Серия ежедневной практики, курс 04 — Семичастная практика развития доброго сердца (1999, Голуэй), занятие 3

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

[Speaker 1]
Two more short pieces. Well, pretty short. This is again still part of the preliminaries.

Please say chi-wa, mi-tak-pa. Chi-wa, mi-tak-pa. Okay, good.

Chi-wa means death. Chi-wa means death. Mi-tak-pa means impermanent.

We are impermanent and we die. Okay? This is special meditation.

You cannot develop that other meditation where you put your mind into someone else. You cannot reach that state of... like a high state of love unless you understand your own death.

Okay? Unless you meditate about your own death. And I think one of the greatest things about this teaching is how clearly it explains death.

I became... I first studied this philosophy because of the death of my mother. You know what I mean?

She was dying. And from what I had been taught up to that time I didn't understand why. And I didn't understand what's going to happen to her or why she's dying.

Then you start to wonder how come people are alive. You see what I mean? I mean, when someone starts to die then you start to wonder, why am I here?

Who put me here? Who made this arm alive? You see what I mean?

If this arm is going to die, who made it alive? You see? It's some kind of...

The question comes to you when you... when someone close to you dies. Then you begin to wonder, why am I here?

How did I get here? Things like that. Okay?

To really do great meditation you have to deal with death. Okay? Three steps in the death meditation.

First one. Death is... Death is certain.

And you know, you can take different kinds of medicine. You can exercise. You can live a good life.

You can be careful crossing the street in Galway. Okay? You can do all of these things.

But look, you know, I know, you're going to die somehow. You know, they say, even if you were very, very careful, your own body will kill you. You know, some part of your body that you're carrying around now.

One of those fellows that you're feeding every day is going to kill you. You know, your heart, your lungs, your stomach, something will kill you. Okay?

Even if you don't get hit by a car. Even if you don't get cancer or AIDS or whatever. Your own body will kill you.

There's parts in there that are working against each other. You know, Western science says the body is this amazing machine of harmony of the different parts. And Tibetan medicine says, you're crazy.

There's about twelve different organs working against each other. And one of them will overcome the others. If the lungs get too predominant, you get pneumonia.

If the bile gets too strong, you get other diseases. You see, it's all in competition. And then, sooner or later, one of them takes over and kills the others.

It's like having a body full of rats who are fighting with each other. And then, sooner or later, one of them wins. And your body will kill you if something else doesn't.

You see what I mean? Even your house. You see, the things that you work for will kill you.

You see what I mean? People die falling down stairs. People die in earthquakes.

People die in cars. People die from eating food that they bought. Seamus, who's doing the sound, is not here.

No, because the food is almost hurting very badly. You see what I mean? What I'm trying to say is, even the things which you work for to keep you alive, will kill you.

You see what I mean? Electricity gives you cancer. Automobile exhaust gives you cancer.

The chemicals in food that are meant to protect the food give you cancer. All the things which you work for so you can live, make your life stop. You see what I mean?

Your car will kill you. You work so hard to pay off this stupid car. It's years to pay off this stupid car.

And then it kills you. You know what I mean? It's not fair.

So even the things which you are trying to use to live, one of them will kill you. If your body doesn't kill you, one of the things, your house will kill you. You know, the stairs will kill you.

You slip in the shower, it will kill you. Something will kill you. Life is fragile.

The things that surround you are actually dangerous. Sometime they'll kill you. I saw a list in the Irish newspaper.

It was one out of ten people will be hospitalized in their life from paperclips or pens. No, I'm not kidding. It's like a strange statistic.

You know, it's so funny. And yeah, the things you use to keep yourself alive will kill you. Something will kill you.

And most often it's the things that you use to get to work or the things that you use to eat or the things that you use to live in. Your life is like that. Your body is like that.

You have to die. Okay, second one. Secondly, you don't know when.

Okay? Death is certain, but not the time. Okay?

And there's this lie. There's a lie. It's called average lifespan.

You know, you read in the newspaper, now it's 76 or something like that. And you get some comfort, you know? Like, ten years ago it was 70.

Now it's 76. I just got six more years. You know what I mean?

But you see, statistics don't mean anything for an individual. You have to understand that. You see?

In Asia they understand that. In ancient Tibet they understand that. You see?

You can say the average is 76. That's meaningless to each of us. You see?

Because each one of us can die tonight. And we'll just average 76. You see?

You're going to average 45, and somebody else, three other people will make it to 80. And the average is 76. But it doesn't help you, because you died tonight.

You see what I mean? And it's a lie. No, it's some kind of a...

I don't know how you say. It's a misinformation. There is no average lifespan.

You'll live exactly until you die. Okay? And it could be tonight, for any one of us.

You know? I said last night, there was a beautiful lady sitting right where Tony is sitting. Sorry.

