bed, you know. And, you know, and rejoice, just to be happy that there's a person like that, you know.

Say, that's wonderful, you know. And you get 10 percent of that. That's like an hour and a half a night or something, okay, of what he's up to.

And it's all great stuff, you know. It's all amazing stuff. So just that one human being would care that much about a bunch of crazy Westerners, you know, to do, to go through all that trouble.

And believe me, it's not easy, you know. I mean, if all he had to do was do all his projects, that's one thing. But to deal with all of us on top of that is different, you know.

It's more difficult. So just be happy. And that's Thursday, okay.

Cheap. Good karma. On top of that, it'd be really nice if you learned how to do a book, okay.

And I think we'll do that tomorrow about, what's it, when's class? 3? Anybody from New York want to volunteer for 1.30?

How's 1.30? What time does the food come? Lunch?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
12.30? 12.30? It's supposed to be 12 to 1, but...

Do they all have to eat in the same place, or can they bring the food up here? They can bring food up here. Okay.

I suggest you bring your lunch here, eat together, and people from New York. Anybody volunteer? There's Anne.

Yeah. Okay. There's like three, four people, five people.

There's a way of tracking your vows, tracking your good karma all day in a special little book, and we don't have time to go over it, but they'll be here at lunch tomorrow, okay. And just come. If one person comes, it's worth it, okay.

And come 12 o'clock, bring your lunch up here, and they'll teach you how to do the book thing. So Winston's got you from 10.30 to 11.30, and then you get pee-pee time, and then come and learn how to do your book. It's really amazing.

It's how to collect good karma, heavy duty. Yeah. What's the specific result?

How do you mean? Oh, what's the karma? That's a good question.

Do you see more of it? Do you see more stuff to rejoice in? Yeah, you do.

But I think it would be the opposite of number eight. Jealousy. Yeah, it's the opposite of jealousy.

And I think mainly it's that you get some kind of happiness, your peace of mind, peace of mind, like that, okay. Okay. So that's the pure white seeds divided into tsok-tsok, collecting good karma, and then dip-jang.

Dip-jang means getting rid of your old bad karma, okay. There's four steps. I'm going to do them very fast.

It's in detail in your weekly schedule, okay. It's in more detail. These are four steps for removing old bad karma.

So it's not enough that for the rest of your life you're happy and being good to other people, because you don't know how much very terrible old karma you have in your heart, okay. There's a very famous example in scripture of King Udayana. King Udayana is the person for whom the Wheel of Life painting was first painted by Lord Buddha.

And upon seeing it, that evening he went into the direct perception of emptiness, okay. And then after that he was murdered, okay, by his own son. And that's an example of, you know, you can be collecting extremely good karma, even someone who sees emptiness directly, but you can still have all these really bad old karmas in your mind.

So you have to try to get them out. And here's a short method for how to get them out, okay. It's four steps.

Four-step method to get rid of old bad karma. For example, if you had an abortion in the past, and I'm counting the boys too, okay, you get 100% of the karma if the lady gets an abortion and you support it, okay. So this is a very common karma that I've noticed in the West.

You know, I myself was involved in such a thing. So it's a very, very heavy bad karma. It's one that you maybe didn't know about when you did it.

You weren't a Buddhist yet, you didn't believe that thing was alive, now you know it was alive and you have this incredibly bad karma. It didn't ripen yet or you might be dead already, okay, or have very bad health, okay. So the first step is to think about bodhicitta and refuge.

Bodhicitta means this whole subject we've been studying, okay, and you sit for a while and you think about, you know, if I keep up that kind of negative behavior, I can't help anybody. You know, I'm just letting everybody else down, okay. That's one thought you can think about.

You know, if I don't clean up my act, then really I'm just, I'm letting down a lot of, I could help a lot of people, but I'm not getting there if I keep being bad, okay. Then refuge, we talked about it. Specifically, think about doing the opposite of your normal reaction to all the bad things that happen to you.

Like if you get in a traffic jam, instead of feeling angry, you think about why this is caused. If someone's speaking something to you unkindly, bad, then you think about, it must have been caused by my speaking badly, so today I'm going to speak very sweetly to other people. That's taking refuge, okay.

So you just review those things in your mind. It's mainly the emptiness thing, about the boss yelling at me about the JCPenney, okay. Number two, number two is regret, not guilt, okay.

There's no word in Buddhist literature for feeling guilty, okay. The word is regret. Regret means, after you've studied the pen thing, after you've studied the thing about karma, you know that karma is responsible for every perception you have.

