Серия ежедневной практики, курс 05 — Медитация о смерти и о конце смерти (1999, Роли), занятие 3

[Speaker 2]
Session three.

[Speaker 1]
I'd like to do one real short meditation. Go through the six things we have already, okay? We'll skip the preliminaries since you don't need them anyway.

Okay, watch your breath, okay? Pretty deep breaths, but nothing forced. And keep your mind on the touch of the breath as it goes to the front of your nose, okay?

If you're by yourself, it would be one round of ten, the out-breath being the first half, the in-breath being the second half, which is not the same as when you're swimming when you're a kid. And one round of ten is okay, two is better, probably. Three if your mind is crazy.

Then I'd give up and go on to the next session, okay? Now the Kundalini Noble Look means focus on the lama who's in your heart and ask them for their blessings during the meditation. Then do the first lamrim, which is the coming out of the woods and struggling at the table and thinking that you don't want to live your life like that, and just struggling for things and being weighed down by them and all the bad karma associated with that.

We forgot to say the opposite of the wind in the channels thing about getting younger is that if you go on doing bad deeds your whole life, and I don't mean killing people or robbing banks, I mean little irritated thoughts all day, then naturally it will affect your channels and the accumulated damage just kills you. So think about the minor bad deeds that are caused by not doing what you would do if you were going to die tonight. Then go on to the bridge and imagine all the major possessions you have and the major commitments you have and the major ways that you spend your time and imagine redesigning them or dropping some of them altogether to lighten your life up as if you were going to die tonight.

Evaluate the major things in your house in light of the fact that you're going to die tonight and see which ones you would throw out. Then at the end of the bridge is this scary thing, scared of death, scared to die, death meditation, which is a frightening thing, being nervous about death or paralyzed by thinking about it. And you break through those people with those swords and you just practice remembering that that is not death meditation.

Then go on to the real death meditation, which is very light, very strong, very supple, very vibrant, crossing the grass, almost in a dance. Very light, all the dirt and all the heavy things just gone and you're in very light, almost like silk clothing. Very light silk things on you and you're happily dancing across the meadow.

And think of what it represents, which is a real good death meditation, where every day you wake up, you do exactly what you're going to do as if you were going to die tonight. Then when you lay down to go to bed, you feel good, you feel like you did the right thing today, did the best you could. And if you died tonight, you'd be happy.

And what would it be like to keep thinking that way day after day, week after week, month after month, unencumbered? You get to the first door, a huge, like, oaken door. You see it like a yellowish color, a golden yellow color.

And you stop there and you look at it and you think that this door represents the first of the three big divisions of this meditation and that's that death is certain. Then you enter the door and it's a sort of a dark, cool room, like an earthen walls and circular. And to your right is this huge animal that would like to kill you.

And it's chained up and it's like wild and trying to reach you. And that represents that death is not something you can stop. Once it comes, you can't stop it.

Once the karma wears out, then it's impossible that you would see a living thing when you looked at your body. And it could wear out at any minute. Then you walk to the center of the room and on a small pedestal is a...

or a stand is an hourglass. And you look at it and think about the fact that your life is always draining away, leaking away every day. I see all these pictures of my Dharma brothers and sisters when they were young.

You know, when they first met the Dharma and they look so great, they look so wonderful and then time just slips by and your body sags and wears down and that's the... it's happening now as we talk and think about it. And then imagine yourself running down a corridor and I see the corridor kind of dark with stonish walls and pictures on the walls every six feet apart and they have a little light over them and it's one of the lamas I've studied with or one of the teachings I had.

And imagining rushing down the hallway and not able to take the time to practice them or to meditate well and there's sort of a frustrated feeling that I never have time to really delve into things and I never have time to practice like I'd like to. Even when I'm on retreat, the time flies away. And use the hallway to remember that.

Then bring your mind back into your heart and say goodbye to your lama there. And they like touch your hand and bless you. You're small, right?

And then dedicate the good karma to other people. More specifically, that you become like your lama or you become your lama and that that would be the best way to serve others. Your perfect lama.

Your lama as a perfect being. Maybe we don't see them that way right now but as they are as a perfect being. Okay, that's good.

I'd like to do question and answer and then after that, just before we break, I'd like to tell you about stuff that's going on in the next few months as far as activities through the place in New York and other places, just in case you want to catch some of them. And the questions don't have to be about this meditation, okay? Just anything you feel like asking about, it's fine.

Okay, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
I see my both of my parents, but especially my mother, approaching her death and totally unwilling to...

[Speaker 1]
like it's... I'm wrong to even mention that she could be dying. Do you see any way I could support her other than just to give prayers on her behalf?

She asked basically, her mother's dying. I repeat it for the mic, okay? That her mother is getting old and dying and she'd like to help her become more aware of death but she resists it very strongly.

And I had this problem. Both my parents died at about the same time from cancer and my mother was... we came in and said, I got cancer and I'm going to die from it and we got to get ready.

And, you know, you're going to take care of the house, we're going to sell the house and, you know, you're going to do this and, you know, you take care of my clothes. And then she was very practical, it was amazing. And then my father was, I'm not going to die, I'm not going to die.

I'm going to beat this thing. And then I asked my love, what can I do about my father? And my mother we brought to India and she trained with Geshe Dangye.

And I think when my father was just... the Lama said, make sure he feels that he reviews his life and thinks about people he might have hurt and tries to purify that by reviewing it, you know. And like, I think I forgive Joe back in 1960 who kicked my dog.

[Speaker 2]
You know, it's like that.

[Speaker 1]
Like you review all the things they've done in their life and try to forgive people. And that's a good thing. That's a good way to die.

And this thing that the Catholic Church has about final absolution or something is very good. And that by the end of the process they should sincerely believe that those hassles are finished and all bad blood is over with. And if they can die, at least thinking that they've made peace with all the people that they used to fight with.

And you try to get them in a mood that this is all over with and half those people are dead now. Just let it go. Then they'll die much better.

So that was the main thing. It seems like that if I was going to think that today was the last day of my life, I'm dying tonight, and I don't believe in anything... I mean, this is the end.

There's no future life. If I have that attitude, the logical thing to do is go on a hedonistic table. But if I relate to the end...

I mean, this is a question really. I'm making a statement, but it's really a question too. But if I relate to the end of my life as a point of transition, then all of this thing makes a lot of sense to want to use this time in the most precious way to practice virtue and to have a passionate attitude toward creating the causes so that things go well for me in the future.