And... she bought the scones one night in April. She's dead now.

She died. She's gone. You know?

I don't know where she is exactly. But... you know...

and sometimes they'll say, oh yeah, I remember that guy. He used to come from America. He died that summer.

You know what I mean? Like... you don't know when.

And there's no... and there's a lie that the older people will die first. That's a lie too.

You know what I mean? You don't know. The youngest person here can die first.

We don't know. It happens. There's no...

justice. There's no... it's not fair.

Nice, young, healthy, beautiful people die just as easy as old, sick, tired people. And sometimes the old ones live much longer and the young ones are dead for a long time already. There's no...

there's no system. It's all random. It's all like crazy.

There's no justice to it. You know? Death will come and...

and pick five of us out this year or next year. And that's just the way it is. Okay?

So, that's part of death meditation. Okay? Third part.

The third part says, nothing else except spiritual life. Meaning, at the time that you die, you know, I lived in this Mongolian community. These are Buddhists.

And... I was one of the clergymen, you know, for the congregation. And...

it's just like any Christian congregation. Nobody shows up for service except the old people. And...

nobody gives a donation unless somebody dies. And... most people are...

people would come to us and say, can you pray? And we say, why? And they say, I'm taking my driver's license test today.

And can you pray for me? And... you know, silly things like that.

And then 90% of the congregation, you only see them on one occasion. You know, it's when someone dies in their family. You know?

Because every other thing they call the fire station, or they call the hospital, or they call the specialist, or they call the lawyer, or they call the... You know, they don't come to the priest except for one thing. It's when they die.

You know? And then nobody else to call. You don't call a doctor after the person dies.

You don't call the fire station, or the... You know, no use. But when they die, suddenly they're there.

You know? When father dies, or mother dies, suddenly the child is there. They haven't come to the church for 10, 15 years.

And suddenly, they're, I'm a member of your church. You say, I don't remember you. So, yeah, I never come.

But now my father died. Can you help him? You know, you're like, you're coming now and asking me?

You know? The point is that people understand after someone has died that there's nothing else to do. You know what I mean?

And, you can't take anything else with you. All the things you worked for, you lose. All the friends you have are gone.

All the family you have are gone. And, you only take what's in your mind with you. Okay?

You can call it your soul. In Tibet, they call it your mind. It doesn't matter what you call it.

Your mind or your soul collects the energy of a lifetime of how did you behave to other people. And that's the only thing you take with you. Okay?

You can call it karma. You can call it sins, or good deeds. It doesn't matter.

that's all that you can take with you. You don't take the body. You don't take your possessions.

You do go on. So, that's all you take with you. So, that you have to prepare in advance.

Okay? They say in America the only two certain things are death and taxes. I don't pay my taxes last year, but they didn't catch me yet.

So, it's really only death, I think. And, you might as well get ready now. Okay?

You don't know. Since you don't know, they call it three decisions you should make. First one is, since death is certain, you better do something spiritual now.

You know, put something in the spiritual bank account now. Like, assure your ticket to heaven now, and then you can play around later. Okay?

So, first one is, decide to begin your spiritual practice. Second one, start now, tonight. Okay?

Since death is... since the timing is uncertain, start tonight. And, third thing, eventually you'd want to concentrate more on your spiritual life than on other things.

Okay? Eventually you would want to... you would realize that that's more important than other things.

You know, you cannot take whatever money you collect. You cannot keep your house. You cannot take your family with you.

You will lose your family. You will lose the things you have. You might as well concentrate on the things that you take with you.

Which, according to this idea, is your good deeds or bad deeds. You can call them sins or whatever, it doesn't matter. You take those with you.

Those go with you. I'm not teaching you about death to get depressed or something like that. Okay?

There's two goals to death meditation. Okay? Short-term goal and a long-term goal.

What's a short-term goal? You'll be a lot happier if you decide you're going to die. And this is a special death meditation.

You know, when you do death meditation in Buddhism, you don't sit there all day and get sad. Oh, I have to lose my mother and father. I have to lose all this money.

I have to lose everything I worked for. It's not the point of death meditation. Death meditation goes like this.

You wake up in the morning. You open your eyes. In fact, I say do it before you open your eyes.

Wake up in the morning, lay there like a dead man. It's not hard. And this is a very, very deep meditation.

You know, people think Tibetan monks are flying through the sky, or, you know, looking into the future, or reading people's minds. To tell you the truth, the very, very most beautiful meditations, well, this is one of them. You sit there in your bed, you wake up, you don't open your eyes, and you say, I'm going to die today.

Period. I'm going to die today. By six o'clock, I'm dead.

Every morning you do this. And I won't see you for a few years. I'm going into a long retreat, silent retreat.