Do you know how much karma it takes to keep the Indian Ocean so sweet in the evening? You know how much karma it takes to see all those flashes on the ocean? Imagine, you see each one of the flashes that you see on the ocean around three o'clock is being maintained by sixty-five karmic ripenings per second.

Each of the flashes on the ocean, you see, each glint of sunlight that you see when you look at the ocean and you see thousands or tens of thousands of glints as the water moves, each one of those glints, to maintain it, if it's a pleasant perception for you, for a second, takes sixty-five discreet karmas. You just, I mean, looking at the ocean from a Goa hotel is extremely expensive, but if you don't decide that you're going to avoid that kind of thing in the future, it just doesn't work, okay? It will not work, okay?

And you know the oral lineage tradition at this point, they say, don't add a new bad karma to the old one, which means, set a time limit, okay? Like, if it's anger at someone that you live with or something like that, then say, I won't do that again for the next forty-five minutes, okay? That way you don't pile a lie on top of a, okay?

Because you're not going to be able to do it all the time, okay? You're just not capable of it. You can't do it, okay?

If it's something like an abortion, you can say, I'll never be involved with that again in my whole life. And that you can decide, okay? But if it's mental, it's like, I won't be jealous of that lady for half an hour, okay?

And then you just watch your mind carefully for half an hour. That destroys the old bad karma, okay? That's the main thing that destroys the old bad karma, okay?

You can destroy old bad karmic seeds, just by deciding that for a certain amount of time, I won't do that again, okay? And here's the last part, and then we'll take a break. I'll do X to make up for it.

It's called nyamukundu jubey to. I'll do X to make up for what I did, okay? I have a good friend, he's Mongolian.

I told you this story a lot, I like it. He was in Vietnam. This is very typical.

Some guy shows up from Mongolia in 1968 or something, and the American government drafts him within three months. He gets a green card, then he gets his draft notice, okay? He goes to the army training center.

They say, you've got bad teeth. He says, okay, give me some false teeth, it's okay. They say, we'll tell you what, we'll pull out your teeth and we'll give you false teeth when you get back.

Because if you get shot with false teeth in your mouth, you'll choke on them. So they pull out half his teeth, and they put him on a steamer to Da Nang, you know? And then he's like in the jungle for three years, and he says, you know, I was in this ambush, and we got ambushed, and I was spraying the jungle with machine gun fire, and I don't know if I hit anybody or not.

So he comes to my Lama, and he says, what should I do? This is Chen Yilao's brother, okay? And Rinpoche says, I'll tell you what, Mongolians love sheep meat, right?

He says, yeah, we love it. We'll do anything for sheep meat. He says, I happen to know that your father is keeping two sheep in his backyard with the intention of killing them to eat, right?

He says, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. So he says, I want you to buy those two sheep from your father, and keep them until they die, okay? And that's your make-up activity.

You see what I mean? That's number four. It's a symbolic act to make up for what you did, okay?

Do you know how long this stupid sheep lived? You see, you never find out, because you always kill them after a year or two, right? This thing lasted 15 years.

This sheep lasted 15 years. It was a boy and a girl sheep. It was very beautiful, because one died on like a Tuesday, and then the other one died of a broken heart like on Thursday.

It was so unbelievable. It was really weird. You know, he's kind of half-hoping they'll die for 15 years, and then, you know, I think he got attached to them after a while, and then they died together in the same week.

It was very sweet. Anyway, that's a very extreme one, okay? I mean, most lamas would say, go volunteer at a hospital for six months, maybe once a week, you know, and dedicate it to that abortion you had, or something like that, okay?

Something like that. Do something symbolic. Buy some animals and release them, which Lama Sup is constantly doing, okay?

You know, pick up a stray dog, which Amber is constantly doing. Something like that, all right? Make up with it.

In the scriptures, it says you could also do mantras, or you could do prostrations, or you could circle around a holy place, but the number one best activity in the universe is what? Studying and meditating, and the most powerful one is to meditate on emptiness. Why?

You wouldn't want to do it again. If you really understood this pen thing, you know, we've got a new one, the same old cylinder. If you really understood the pen thing, if you really, really, really understood it, then you would understand that this could be Tara's arm in six months, if you worked hard enough.

You would really, really believe it. You would totally understand it. Lord Buddha in the Diamond Cutter Sutra says, you can take one billion planets, cover them with diamonds, and give it to an enlightened being as an offer.

Compared to that, if you explain the pen thing to someone for five minutes, it's much more powerful karma. Why? Because it's the potential.

Then you understand how to do it. You really understand how Tantra works. You really understand how to become a Tantric deity.