Is there any way to logically take the first position and make some sense out of using somebody who just believes that this is the only life. It ends tonight, boss. How do you encourage someone coming from that position to do what you're talking about, to use it in the precious way?

Yeah, I think... That's why I kept saying at the church, was to do all the things you ever wanted to do that are moral and legal. But my idea on that is...

By the way, here it goes past Scripture, and I have to say that. Scripture doesn't talk about it much. But I think that if you really did a good death meditation, and you were in the mood that you would like to try all the things that you didn't try, I mean, you'd have to obviously encourage the person not to do anything immoral or illegal just on the basis that that would not make them happy.

You know what I mean? It doesn't include those things. I think you have to be clear when you teach this to people that those things don't really make you happy.

And if you spent the last day of your life doing those things, it would be a shame. And then, secondly, I think... That's why we went...

When we talked about death meditation in the Church, it was... I think you might want to go through the things you haven't tried that you wanted to try. As long as they're like...

I'm thinking skydiving. I don't want to try skydiving, but I can think of that. But things like that, I think it's not a bad state of mind.

I think if you're starting to do death meditation, you might want to... If you suddenly got the urge to take... take a different career path that you always wanted to try, but wasn't so viable, you know what I mean?

Then you do it. You know what I mean? And I see that as a step towards a true death meditation.

And then after that, after you see that that doesn't make you that happy, that you go on to a deeper level of a death meditation, which is dakshin yam je, like real bodhisattva practices and things like that. But I think, yeah, a person who did a good death meditation might want to try a few of the non-dharma things, meaning non-spiritual things that are still legal and moral, and get over those, and then delve into them and see. I saw a nice quotation from Professor Thurman where he said...

They asked him, you meet a lot of movie stars because you're a doner and all that, and some are practicing Buddhism, and what do you think? And he said something I think which is very true, which is that they're lucky because they've tried everything, and they know that there's nothing else that money can buy that can make them happy, so they get spiritual after a while. And I think you see that happening in China right now.

A lot of Buddhism is springing up because people are materially happy now. I mean, they can have enough to eat now. Then you start thinking about dharma.

So I'd say my answer would be that some desire to try some new things with your career and things like that is a good sign of a half-successful death meditation. And then I think quickly you'd move on to the spiritual things that you've always wanted to do. But it's a good question, I think.

In the Lam Rim, they're assuming the belief in future life, which we don't have in the United States. So I think it's a good question. I think you have to ask it.

Yeah, in the back. In some of the tapes that I've listened to, you've talked about it this afternoon, that what we're toying with is if we don't restructure or redirect our lives, so to speak, there's death. But what I'm confused is death in a sense of this body, but the mind goes on.

And part of your tapes talks about the form in a formless realm. Does the mind go on ad infinitum and then just keep going on and on? And then the other part, the book that you gave out in Maryland, Achieving Bodhichitta, talks that eventually we will all become Buddhas.

The confusion that I have is does that mean that if I don't restructure or do my life differently, then it could be eons upon eons of just suffering? Is that the point? I'm really not clear on it.

It's a good question. I think the first part of the answer, the word permanent and impermanent is misused in Buddhism. It should be changing and unchanging.

But is the mind permanent? Yes. Is it changing every millisecond?

Yes. When you say it's impermanent, it's a little dis... What do you call it?

It's confusing. It's a little misleading. It's a bad translation of the word nitya and nitya and dhagpa and mithagpa.

And I don't like it. It should have been changing. But is the mind eternal?

Yes. Does it have no beginning? That's correct.

Is it without cause because it has no beginning? That's a Western bias. Forget that.

Okay? Just because it has no beginning doesn't mean it's without cause. It's without first cause.

There is no such thing as a first cause. Because every cause is a result of a previous cause. So, I mean, that's just obvious.

And that's just a Western, you know, problem. But, yeah, the mind has had no beginning and the mind will have no end. It will go on eternally.

Each mind streams separately. They don't mold into one at the end or something like that. Content-wise, they all become the same, meaning perfectly enlightened.

String-wise, they're all separate. Okay? You never become me.

But we can both become enlightened and have exactly the same stuff in our minds, which is everything.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. So, yeah, so if you get into thinking like that, does it take away the urgency of thinking that you're going to die tonight? No.

Because when all those... Death is defined, don't forget, as the sudden ending of all those dirty good karmas and bad karmas. The sudden wearing out in one five-minute period of many, many karmas, streams, that have continued throughout your whole life, suddenly all wear out together.

What's that leave you with, you see? The karma to have a mind doesn't stop. So you still have the karma to have a mind.

But you don't have the karma anymore to look down and see a hand. But you must look down and see something. That's a principle of Buddhism.

You will see something. And this is the karmic result of millions of years of sweet, holy efforts. You know what I mean?

To have a body and to be in a Dharma class is the result of millions of years of effort. And very hard to replicate that projection. That perception that we're having right now is extremely rare.

And the likelihood that other perceptions will then take over is high. And they're all worse. You see what I mean?

If Buddhism is correct, then the odds against you the moment after you stop seeing this as alive are very high. And that's all. Will you have another life like this?

By definition, since the odds are infinite, you will. Is it likely in the next, you know, thinkable time? No.

You know, that's all. So yeah, your mind is eternal. But to be having the perceptions we're having right now is almost impossible.

So, to think that then the death thing becomes very... I think once, when you teach this to other people, and I see everybody in this room as the next teacher in the lineage, and you should think of yourselves that way, because that's how lineages start. That's how it happened in Tibet.

You have to think about, you have to teach your students about projection and karma, you know, about perceptions. Because otherwise the urgency is not really there and the understanding is not there. To really appreciate that a shift in your perceptions, which could happen as quickly as any other thought you've ever had, could thrust you into a wholly different realm, different world, different way of being, is frightening.

You know, if you really understand rebirth as a shift in perceptions and not as a dog body factory in Kansas where they stuff spirits in there, you know, cut them open and they stuff the spirit in there and sew it up and then they can run around. I mean, that's how most people think about rebirth. They actually, when I say rebirth, you think about a little fetus in a womb and there's this mind getting shoved into it.

It's not like that. Your perceptions change, slightly, and you're a dog. You look down.