But if this is all you ever do for the next few years, it's beautiful. And don't think it's like some kind of silly thing. And do it.

Sit in your bed, don't open your eyes when you wake up, and say, I'm going to die today at six o'clock. Now what am I going to do with my time? What's worth it today?

And amazing things start to happen. This meditation is powerful. It's easy.

It's five minutes on your bed. I'm dying at six o'clock. Now what's worth it?

What's worth my time today? Okay? What do I really want to do with the last eight hours of my life?

Okay? You know what I mean? And this is a real death meditation.

This is the ancient Tibetan death meditation. And you'll find the most unbelievable things start to happen. Okay?

If you really do it, you're going to get up, you're going to look around your house, throw out all the newspapers. Throw out the television. Okay?

Throw out the radio. Throw out all the CDs you have. If you keep this up for six months, your house will be like a Zen temple.

There won't be any junk. Who needs it? You're going to die at six o'clock.

Who needs a subscription to such and such stupid magazine? Who has time to read that? I'm dying tonight at six o'clock.

Let me meet the friends who I have and say I love them. You know what I mean? Let me go to the enemies I have and reconcile with them.

You see what I mean? I'm not going to go to that job today. Let me do a job I enjoy.

Okay, I make half the money. I'm dying at six o'clock. I don't need the money.

You see what I mean? Okay. No, really.

And the students I have, okay, I always wanted to be a poet. Be a poet. You know what I mean?

It gives you some kind of liberty. It gives you some kind of freedom. You see what I mean?

If I'm going to die at six o'clock, why don't I do what I really... I like poetry. My mother and father sent me to medical school.

They said poetry was stupid. I want to be a poet. And I'm not...

I don't care. I'm just going to live until six o'clock. I'm going to write a poem.

You know what I mean? Forget the school today. Or something like that.

And what you'll find is that you'll start doing what you really want to do. Okay? You'll start organizing your life the way you really wanted to organize your life.

You see what I mean? But you have to practice, okay? It doesn't happen in one day.

It's like piano. It's like Winston. Winston said 13 years.

He's a little slow. I think one year is enough. You do this meditation every morning, and it's amazing.

You'll be liberated. You see what I mean? From what?

From television. From newspapers. From magazines.

From people you don't really want to talk to. Okay? From all the things you really don't want to do.

And then you'll start to do the meaningful things. By the way, you'll quickly find out that it doesn't make you happy to change your job. Okay?

Quickly you'll find out. Try it, though. Okay?

Try it. All right? Say, no, I always wanted to be into air conditioning.

I don't want to be a plumber anymore.

[Speaker 2]
You know what I mean?

[Speaker 1]
And then you'll change jobs, and then you'll find out it's just as miserable. You know what I mean? But do it, okay?

Do death meditation. Do those little things you wanted to do. Learn to scuba dive.

Do some para... What do you call it? Parachuting?

Skydiving? Do all those things you want to do. Because you're going to die at six o'clock.

Who cares if the parachute doesn't open?

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
You lost four hours. Something like that. No.

And what you'll find is that it doesn't make you that happy either. But try it. Okay?

Try everything you wanted to try. That's legal, all right? And then try all those things.

And then what you'll find is that lojong, that special heart meditation where you change your mind. If you had only six hours to live, this is the nicest thing to do. And try the other things first.

And then you will come to this meditation, okay? So, that's a real death meditation. People think Tibetan monks are meditating about blue lights, or green lights, or this aura, or they're upside down and they're flying, or something like that.

To tell you the truth, in a Tibetan monastery, 3.30 in the morning, they ring the gong, you lay there, and you do your death meditation. You know what I mean? And you say, I'm dying at six o'clock now, what am I going to do with my time?

And it's a powerful meditation. It will liberate you from all your possessions. You see what I mean?

Who cares if you have this book, or that book, or these clothes, or those shoes, or... You know, everything will become simple and clean in your life. And then you're suddenly liberated.

How many pairs of shoes do you have? What color are they? Where are they?

Where's those photographs from your last vacation? You know... What's your TV look like?

You see, your mind is like a computer, and it has so many megabytes of memory, and 25% is already taken up by, what? Keeping track of your shoes. You know?

Now, if you can remember how many shoes you have, that means that a certain percentage of your mind is occupied all the time. If you can remember tomorrow where your shoes are, it means from tonight until tomorrow, that was occupied. That space was occupied.

Your mind is not endless. Your mind has only so much space. And...

And what? 25-30% is occupied all the time, remembering where the stupid shoes are. The three pairs you don't even wear.

You see, 90% of your possessions you do not use. At least 50% of the things you own, you haven't used in the last six months. You see what I mean?

So, get rid of them. And what happens? Suddenly, 25% of your mind is available.

For what? Hey! All kinds of beautiful things.

Creative things. You know, people say, I can't write music or poetry or... You know...