And I'm telling you, you can do it. People say, people got mad at me, some guy came up to me, I found a scripture, it said two billion years, you know, it takes two billion years. And I'm like, you know, he's like fighting me.

No, it's not. What do you think Tantra is for? What do you think the whole point of Tantra is?

It's one lifetime. Okay, one lifetime. But you've got to understand the cylinder thing.

You have to understand the cylinder thing, or it's impossible. You move on to this, the emptiness of the arm thing, then you're in Tantra-fat city. I mean, no problem.

Very possible. And you'll see changes very fast, okay? It doesn't happen in one night, okay?

It's not like you wake up and your right arm is white light and your left arm is still skinny and freckles and wrinkles and stuff. It's not like that. Very quickly, things start to change in your life.

Amazing things start to happen. That's all. Very noticeably.

And there comes a threshold, and you get over it. You reach that you can say, I now believe that the amazing things happening to me are because I'm keeping my book, or because I'm wiped out. Now I get it.

You know, that guy stood up in Goa at the top of the hotel and said all this stuff, and it sounded okay. And then I kept my book, and I did that weekly meditation thing, and now six months later, these four amazing things have happened to me. You know, like some backache I had my whole life has gone away now.

Or, you know, that boy I was always thinking about asked me out, and they were playing, what's her name? Sarah McLachlan on the radio all day. You know what I mean?

It's too much to be coincidence. You know, it must be because of my practice, okay? And you should get to a place like that.

And then it just goes zoom, you know? All the things start accelerating, and then it gets faster and faster. Then it feels like a quick train ride, or it feels like, I don't know, it feels like downhill skiing or surfing or something.

And then it's just like, it's just like a big party, you know? It's like a big Dharma party, and things start happening, and you're like, it's not only cool that they're happening, I know why they're happening, and I know how to keep it going. You know what I mean?

That was always my goal. Ever since I took mescaline the first time, when I was 20 or 18, I only took it once, really. And it was unbelievable.

It was in a canyon in the desert in Arizona. And then I came out and I said, I'm going to learn to do that without the mescaline. So it took 30 years, okay?

But you can do it. It's unbelievable. It's just unbelievable.

Then you're like, you know, you're in control of it, you see? You can make it keep going, you see what I mean? It's great.

And then eventually it leads to tantric enlightenment, in this black time, okay? Then you won't need the Poha, which I'm going to cover after the break. Okay?

So, take a break, okay? All right. Okay.

Okay, we've got to cruise a little bit. Say Sun Gym Ba. Sun Gym Ba.

Sun Gym Ba. Those of you who know the four powers, this is number two, destruction. But this one just means, every time you start to have a selfish thought, smash him on the head.

Okay? Every time you start to have a selfish thought, say, no. Okay?

In the Lojong Tsegye Ma, in the eight verses, it's called Tsen Tat Done Do Bar Sho, means kick ass immediately. Kick him right away. The minute you start to find yourself being selfish, then just attack it, right away.

Don't let it go on for even a few seconds. And I'll give you the barometer. How do you know when you're being selfish?

You're unhappy. Okay? That's all.

Very simple. Every time you start to feel nervous, or agitated, or anxiety, or unhappy, or irritated, you are having selfishness, and you are having ignorance at that moment. That's a barometer.

That's how you know when it's happening. If you feel distinct emotions of unhappiness, you are having self-cherishing, and you are seeing something the wrong way. Okay?

That's just an indication. Then you have to do something about it. Okay?

All right. Number five. Yup.

Say Mun Lam. Mun Lam. You've heard of Mun Lam.

Mun Lam means prayer. And this means when you go to bed at night. Okay?

This is one whole day's practice, right? And you're laid down in your bed, and you're about to fall off to sleep, and you say, I dedicate everything I did today to try to get Bodhicitta. Okay?

Which Bodhicitta? Both. How about both?

Okay? Ultimate Bodhicitta, which is understanding emptiness directly, seeing it directly. And then what we call deceptive Bodhicitta, which is, I promise to reach perfect ecstasy as quick as I can so I can show other people how to do it.

And that's Bodhicitta. And if that's not what you think of when I say Bodhicitta, then please adjust your thinking. I'll say it again.

I promise to reach total ecstasy as fast as possible so I can show other people how to do it. That's all. And all the other things you heard about Bodhicitta, you know, like self-flagellation, that comes from your earlier days.

Okay? That comes from your Judeo-Christian days. Okay?

This is, it's almost too good to be true. You get to eat your cake and have it too. Okay?

I promise to be perfectly happy so I can show other people how to do it. Okay? And that is Bodhicitta.

And you don't have to get nailed up on a cross or anything. Okay. Although it may be useful at some points.

Okay.