What is it to be a dog? It's to see this as a paw. There's no other dog.

You see, the Heart Sutra, when he says, no body, no hearing, no seeing, he's trying to say there is no other dog. Dog is seeing this thing as a paw, then you're a dog. And that's what dog is.

And you can be that within a minute. Somebody argued with me, they said, really it takes more than a minute to die, you know. I'm like, okay, two minutes, you know.

But the whole shift, the paradigm shift, you know, the shift in your perceptions is what makes you a dog. That gets scary. That gets into the realm of possibility.

We've had other radical shifts. You went from drinking a milkshake and driving down Highway 70 to bleeding and with your head halfway through the windshield. I have a friend over here who did that.

The karma shifted slightly in a 30-second period. And don't think that can happen. That can happen anytime, you know what I mean.

And it's shifted forever, you know. And you look down and see something totally different. Don't think it hasn't happened.

It happens every day, you know. That's all. That gets scary.

You know, if there's a dog factory and you can just kind of drive up towards Montana and avoid it, you know. It's not like that. It's a subtle shift in your perceptions.

And then you look down and you see a paw and the room looks like all places to pee-pee and stuff. And then you're a different being. And you've been reborn, you know.

And that's rebirth. It's that simple. And the odds of being like this are very unlikely.

Yeah. If I do a lot of really good practice and am able to project seeing myself as an enlightened being and everybody else as enlightened beings, then what else would need to be done? Why would anybody else have to do any practice?

Because there would be no inherently existent other person who would need to do any inherently existent other practice if I'm already seeing them and projected enlightened being. Yeah. It's a good question.

When you, you know, if you practice well... And by the way, don't forget that practice well mainly means just keeping your vows, okay? Buddha has identified, Jetsun Kappa has identified, you know, a certain list of things that if you concentrate on this, your perceptions will start to clean out very quickly, you know, relatively very quickly.

I wouldn't even say forget the relatively, very quickly, okay? And you start... The sign of successful practice should be obvious.

I mean, it should be noticeable that people... Tastes get better, you know, the air gets better, the weather changes slightly, the earth starts warming, you know, crime drops in New York, you know. Seriously, seriously, they start playing your favorite songs on the radio more often, you know, the people whose albums come out are just really good, you know, and I'm not kidding.

You see, if you laugh, you don't understand where your reality is coming from. If you laugh, you don't understand that all of these things have been created by one person and one person only, you, okay? So, let's say Sarah McLachlan suddenly hits the scene, you know, and the whole album is, to me, extraordinary, you know, and not only that, somebody comes and makes me listen to it, you know, and I don't even have to, you know, turn it on.

And then they're playing this thing all the time. So, for me, my world starts to purify. Rome wasn't built in a day, Buddha paradises aren't built in a day, but they gradually start to appear.

And part of that says worth is that the people immediately around you, especially, you start to be surrounded by extraordinary people, you know, and they're like, they demand to be in the room with you, and they're like, and these are like very, very special people, start to gather around you, and you're like, wow, you know, and then slowly they begin to be more pure, until finally one of the five qualities of the Sambhogakaya in a Buddha paradise is that the only people they have to look at is 10th level bodhisattvas. I mean, the only people in their immediate experience is high level bodhisattvas.

That's the only people they have to relate to. No more, you know, grumpy taxi drivers, no more, you know, even the taxi drivers and 10th level bodhisattvas, really, seriously, and that's the goal. And so worth is saying, well, what are you supposed to do, what do you have to do after that?

You see what I mean? The question is this, and it's a little hard, okay? Are they perceiving themselves that way?

You see what I mean? And that's the difficult part, and that gets very hard, that's very hard. You can think of it in an easier way.

You know, for me, Sarah McLachlan is an acoustical godsend, you know? Like, for me, to hear her music is wonderful, but I've turned it on for people in the car and they're wincing, you know, and especially Stevie Ray Vaughan, okay? And people are like, you know...

So, what I'm experiencing in that way, because it's empty, and that's what emptiness means, then it could be quite big suffering for other people. So, yeah, you are perceiving them as 10th level bodhisattvas. They're perceiving themselves as plain old samsaric desire realm suffering creatures.

And you still have a lot of work to do, because you've got to help them shift their perceptions. And is there any... are they any less real, because they don't perceive themselves as 10th level bodhisattvas?

Does that make them any less of a 10th level bodhisattva? No, because that's all everything was all the time up to now anyway. Get used to it.

There is no base reality. There is no way they really are. That's what the Heart Sutra is all about.

They ain't 10th level bodhisattvas from their own side, and they ain't plain old samsaric schmucks from their own side. They are empty, and they're perceiving themselves as suffering beings, and you're perceiving them as 10th level bodhisattvas. And there's no problem with that at all because of Sarah McLachlan.

No, remember, remember. That's the emptiness of those beings. But isn't that still your perception, them perceiving themselves as suffering?

Oh, don't answer this question. I didn't figure it out yet. I had the honor of debating the third Pabongka Rinpoche for his Geshe, and I was the first debater because I was the oldest non-Geshe at that time, in my college, and we got into that question.

I still didn't figure it out very well. Meaning, to have to perceive them as perceiving themselves as suffering beings, isn't itself some kind of suffering? And then don't Buddhists suffer?

I think the answer is something like they might perceive that way, and it doesn't diminish their perception of them as 10th level bodhisattvas, and they don't feel suffering when they feel compassion. To feel compassion is not to suffer. That's as close as I've gotten so far, and I haven't got it clear yet.

Axel keeps bugging me about this.

[Speaker 2]
I have two questions about emptiness and karma. Why is it taught that emptiness is the proof that you must become a Buddha at some point, instead of that you simply could become a Buddha?

[Speaker 1]
She said, why is it taught that emptiness is the proof that you will become, and not that you could become? The debate I'm thinking of, that I think you're referring to, is si-pa-la-chi-me-tha-yo-te, nyan-po-top-den-yo-be-ye-che, which means, si-pa-la-chi-tha-yo-te means, there is an end to samsara, generally, for all beings, nyan-po-top-den-yo-be-ye-che, because there's a powerful antidote for ignorance, meaning the direct perception of emptiness. And I guess, just logically, and we debate it in the monastery very bitterly, if you're going to say that whenever ignorance comes up against wisdom, that wisdom always wins, one-on-one, head-to-head, in one person's skull, the direct perception of emptiness and samsaric states of mind cannot coexist, then that proves that eventually, all of us will get enlightened.