Well, get rid of some stuff, and liberate 25% of your mind. And then suddenly, all that time is available. All the mind space is available for sweet holy things.

You know what I mean? Ideas that you never thought you could have. You see what I mean?

That's a real death meditation, okay? So, it's not some depressing thing, where you're supposed to meditate on bugs eating your body or something like that. Okay?

It's not like that. They will eat your body, but that's a different thing. Meditate every morning.

Wake up. Don't open your eyes. Say, I'm gonna die this afternoon.

Now, what do I want to do with my life? And then, your whole life will become liberated. Okay?

That's a real death meditation. Okay, last thing for tonight. What time is it?

[Speaker 2]
9.55 to 10.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, we better stop there. Okay. We'll stop there.

Don't answer the last homework question, because you never heard it. All right? Okay, and we'll do that one tomorrow.

All right? Yeah, and by the way, starting tomorrow I'll ask for if anyone has questions, and I think every night we'll do a little bit. Yes, please.

I think, she asked, why do we deny death? You know, in America... By the way, if anyone has to catch a bus or train, please, don't be shy.

Okay, just go. In America, I think it's that I did not see a dead person until I was 30 years old. You see, they protected me from it.

And it's considered dirty. It's considered almost insulting to talk to a person like this. And I don't know why.

I think it's because we feel so hopeless and afraid of death, you know. Tibetans say that the death process is very frightening. That unless you've been a very good person throughout your life, that while you die, you go through certain standard hallucinations, like being swept away in a flood, or having special pains in your body.

They call nature, special kinds of cutting pains in your body. Everybody, whoever dies. And according to their belief, you've died many times before.

So, I think subconsciously you're afraid of it. And you know it hurts. You know, you take someone up on a tall building, on the edge, try it.

This is another meditation. I'm not kidding. Be safe, okay?

Tie a rope around them or something. But you get them up on the edge and you go like this. You say, I'm going to go like this.

And you have to hold still. And still you have this reaction, you know. And that's, I think it's a very, very deep fear of the pain that you know, because you've been through it many times before.

And you don't remember it. They say that the moment you enter death, your consciousness changes in the same way it changes from sleeping to... sorry, waking to sleeping.

You see what I mean? Like, in your dreams, can you do your banking? You see, can you remember your bank account number and your, what do you call that, MAC card, ATM card number?

And do you remember your exact account balance? And can you pay your bills in your dreams? Like, you might have a bad dream about your bills.

But you have a different state of consciousness in your dreams. They say that as you go from living to dying, it's the same change in your consciousness. So you don't remember what happened.

Ten minutes after you die, it's very hard to remember what your name was. Okay? You're able to see your relatives.

You're able to see your own dead body. But you start to forget things very quickly. The difference in consciousness is very similar to between waking and dreaming.

Okay? So, you don't remember. But subconsciously you remember dying many times, and you're afraid.

It is frightening. By the way, the point of this class is to teach you how to stop death itself. Okay?

I told you you can get rich, you can get rich. I told you you can get happy, you can get happy. But you can also stop the death itself.

And that's a very beautiful thing. Christianity is the same teaching, and it's true. But this is, I think, a little more specific, how to do it.

You see? Step by step, how to do it. And you get the same result, but it's a little more clear what you're supposed to do.

Death meditation is one of the most important ones. Every morning, sit there, say, I'm going to die today. I don't want to think about twelve pairs of shoes.

In fact, I probably don't even need one. You see? And then your whole life starts to open up, and all new possibilities come up, because you're free.

You're going to die today. I'm going into three-year retreat in March, I know that. I'm not going to speak for three years, basically.

It's so funny, my relationship with all my possessions now is very interesting. I'm just giving them away, because I don't need them. You see what I mean?

I'm not going to use them. Even my dear computer, I'm just thinking, who am I going to give it to? Because you don't need it.

So your whole life becomes kind of free. Okay, tomorrow we'll do the next step. This is just a warm-up.

Okay, and thank you for coming. I love Ireland. You have a deep, deep Celtic tradition, and a deep, deep Christian tradition.

I very much honor it, and I value it, and I smell it, and I love to be here. All the churches, and all the beautiful religious feeling here is very strong. And so, thank you for having us here.

And see you tomorrow.

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

[Speaker 1]
Session 3 Okay, very first thing you did this morning was what? Yeah, okay, woke up, stayed... I actually did it myself, which I don't do very often.

Woke up, kept your eyes closed, and thought, if I die today... Actually, we don't even say it that way. We say, I am going to die today, 6 o'clock.

So, what's a good thing for me to do today? And that's the first meditation we do in the morning. Then the next thing we do is fight with our own mind, because it's time to go meditate.

And the mind says, No, we're too busy today. We have to have breakfast. We got to get ready for work.

It's too cold, it's too hot. I slept too much, I didn't sleep enough. Anyway, the mind is going to fight you and say, Oh, I don't want to meditate.

And that's the second thing you do in the morning. Third thing is you meditate. So, we're going to meditate a little bit.

Then I remember from yesterday, the main thing is to keep your back straight. There is some inner energy in your body, and it runs mostly up and down where the spine is, in front of the spine. And the back has to be straight to meditate nicely.

Then you can sit in a chair, or you can sit on the floor. If you sit on the floor, you cross your legs, put the right leg up over the left leg, and try to put something below your spine, to keep your back up a little bit higher than your front. So, we use a little pillow or something right here, and it keeps the back of your bottom up.

And then, put the left hand down first, and then the right hand on top of it. And hold your thumbs like that. If it gets distracting, sometimes for me, I can't keep them up, and they fall down.

Just let them fall down. So, very straight back. Shoulders should be equal.

Head should be straight, like that. Don't put it down, and don't put it up. Eyes can be open or closed.

Some people like to close them. Some people like to open them. If you open them, keep them aimed down, and looking like that, like your eyelids are half closed.

Loosen the...relax your mouth, relax your forehead. Breathe through your nose. And the first thing we'll do is to watch the breath.

This is like a warm-up. Meditation is like running, or jogging. You have to stretch your muscles first, in your mind.

And this is very important. I think many people don't know how to meditate, because they don't know this warm-up. It's like trying to run very hard without warming up.

So, first warm-up is to watch your breath. Watch your breath means, feel the air coming in and out of your nostrils, and be aware of the air coming and going in your nostrils. Okay?

So, try to close your mind. It's very important to be silent. Don't make any noise, don't move.

And watch the breath coming and going by feeling the air as it comes in and out of your nose. And we'll do this for three or four minutes. Now try to count your breaths.

The out-breath is one. The in-breath is the second half of one. The next out-breath is two.

The next in-breath is the second half of number two. And play a game with your own mind, and challenge your mind. I'm going to count ten breaths, and if you think about something else, if your mind wanders, then you have to start over at one again.

If you're very honest, I think you have to start over five or six times. So see if you can count ten breaths. And if you think about something else, if you lose count, then you have to start over again.

This is a way of calming the mind down and getting ready for meditation. Now I'd like to take you through some other preparation for meditation. And I'll take you through it once, and then we'll write the names on the board.

First part of actual meditation. You know, a lot of people are just watching the breath, and we don't think that that's a real meditation. That's like getting ready to meditate.

And afterwards you have to meditate about something important. So the first thing we do in meditation is to invite some special being, like a spirit being, to come and help you meditate. And this is a very important part of meditation.

It's the first part of meditation. So, in this case, you imagine the most pure person you can imagine. Maybe it's like Mother Teresa, or maybe it's like Christina Noble, or maybe it's like the Dalai Lama.

It doesn't matter. Jesus. But you imagine that you are sending out requests that they come and meditate with you.

So, you imagine. Mentally you pray, and you ask them to come and pray with you. And you imagine that they come, and they're sitting in front of you.

And it's sort of a suspense, you know. You keep your eyes closed, but then you invite them, and you imagine that they're sitting in front of you and meditating with you. And maybe if you peek you could see them, you see.

But they're very fast. So, they're like elves or leprechauns, I think. Anyway, keep your eyes closed.

Try to imagine the most beautiful being you can imagine. This physically very beautiful, made of light, mentally very perfect, completely loving person. And ask them to come and meditate with you.

And most people can imagine a good person, but then go a little bit further and make them perfect. You know, physically perfect, mentally perfect, spiritually perfect. Invite them to come and sit with you.

At the beginning, it's only imagination. And later, because you've imagined it, it comes true. So, at the beginning you're just pretending that they're coming.

And sitting with you. They have the power to come. They have the power to hear you when you think it.

And they do come. Later you'll be able to see them. So, imagine right now, a beautiful, perfect being is coming to meditate with you because you asked them to come.

And the next step is that we bow down to them. Bow down in the mind means to respect them. Respect them means to think about what it is that makes them special.

And try to think about something about them which is very special, something you admire. If it's Mother Teresa, it's her compassion. You see what I mean?

If it's a Dalai Lama, maybe it's the way he teaches people in such a convincing way. And like that. So you think about some good quality that they have that you like.

And this is the same as bowing down to them. The next exercise, mental exercise, to warm up the mind for meditation is to think about making a gift to this being. And this is kind of fun.

You try to imagine the most beautiful thing you can imagine. Maybe it's the sky over the ocean, with the sun coming down in the back and shining on the ocean. Or maybe it's a flower.

Maybe it's some music you think about. Some kind of perfume, perhaps. But imagine a beautiful gift and present it to this being.