Then the next logical thing in my mind as well, given infinite time, sooner or later they will bump into each other. But then somebody should debate me and say, but we've had infinite time before here, and we're not there yet. And then I think the text would say, infinite time is still restricted by...

infinite time past is still restricted by the laws of karma, meaning it takes time for things to grow. And there is still a gap between doing a good deed and getting a result of a good deed, and that the combinations haven't come together yet. But it's kind of a weak argument, huh?

I don't know. I don't know. I mean, that's all I can say.

But that's the scriptural thing. I don't know, we have had infinite time in the past, and I'm not enlightened yet. So I don't know.

But that part doesn't seem logical to me.

[Speaker 2]
My other question was, at Gatscho you said something about, like when you walk on the grass, there's a part of your mind that knows that you might be killing ants or something. So even without intentionality or with the seeming ignorance of the action, you're collecting bad karma. And I'm confused by the role of intentionality, that I know that's one of the aspects that makes karma powerful.

But would that mean then that if a bird is singing a song, if I'm appreciating it, that the bird is getting good karma from that? And how can what goes on in my mind affect the mind-stream of the bird?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. So it's a question like this. I don't think you can appreciate karma or understand karma, and therefore act with respect for the laws of karma, which is the goal, right?

I don't think you can do that unless you understand how karma is carried, you know, how karma functions. Because in the scriptures, in the Abhidharma, they're called depe jedam, means people who follow the rules of karma stupidly, meaning they respect the laws of karma, but they don't understand them. And that's like kids in Tibet who were told by their parents 25 years, you know, 100 years ago, don't step on bugs because you might be a bug later.

And they respect the laws of karma, but they don't understand why. And they see karma as some cosmic boomerang, you know, you do something, and the Abhidharma, like, sees it as a big photograph, God takes a big photograph, and then later it gets developed and comes out of the Polaroid, and then you have to have something come back to you, or something like that. And that, you know, and I think even the Christian idea of an angry God, or a just God, or a God who pays you back, is even another form of that inability to explain why karma works, you know what I mean?

I think it's just one step down from Abhidharma, you know what I mean? Like, the Abhidharma say there has to be a cosmic photograph taken by some, you know, when you do something very good or very bad, this aura forms on you, and until the karma comes back to you, it doesn't go away. And the higher schools say, look, that's a useful way to explain it to people, but it's not really true.

And Abhidharmas would say, you know, taught by Lord Buddha, would say, yeah, you're right, it's not really true, but it's helpful for people and keeps them in line. You know, and then, if they're not even ready for that, well, you can say, well, there's this big guy up in the sky with a beard, and he watches everybody, and, you know, this is very consistent with the... I mean, it's very possible that an enlightened being would come to the earth and teach people who need to...

who can't move up to Abhidharma that there is a big guy up there, and that's okay, because even the Abhidharma presentation is similar, it's not true, but it's a helpful way to think about karma. So when you get up into the higher schools to really understand, to really, for an American who's a thinking intellectual person, to believe in karma, I think you have to... and I'm talking to you as potential teachers, not potential.

You are charged with teaching. That you have to be able to explain how karma is stored in the mind, and that is, when you perceive yourself doing something, the more aware you are of doing it, the more strongly it's recorded, and the more intention there is, the more strongly it's recorded in your mind. And that's just a principle of karma.

Then the question comes up that she's talking about, Denison, is that, well then what about when you're not even aware that you're doing a bad deed? You see, like you're walking across the grass and you're killing bugs, and how can there be any recording of karma if you're not even aware of doing that? And my own thinking, okay, I say it's my own thinking, because I haven't seen scriptures that clearly talk about it, although I have asked great lamas.

There's this peripheral awareness, you see what I mean? Like you're not consciously crushing bugs. You didn't walk across the grass on the way to Kadampa Center thinking, I wonder how many bugs I can kill on the way, you know?

But if I ask you when you get here, did you walk across the grass and say yes? Is there a high likelihood that you killed some bugs on the way? You'd have to say yes.

That means that your mind is peripherally aware that you must have been killing, that you're very highly likely that you've been killing something. And if you did kill something, says Buddhism, and if you had some awareness that you might have been killing something, then you do collect some karma. Is it as strong as jumping across the grass with special snowshoes to kill as many bugs as you can?

No. But is it still a bad karma? Yes.

What's the scriptural evidence for that? Arya Nagarjuna supposedly died his death because of killing a bug by accident in his past life. So apparently it's possible.

Now, her second question is, suppose a bird is singing, and they're sort of singing because birds like to sing, and not to please me, but suppose they do please me, and there's no intentionality on the bird's part to please me, but if I am pleased, does the bird collect more good karma? I think the text would say, yes, they do. And I'd have to say some very, very, very vague awareness that you might be pleased by it or something like that.

Maybe some kind of primitive awareness. But I think you get into... What she's saying is that, in a sense, objects would be self-existent.

You see, if just my being there could give the bird good karma without any intentionality on the bird's part, I think you'd have to say that. So how aware is an animal of the act of murder as they eat something that they've just driven to eat because they're a tiger or something like that? I think you'd have to say some intentionality, but nothing near the bad karma collected by a human who knowingly kills another being out of hatred and is aware of how wrong it is.

That's the worst bad deed. My Lama was hesitant to teach us tantric vows, because then we would be breaking them knowingly, since we couldn't keep them anyway, as he said. He will not teach us the 50 verses of Guru Yoga.

He never has and refuses to. On the principle that if you break them and you know you're breaking them, it's much worse than if you break them and you're not really clear on what you're breaking. In the last class, going back to her question, you talked about the giver, what is it, the perfections, the giving perfection.

So if a bird is, the circumstances have to line up in order for you to hear the bird, and if you think that's very melodious and you like that sound, you're actually, it depends on how, from what you were describing, to make that a, what's the word I want to use, the giving aspect of it, so that you can get merit for giving the bird hearing that melodious sound. At the same time, the bird, from its karmic standpoint, was presenting that sound to you so that it could, the situation could come together. I don't know, maybe I'm misperceiving this.

Master Shantideva has a similar thing, and that's that he makes a very difficult to accept argument. He says, you should stop being, I got to get it clear now, you should stop being a bad person. You should stop stepping on bugs, because in the future, somebody will have to kill you, and that person who has to kill you will get bad karma from it.