One of the best gifts you can give is to think of something kind you did for someone else, something good you did, like controlling your anger yesterday or something. That's also a good gift to give. Next part of the meditation is to think about...

We said yesterday you can't meditate well if your conscience is not clear. So we try to think about the one bad habit we have or the one... Perhaps we did something unkind to someone else.

And try to think of the most serious ones and bring them up in your mind. Try to remember where you were, what you did, what you said. And this is a kind of like confession.

We call it purification. And try to think about what you did and try to decide that you'll try not to do it again. And this is necessary for meditation.

If you try to do meditation with some kind of argument with someone on your mind or some kind of unkind thing you did, unexamined, it's difficult to meditate. It creates a small obstacle in your mind. So, try to think, especially in the last 24 hours, the last day, something you might have done to hurt someone, something you said, or even something you thought, and clean it by admitting it and deciding to try not to do it again.

You have to go back and check your last day, yesterday. If you think about it and clean it, then meditation will be much easier. It'll go much faster.

The next part of the meditation is the opposite of the last one. And this is very important. And I think, I grew up in the church.

We went to church a lot, and I enjoy it. It's great. But I think this is very useful, something we don't have in our churches.

And it's... The next part of the meditation is to think about all the good things you're doing, and all the progress you're making, and all the kind things you've done. And it's like the opposite of a confession.

It's... I think in a Buddhist church, in the future, you might have a special room where you go and tell the priest all the good things you're doing. And this would be what we call rejoicing, like a rejoicing room.

And so, think about the last 24 hours. Think about something good you did for someone else, something kind. Maybe you controlled yourself when you were about to get angry.

Search through the day, and find something to be happy about in your own progress, spiritually. And oftentimes these are less than the negative things. We do fewer positive things, and they're also usually smaller.

But be happy. It's a start, and it will grow. So, think of the best thing you did in the last day or two, and really be happy about it, and see it as progress.

And then the next... two more parts. The next part is to pray that you find good teachers in your life.

And learning spiritual things, and learning to meditate, learning to pray, reaching heaven, reaching holy things, requires a teacher, as much as learning piano, or learning carpentry, or any other skill. More than those things, it requires a teacher who can stay close to you and help you from hour to hour, day to day. And so pray that you find a teacher like that, and pray that they come to you and teach you.

The last part of the meditation, before we meditate, the last warm-up is to ask all the teachers around you to stay long life, stay in this world, stay with you, stay close to you. And this also includes good friends. A lot of times your friends help you or hurt you more than your teachers, because you tend to act how your friends act.

So, in this last part, you pray for the long life and health of the friends around you who are good people, and the good influences, spiritual teachers around you, and in the world, and pray for their long life, pray for their health. It could be someone like the Pope or the Dalai Lama, it could be your neighbor who's a good person, and pray for them to be healthy, to stay in this world, and help us, and stay near us. Okay, now relax, okay?

Open your eyes. There's one more step that we do after meditation. So that's like a warm-up.

That's like before you run, you have to stretch a little bit. We say it doesn't work just to sit down and meditate suddenly, without warming up, and that's a part of the warm-up, and we'll do it again. And what happens during that warm-up is that all the negative energy in your mind starts to get less, and all the positive energy gets more.

And then when you start meditating, it's very easy. Everything goes very, very peaceful, very strong meditation. And you have to know how to do that in order to meditate well.

After the meditation, we do a special prayer where you take all the power of the meditation, and you try to send it out to other people to help them. And that's called dedication. So, during the meditation you do some very great power in your mind, and at the end of the meditation you take all that power and you send it out to other people.

We call it like a stone in a pond. You know, when you throw a stone in the pond, and then these ripples start. In this room, in the last 20 minutes, we threw a stone in the pond, and it will touch other people.

You will be a little bit different this afternoon. When you go for dinner, you will meet somebody, they will see your face, and there's something different about your face. You spent the day thinking about death, thinking about higher things, and they can sense that, and it brings a little peace to everyone you meet.

And then they meet somebody else, and they have about 5% of your peace, and then it spreads like that. And the last thing in meditation is to pray for that, okay? I'm going to write those steps here on the board, because it's on your homework.

Okay. Thank you. The first step is to invite a pure being to come and meditate with you.

Again, I repeat, you cannot see them at the beginning. They come. When you think about them, they come.

Later you can see them, okay? And in fact, imagining them helps you see them later, okay? So it's important to picture them very nicely.

You know, what do they look like? And make them perfect, okay? Like, if Jesus doesn't work, then use Buddha.

If Buddha doesn't work, use the Dalai Lama. If Dalai Lama doesn't work, use the Pope. If nobody works, make up one, okay?

Just beautiful, perfect angel, you know? Physically perfect, happy, they love you, and everything about them is perfect. And don't be shy.