You know what I mean? I think it's a false argument. I think he's saying it as a, as sort of an encouragement to be good, but technically speaking, it's, it's, you're not, you're not causing that person to collect that karma by, you know what I mean?

They say that if you're the last person who's still not enlightened yet, and you've got karma to be killed, then rocks will fall on your head. You see what I mean? So, it's not like, you cannot cause another person to commit a bad deed towards you, actually.

You see what I mean? You can't do it. I don't think so.

But I understand the question, and it does come up in scripture, but I don't think it's meant literally. You know, I don't think it's to be taken as it, as it says. Okay, yeah.

Two things. I think you mentioned yesterday that we were entering this building by the west door. I'm sorry, east.

Did I say west? East, I can't remember. You said east.

Yeah, I meant east, because we used up west at the Lam Rim retreat. Didn't we use up west? I think so.

Can you speak a bit about the significance of that? It's just that we used up west. The people who did the Lam Rim retreat, we used the western door, and now we're using an eastern door.

I can't claim any more mystical. The other thing is, I was with my grandmother about a month ago when she passed away, and what struck me, what was hardest was the entire environment in which it happened, like you were saying, with the lama that you watched pass away, that they wanted to bring him out of the room ten minutes afterwards. You mentioned earlier that Gen Rinpoche gave you a list of things that we can do to help people who are dying.

Can you also advise as to what would be good details to put into A Living Will for those of us who want to have good deaths in hospitals if we're so unfortunate to be there or at home? We're going to go into it tonight, I think. Let's do it tonight.

No, it's part of Gen Rinpoche's little essay on it. Generally speaking, and then we'll go into more detail tonight, my experience with hospitals is that I've come to very few hospitals that didn't respect the wishes religiously of the people dying. You know what I mean?

Something about death overcomes most people's crankiness and bureaucracy. Generally speaking, if you're firm, and I'd say if you are clear in advance what you expect and what you want, the odds of them agreeing are pretty high. But we'll get into more detail tonight.

Yes?

[Speaker 2]
Geshe-la, I have a question about the direct perception of emptiness, the twenty-minute direct perception of emptiness, that particular thing. I know you lose the two doubts of self-existence and then you lose all doubt about the fact that you will get enlightened and all that stuff. And your five senses are in abeyance, as far as I recall, and you see your past and your future lives and you have a sort of omniscience, maybe not the omniscience of a fully enlightened being, but omniscience.

And if your senses are in abeyance and you're in a high state of concentrated meditation, is there something in the sutras or tantras that explains how the person is feeling? Or what is it? Is it ecstatic trance?

I don't know. It can't be trance, because then you wouldn't be actually seeing it. I don't know.

But it's something that constantly titillates me.

[Speaker 1]
Good. What's the role of your feelings during the direct perception of emptiness? Don't forget that the direct perception is divided into munsum, the direct perception of emptiness, and then immediately following that, jayatobhyasi, which is the experience of the Four Arya Truths and all the truths of the Four Arya Truths.

So don't forget it. We have to divide between... Technically speaking, there's a third state, which is after you get up and you're wandering around outside.

The first two happen on your seat. And then the third one happens during the next 10 hours or so, 12 hours. So during the direct perception of emptiness, that very first 20 minutes or so, you are in such a deep meditation before you see emptiness directly that you cannot feel, hear, taste, hear.

Your senses are shut down. In order to see emptiness directly, your senses must be shut down. And it just means a very deep state of emptiness, of meditation called samatha.

So your senses are shut down and you've actually gone out of this realm. Your mind is out of the desire realm. Your mind is in the first level of the form realm, the preliminary level of the first stage of the form realm.

So your mind is actually in a different state, a different level. And if someone tapped you on the shoulder or held McDonald's french fries under your nose, you wouldn't smell, you wouldn't feel. You're just totally withdrawn from the senses.

Because a sense perception is not a direction. You can't perceive emptiness with your senses. And during the direct perception of emptiness, you can't perceive anything else.

That's not ultimate reality. And so this just cancels. Forget it.

You can't have a sense perception while you're seeing emptiness directly. You also cannot have a conscious thought. You can't have a discursive thought.

You can't think, I saw emptiness, or this feels good, or this is interesting, or I did it, you know, or something like that. Because even to perceive I at that moment is not ultimate reality. The I is...

Worth gherkin is not ultimate reality. Worth is not ultimate reality. You can't think of yourself while you're seeing emptiness, perceiving emptiness directly.

But do you have feelings? You know, they talk about semgisamang chu in the Abhidharma. In the higher schools it's called kundronga.

But these are either ten or five mental functions that never stop. You know, if there's a mind, then there are those five mental functions. For example, concentration, the ability to concentrate, the ability to discriminate, the ability to feel.

So feeling never shuts down. Now, to have a feeling at that moment would be a perception of something other than ultimate reality. So you'd have to say, what they say in the scriptures is that feeling is going on as an undercurrent or something like that, but that you cannot have a direct...

You can't have an awareness, a manifest, they call it, a manifest awareness of a feeling while you're perceiving emptiness directly is impossible. Cannot happen. Because feelings are not ultimate reality.

You see what I mean? Then you get into this debate, well, then feeling must not be a concomitant mental function with the consciousness. And then they say, yes, it's there, but it's in the mode of subconscious or something.

It's not manifest at that moment. So that's all. So does it...

Is there a contentual blissful feeling while you're seeing emptiness directly? No. When a Buddha perceives emptiness directly, they are simultaneously having perfect ecstasy.

So there's a difference between... Is there a content difference between the emptiness that a Buddha sees and the emptiness that a person sees upon the first perception of emptiness directly? No.

100% the same. But they are in addition having total ecstasy about it, which we can't do, because we can't simultaneously focus on an ultimate reality and a normal reality. It's impossible for us.

That's all. Just a question to that. Is it impossible to remember to be having seen emptiness directly?

He says, well, then is it impossible to remember what you saw? They say... Excuse me?

Say again. Oh, no, you remember. Why do you remember?

Yeah, no, you just recall being in direct communion with ultimate reality. That's all. And you are aware of the next moment.

The moment you come out, you're aware that you saw it directly. And people have asked me, I had this and this and this happen to me. Did I see emptiness directly?

If you're not sure, you didn't. No, seriously, very, very serious. Because you have many other things happen necessarily within the next few hours that you would never ever forget.

And, you know, you can flirt with emptiness, you know, and not have a direct perception. And those happen. And those, you know, like small insights into it, or, you know, blips.

Is it the direct perception of emptiness? No. Is it a deep insight into emptiness?

Yes.

[Speaker 2]
I have two questions.

[Speaker 1]
One is, once you've seen emptiness directly, does that mean that all your good and bad karma has both worn out? Can you see emptiness?

[Speaker 2]
And the other question is, can you define what ultimate reality is?

[Speaker 1]
Okay. When you become an Aryaya, what happens to you and what doesn't happen to you? It does not remove your mental afflictions.

It only removes three of them. Which three? The first one is doubt about Buddhism.

And, you know, frankly, at that moment, you perceive that the contents of every Buddhist book are totally, absolutely correct. You know, unlike anything else. You know, they're all totally correct.

Everything that's described in the Lamrim, everything that you've ever heard about in Buddhism, future lives, past lives, all karma, everything, every sentence in those books is absolutely correct, and is the hope for all mankind. So, you would, like, become anal about saving those books. You know what I mean?

That's the first thing, okay? So, you lose doubt forever in the Buddhist path. You cannot doubt it, okay?

Secondly, you lose forever the belief that what you're seeing is correct, that you are seeing things correctly, okay? You understand that up to the time of seeing emptiness directly, you never had a correct perception in your life. And, subsequent to seeing emptiness directly, and until you overcome the tendency to see things as self-existent, you've gone back to seeing things that way, which is very frustrating, okay?

But you can't stop it until you become an arhat, okay, just before, say arhat, yeah. So, that's the second thing. You overcome your intellectual belief in self-existence forever.

You never again believe that things are self-existent intellectually, but you can't help seeing them that way. What does that mean? Is that a pillar or not?

Yes, it is a pillar. Is my perception of it as a pillar correct? Yes, it is correct.

But it's infected with a belief about that pillar, which is ingrained in my mind so strongly, that I can't overcome it, even if I had already seen emptiness directly, okay? It just overpowers me, you know, I still see it, and it still appears to me that way, to be self-existent. There's a feeling about the pillar, the way it exists, that's wrong.

Is my perception of it as a pillar correct? Yes. Is my feeling about it as coming from its own side correct?

No. And in that sense, I've never had a correct perception before seeing emptiness directly, and until I reach nirvana, which is overcoming the last inkling of that tendency, I still have that. But at least I know I have it, okay?

So, the second mental affliction that you get rid of forever when you see emptiness directly is that, is believing what you see is totally real, the way you think it is, okay? Then the third one is called the tsultrim dantushu chong dzin gyi ta, which means the tendency, the belief in stupid spiritual practices, that, for example, to hurt yourself would somehow be a spiritual practice, to whip yourself, or to go on faster so long that they hurt you, or other kinds of spiritual practices. The word is the view that morality and asceticisms are supreme, and lamas are always careful to interject at the next instant, this morality refers to stupid kinds of morality, not to, of course, not to our vows and things like that.

So, the belief that some kind of, the belief in all other paths that teach something, particularly which might be harmful to you, you know, physically, and things like that. Just practices that don't mean anything. I mean, an extreme example would be walking on fire, something like that, you know, or something, you know, something that doesn't really help you.

Okay? So those are the mental afflictions you get rid of forever. Ultimate reality...

Well, I don't understand if it's something like like if two people see a car accident, you know, and they each have a different story, does ultimate reality mean that there really is one story? Well, I mean, ultimate reality would mean, in that case, of two people seeing an accident and having different versions of the story, would be the version that was inherently correct. The lack of that is ultimate reality, you see what I mean?

Okay? The fact that there is no true car accident, you see? There's only the two that they saw.

But there's no base car accident, you see what I mean? There is no... There is no real, in that sense, car...

It's only the car accident as the one person saw it, and there's the car accident as the second person saw it. But there is no other car accident. And the lack of that other car accident is emptiness, is ultimate reality.

That's a little complicated, but... Your... The strength of your mental afflictions depends on not understanding ultimate reality.

The strength of your belief that the accident happened the way I saw it, and only the way I saw it, which leads immediately to anger and desire, is a barometer of how strongly... of how much you're failing to see ultimate reality, which is that there is no reality there. It is exactly what the two people saw.

You know what I mean? And no more. And there's nothing...

There's no third thing there. There's just the accident that one person thinks they saw, and the accident that the other person thinks they saw. And there was no other accident.

Okay? Yeah. Could you...

Like when you're saying that you see things as self-existent, and when you reach nirvana, you stop seeing things as self-existent? And they stop appearing to you that way. So, what would...

How would that... Could you describe... What would that feel like?

How... Well, a barometer of how it would be... You see, what is nirvana?

It's the ending of your mental afflictions. How does... And there's a very sexy connection here.

What's that got to do with things appearing to you as self-existent? Is there a coincidence that they both end at the same time? You see what I mean?

Is it only a coincidence that the last mental affliction is the subtle tendency to see things as self-existent? No. The barometer of how your emptiness understanding is going is how strong your mental afflictions get.

You see? Because if you understood that the boss is your projection, and only your perception, then... And that the only way to get this guy to come back and yell at you again is to yell at him or her, then your mental affliction level...

The more you understand emptiness, the more your mental afflictions should be dropping. Anger, jealousy, desire, hatred, upset, anxiety, all should be dropping as the stronger the wisdom gets, the perception of the emptiness of the boss, even intellectual, forget the direct, then the stronger this gets, the weaker the mental afflictions have to get. And when this blinks out, these blink out.

You see what I mean? When you stop seeing anything as self-existent, it happens to be the case that immediately you have no more mental afflictions. So, you cannot...

I call it the John Wayne theory. There ain't room in this town for both of us, you know? Your skull is one kind of space, like Tombstone, Arizona, okay?

No, and over here is anger at your boss, which is dependent for its survival on seeing the boss the wrong way, okay? And then over here is seeing the boss the right way. And they cannot coexist in one skull at the same time.

You cannot consciously look at the boss, be aware that your perception is something forced on you by your karma, and that they might look great to the person sitting next to you at this very moment, and at the same time yell back at them. It's impossible. It cannot be done.