Make them beautiful, and make them perfect. And then, we say that imagining them helps to meet them later, okay? Bow to them means, again, think about what it is that you like about this being.

What is it? Is it their love? Is it the way they look?

Is it some other quality about them? You know, why? Why is this a perfect being, you know?

And we say, bowing to them or paying respect to them is best done by thinking about what it is you admire about them. What is it that you would like to be like? Would you like to be more compassionate?

Would you like to be more patient? You know, would you like to be able to pray better? And you think about all their holy qualities.

And this is better than bowing down to them. This is mentally bowing down to them, just by thinking about who they are, okay? This makes the meditation very powerful.

They do exist, these beings. You can't see them right now. Angels do exist.

You will meet them later, if you do a good meditation every day. And, at the beginning, this helps to create a bridge. Imagining them creates a bridge.

It's called dhagpen nengdzor in Tibetan language, okay? Second one, make them a gift. And this is just fun, you know?

You think of the most beautiful thing you can think of. In ancient India they used to think of the sky and cover it with roses or flowers, and like that, okay? Make them some offering.

Make them some gift. The best gift, the nicest gift, is to offer them your own attempts to be a good person, you know? That's what makes them happiest.

If you say, yesterday I almost got angry, and then I caught myself and I stopped. And I'd like to offer to you. To them that's better than anything, all right?

Third one. Third one is to purify negative words, thoughts and actions. It means...

By the way, they like something specific, okay? They like to hear something specific. So you think, three o'clock yesterday I met this person, I heard about this person, I had a fight with them last year, and I got a little bit angry.

Like they're gone for a year, but still I... Just thinking about them I got a little bit upset, you know what I mean? And that was stupid.

It just makes me unhappy and it makes other people unhappy. So you just purify it by thinking about it and admitting it. You see what I mean?

We think it's very difficult to meditate if you have unhappy thoughts in your mind. If you're angry at someone or something like that, then it's almost impossible to meditate. So, this step is very important.

This is maybe the most important step. Think about something in the last 24 hours that you did, like getting angry at someone, or saying something to someone. It's impossible to think of all of them, okay?

There's too many. Pick the worst one, all right? And admit it.

And the most important thing is to say, I admit it, you know, it was stupid. I shouldn't get angry. There's no benefit.

It doesn't help me, it doesn't help anybody else. I got angry yesterday at somebody I haven't seen for six months, you know. Probably won't see them again.

But still I'm thinking, you know, like that. And then in the meditation you admit it, okay? And you say...

You like play back a videotape. You say, oh, that was foolish of me, you know. It doesn't help anybody, it makes me unhappy, it ruins my meditation.

I'll try to stop that, okay? That's very good for meditation. Number four.

As I said in... When I explained to the Tibetan monks that Christian churches have special little rooms, like confessional, where you go in, and you can talk to the priest, and you can tell them something you did negative. They said, well, do they have rejoicinals?

And I said, what's that? And they said, oh, you should build another little room on the other side of the church. And there should be a priest there, and you should go in and say, oh, Father, these are all the good things I did yesterday.

You see what I mean? Because they believe that the energy has to be both. You have to clean the negative energy by confession.

But then you have to equally, equal time. In America we say equal TV time, equal air time. You have to give equal time to what you're doing right.

And you have to be happy about it. And it's a requirement in meditation, okay? To be a good meditator, you have to think the last 24 hours, you know, what good things did I do?

Who did I help? What good thoughts did I have? At least did I control myself a little bit?

Dalai Lama always says, if you can't help other people, at least don't hurt them. And so, did I control myself a little bit? So that's just called rejoicing, about something you've done in the last 24 hours.

I warn you, these are fewer. And I warn you that they're very small, compared to the bad things, you know, compared to anger, like very pure, strong, healthy anger. The good thoughts we have are very...

It's a little bit upsetting, if you really examine your heart nicely. It's hard to find a really good thing you did in the last 24 hours, you know, something that you did for someone else really selflessly and very kindly. But at least think of something, okay?

Usually I yell at this person all day, but I only yell at them half a day. This is progress, okay? And don't be shy.

Write it down. It's okay. It's something.

We say the human mind is millions of years old. We say you've been alive many times before. And during those millions of years, most of them were spent in a negative life.

And so, any kind of progress, any kind of small progress, is rare and it should be celebrated, okay? And that's number four. It's like a celebration, okay?

I'm not perfect, but I have this one little good thing I did yesterday. And that's more than I used to do. And be happy, okay?

Very good for meditation. Number five is called asking for teaching. There's many kinds of teaching and you know that.

You know, some of it is like this. You have a formal class in meditation, or prayer, or religion, or something like that. Then there's other kinds of teachings.