Now, can they alternate in split seconds? And that's the rub, you know? Unfortunately, you have to learn to sustain that vision, because you can only normally do it for a few seconds before anger just really obliterates that view.

So, after you've had a direct realization of emptiness, and then typically you have maybe, say, seven lifetimes after that, right? In the subsequent lifetimes, do you know that you had had a direct realization?

[Speaker 2]
Like, what's your awareness of your awareness in a past life, and is it just that you naturally had those three awarenesses? You know, the three things that you realized kind of carry over naturally?

[Speaker 1]
She asked, you know, it's very typical to take seven more lifetimes after that. Now, that might seem A, it seems mystical. I mean, who can prove seven lifetimes?

I don't believe in one lifetime, you know. Right after you see emptiness directly, you perceive how long it's going to take you to get enlightened, and you see your final enlightenment directly. And typically, you see that it's going to happen in seven lifetimes, and you are very happy.

Because you perceive that you've had countless lifetimes. This is a drop in the bucket compared to that. And you're like, 500 years?

No problem. That's wonderful. You see what I mean?

And you're very much aware of that. Now, what happens after you are reborn again? Do you remember everything in the early years of your life?

No. Not necessarily. You go through a normal growing up stage, and then we say bhaktyā-sepa.

Bhaktyā-sepa means it comes back to you. Bhaktyā-sepa means the bhaktyā awakens. And you get everything back very quickly.

And the karma of a person who's seen emptiness directly is so powerful that during those next seven lifetimes they will always be surrounded by the greatest teachers in the world at that time. They will always be bumping into these people. They will be given over to those people's care at a young age, like the Dalai Lama.

And you perceive that also, and it's great. It's wonderful. Imagine knowing that you're going to be taken care of the next few lifetimes, and then you can't escape from these people anymore.

They're going to be hovering around you forever after until you get enlightened. So it's an extraordinary feeling to know that. One last question, then we're going to talk a little.

[Speaker 2]
Session 3 continues on the next CD. This is the continuation of Session 3.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. One last question, then we're going to talk a little. How does this fit in with the degenerate age and the fact that all the teaching is going to disappear and there won't be any more teaching?

She said, what about that thing in the diamond cutter or in the Abhidharma at the end, where it says, look, the teachings are going to die. You know. Yeah.

There won't be any teachers around. This is referring to people who are still stuck in this version of the desire realm, okay? On this planet.

So yeah, the teachings will die on this planet. And they will die because the karma of the people to have them will die. You see?

That's another dirty karma, dirty good karma. And it wears out. So then as the karma of the people wears out, those people who haven't become Aryas in our hearts, that haven't practiced well, then their karma to have...

You can see His Holiness is getting old, so we're getting our own version of this now. The karma to have a Dalai Lama who's adult and who's alive in my world while I'm on the world is ending. You know?

And there's a chance, it just seems like, that we could be later in our lives not have an adult Dalai Lama around to give us teachings and things like that. The karma to have His Holiness in the world is wearing out. Each of our individual karma to be able to experience a Dalai Lama in this world is wearing out.

And he appears to be getting older. And... And that's very expensive karma.

To maintain that person in your life is very difficult. It takes a lot of... That's why you have to be so careful about our Lamas.

You know? Not like me. I'm very bad about it.

Okay. Then we'll be doing a 3-year retreat starting in March 2000. And...

And... Not much to say. It's just a 3-year retreat.

In New York there will continue... They're going to... I have 12 student teachers there who are doing half the course load now.

Half of every class is taught by student teachers. And they'll be continuing cycling through the 15 courses. Actually it'll be 18 courses by then.

In the next 3 years. So, you know, there'll be good people who have been through 7 years of training leading the courses. And there'll be smaller courses like 10 or 15, 20 people.

And maybe 3 or 4 going on at a time. So you can catch all the subjects you didn't catch before. And there'll be correspondence courses continue to be sent out.

And we keep trying to clean them up. The first 3, I think, are rough on the audio. Because we didn't know we were going to make correspondence courses.

Those were like little cheap tape recorders back next to the dog. And... We say this dog did a great thing because this guy was on a plane and Richard Geer sat next to him and he was doing some course 1 or something.

And Richard Geer said, let me hear. And there was this noise and dogs and... But he really liked it.

So he came over one day and said, I'll pay for some of your stuff, you know. So we're thinking the dog did a great job. But...

And then during the 3-year retreat there'll be 3-week classes twice a year. Okay, so I'll conduct 3-week classes twice a year. The dates are already fixed.

And you can talk to Winston. But I think basically December trying to cover the Christmas holiday period and June. May to June.

Late May, early June and then late December, early January. You know, so that we try to catch people when their kids are not in school. And the idea out there is that we are negotiating the purchase of a...

We tried to get a free 5 acres and then we tried to get a free half acre and then the guy wanted us to buy 40 acres and then finally they said, look, take 9,000 acres and we'll give it to you really cheap. And so I'm like, I don't have $5. I literally don't have $50.

So you know, this is kind of silly to talk to me about this. And then a couple sponsors came up and said, maybe it's interesting you should think about it. You know, like you could do something interesting there and think about it.

And then I started thinking and I said... And then we came up with an idea basically, it's like a rectangle of land that we could... It's backed up to a national park, a mountain, this huge mountain range where Cochise used to hang out.

And that whole corner we're thinking to make long-term retreat area for people to do from like one month to three year retreats. And it's of the size that you wouldn't have to see anyone else. Like the building could be actually out of sight from other buildings.

And it's high desert, meaning it's sunny all the time, but it's not too hot and not too cold. It's 4,800. So it's very moderate all year.

It's between 50 and 80 degrees most of the year, which is perfect for meditation. And it's totally, totally, totally silent. There's nothing...

The nearest good grocery store is an hour and a half away. And so from that point of view, it's totally silent. And so we're negotiating.

Winston's working on that. He's the manager of that project. And it looks pretty good for...

We're going to try to acquire the land in 10 years, gradually. And we have some nice sponsors who are helping. And if you can help, it'd be nice, if you're interested in it.

So it'd be one part for long-term meditation. Then we'd like to build a university along the Mongolian lines of doing these things. In Mongolia, when you finished your geshe, you went to medical school and became a Tibetan doctor.

And after you finished that, you went on to dance, sacred dance school, and became a dancer. And then you learned sculpture and learned to make holy images. And then, you know, Sanskrit and then Tantra.