Maybe somebody will come and teach you how to do something physical, like carpentry, or playing piano, or something like that. And these are skills that can be useful. You can please other people with them.

You can serve other people with them. Then you know there's these very special teachings that your wife, or your husband, or your children, or your supervisor at work gives you, which is to be bad to you. And they challenge you, right?

Like they make you angry, okay? They say, stupid, I can't believe you did that. I worked for this guy for 15 years, and oh, I thought I was a good religious person.

And then he could set me off in one sentence or two sentences. He could say, I can't believe you did this stupid thing. I said, what?

And he'd say, yesterday you lost all this money for the company. I said, that wasn't me. He said, I know it was you.

And then he can get you angry. If you think about it, this is also a teaching. We say that to really perfect your spiritual qualities, it requires irritating people around you, okay?

The greatest Tibetan lamas, some of them used to choose among all of their students, they would have 500 students, they would choose two or three of the worst ones, and ask them to stay with them all the time. Because they could always be challenged. And all of their patience could be sharpened and honed against the stone of this person.

And so, you can also ask for those kinds of teachings. And you will be given them, okay? It's funny, because sometimes in the afternoon, if someone irritates me, I think, well, I asked for it in the morning.

I prayed, and now, look, it came true. Okay, so, number six. Ask the great teachers to stay with you.

Maybe you know a great priest in Galway, someone in a church, a great nun. Maybe you have a great aunt, who is especially a kind person, or someone, a child you know, who is a very beautiful child, and is teaching you all the time. You don't believe in the angels anymore, and they keep asking you about angels.

You know what I mean? Anyone can teach you. The better you get in your heart, the more teachers you meet.

So, it's asking all the teachers to stay in your life, from the pope and the Dalai Lama on down, to the children that you live with, who teach you, okay? And you ask them to stay. And also the irritating people.

Until I become a perfectly patient person, I ask you to stay close to me, and irritate me as much as possible. It's like a special request, that they stay close to you. I'm not being funny.

I'm dead serious. You don't improve unless you have challenges. And in your clearer moments, you know that's true.

If you try to avoid other people, you try to go to a cave and meditate, we say you don't learn as much as if you stay near two or three irritating people. You know what I mean? Because until the day that you learn to cope with that, you're not a great meditator.

You know what I mean? Anyone can go meditate in an empty mountain, one of the nine bends or something, okay? But to learn to be peaceful around people who are not, is really what you want.

Why? You can't control the presence or the appearance of irritating people in your life. Just when you think you got rid of the last one, another one comes along, okay?

So better to learn to cope with them. And so it's a kindness if they could stay close to you. And you should hope for that.

You should ask for that, okay? Number seven, which is the last one, is to like send out the good energy. Like you've had all these good thoughts, pure thoughts, healthy thoughts, religious thoughts, and then at the very end of the meditation you say...

This is the ripple, okay? The ripples. And you say, may it...

you know, may it reach out to other people, may it go out and touch other people, and you pray for that, okay? Now, where do you meditate in here? Right here.

This is meditation. Okay? This is where you actually do your meditation.

We didn't do any meditation yet. Okay? That's all warm-up.

That's all preparation. If you want your meditation to go well, you have to do those six steps, preparation, and then after the meditation you dedicate the good energy of the meditation. Okay?

Now there's some Buddhist schools that say you should watch your breath for an hour. And that's not taught by the great schools. They say watching your breath is not a special object.

You see? Everyone breathes. Rabbits breathe, deer breathe, cows breathe.

They watch their breath also. But it didn't get them to nirvana or happiness, okay? So, breathing is just a preparation.

It's not a goal. Watching yourself breathe is not going to make you a Jesus, okay? The breathing, by the way, starts just before number one.

Like right here, you do your breathing. And just before that you sit down, okay? And you get your posture correct, okay?

So, the first thing is to sit down. And then you watch your breathing and calm your mind down. And then you start this warm-up.

You start these six steps, okay? This makes your meditation go very well, very fast. And it doesn't take very long.

Once you get used to it, it takes maybe five, ten minutes, okay? Now we have to talk about meditation, okay? What are you going to meditate about?

There's thousands of things you can meditate about. Since you're studying this seven-step book that we started last night, why don't we take a meditation from there, okay? Go to page six.

Look at the bottom for the number six. Do you have it? And I'm going to be teaching you...

By the way, if you have this single sheet, it's step number two. But we're going to give you this single sheet later. I understand you don't have it right now.

If you don't, look at page six. And if you look at the very, very dark print there, this is going to start the meditation, the actual meditation. And he starts with the hardest meditation of all, okay?

So that's a good place to start. You just had your first class. Why not have the most difficult meditation of all?

Then after that, everything will be easier, okay? It says, learn to see all things as a dream. And that's the first line.

That's the first part of the meditation, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Session three continues on the next CD.