And we'd like to have a... We'd like to do that model again. We'd like to revive that model.

And in Mongolia, they're trying. But the trained teachers are mostly dead. But we've been talking to dance masters in Mongolia and Tibet and all kinds of...

Our idea is to have elderly masters come, offer them a good place to stay and health care. And then have a university where you can study for free. But you have to commit to become a master.

So you have to commit to 5 to 10 years of intense study, but it's free. And it's led by a true master of that art. So whether it's dance or architecture or sculpture or painting or music or ritual.

Or philosophy, yeah. No, there'd be a whole school of ritual for mandala, satsa, everything else. But it would be...

The idea is to get someone who's the best in the world to teach it and offer them a nice position and health care and things like that. It seems to be like a lot of the great lamas from my monastery in India are leaving to get medical care in Singapore and never coming back. And we'd like to just push them a little farther to Arizona.

And you know what I mean? And then guarantee them some kind of security there. And then, the thing is when they get old, they want to pass it on.

You see what I mean? When you're like 50 and you're all cocky and you're a Geshe, you're not like so interested in the tradition or the lineage, but when you're 70, you start to think in terms of who's going to pass it on. We've been talking to them and there's a lot of people interested to come and we'd like to build a university there.

And that would be the theory of it. That you would commit to study and master something and not dabble in it. Not dabble in Tibetan medicine for 6 weeks or something, but take the 6 years it takes to become a real Tibetan doctor.

And then put out 10 Tibetan doctors or 50 Tibetan doctors. Americans. My next dream is that the Americans help to define the American form of that art.

So like, after you've mastered Tibetan Thangka painting for 7-8 years, then you help us define an American Thangka painting. And after you've studied sacred dance seriously for 5 or 6 years, then you help to develop the American forms of those things. Because it'll either happen that way or it'll happen hodgepodge, you know.

And I'd like to see it happen. And then the ones who are in the School of Philosophy will start writing American commentaries to the great scriptures. People in Tibetan monasteries, they don't study the Sanskrit things anymore.

Forget it. I bought the only Tengger in South India to give them. They didn't have one.

Because they study their own commentaries. And to me it's manifest destiny that there will be American commentaries, American Thangkas, American sacred dance, art, music, mandalas. And they might as well be done by people who are highly trained in the last version.

You see what I mean? So, that'll be the function of that university. And it'll start with one little modest building.

And it's designed over 25 years to grow into eight colleges in its circle. Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
I have two questions. When do you envision the first part of the project of people being able to go there to study?

[Speaker 1]
As far as study, as far as meditation, I see that if you wanted to come as it opens in March or April, if you had any way to help support yourself, because I don't have funding for that, but if you had any way to help support yourself, and that the housing we've developed with the help of a lot of great architects like Salim Lee, who's on the board of FPMT, and who's a great architect, and he's helped us design buildings that are quiet, adobe structures that are very cheap, and so we designed a bunch of structures like that, just the blueprints, you just get the blueprints and you build one. And my idea is you could either timeshare with other people, or you could build one for yourself or something.

But there are a lot of people who are interested in going, and interested in starting with the meditation, and then the first college opening, I think, we scheduled for the end of the three-year retreat, so that the building would be open upon the end of the three-year retreat, and we'd start philosophical studies there. The thing in New York has been that I've taught more general classes and been unable to teach more in-depth classes, and what I'd like to do at that place is that you sign on for five to ten years, and you can study there for free, but you have to work hard, and you have to come out a master of that thing, whether it's dance or art or whatever you're attracted to. And I think all of them are good for a person who's trying to reach enlightenment.

I think, for example, dance is very good for Dzogchen, and I mean, I'm not thinking it's irrelevant. It has a deep connection to tantric practice, if it's done properly, and that we would train people how to do it seriously there. So I'd say talk to Winston.

He's going to be building. It really depends, frankly, on finances, and we're doing very well. I mean, we were a little scared by the size of it, but people have come forth, and it looks like we can do it.

To open the college depends on how fast we can build the first building. It's a very cool location in this sense. It's about an hour from Tucson International Airport, and it's in a totally empty area.

It's totally empty. The U.S. Army has a secret listening base there for the whole world, because there's no electronic garbage in the air. It's just totally empty.

The place is totally... Right now, it's totally empty. The last part of the Arizona thing, the third part of the property, the concept is large home sites where people could build their own place.

And I kind of feel that the future of Buddhism in this country on a large scale is lay people like yourselves. I think the percentage of ordained people will be similar to what it is in this room. And that America will be one of the first Buddhist countries, maybe the first, where the mass of lay people are well-trained in Buddhism.

And it's not just the thing of sacred priests who have the information and are holding it. I think America, in its political structure, will be dharmically the same way, and the Dharma will be spread out among the lay people. And normal lay people will be highly trained in Buddhism and tantra and everything else.

And I think it's going to be the way it's going to be. And I don't see Americans on the whole attracted to a very rigid structure like in a more structured monastery or something like that. I see Americans probably more succeeding in their own home, like having their own home site.

So the concept is that you would have 5 or 10 acres, like a lot of space. And you'd be far away from the nearest person. And you'd have a quiet little adobe place and you could live there and you could practice there.

And I think it's more likely to happen like that. And maybe live with 3 or 4 other people that you feel close to. You know, or something like that.

So the third part of that property is the reason it's so big, and it's big, it's like 5 miles by 5 miles or something, is that you could practice your tantric meditations quietly by yourself in your home. And still be within walking distance of some good teachers, some really good teachers, some real masters. And that's...

And then as far as livelihood, there's two approaches there. One is there are people living there now who are Buddhists, who are living off $150 a month. You know, because there's no heating, there's no cooling, all the electricity is solar and free.

And the water is... they've had for hundreds of years, 100 years, these water well, you know, what do you call them? Windmills.

And they just pump it up. Nobody around there has an electrical water pump or anything. They just come up.

So you don't have an electrical bill. You're not even on the grid. You don't even have a wire going to your house.

You don't have water. You have water, you have heat. You don't need heating, you don't need cooling.

And the adobe is very quiet and very cheap. Ideas that make it cheap and live cheap. And then my intention is to...

So I think, and there's also by coincidence a... whatever... a very, very sophisticated optic line is coming through that property.

It's one of the properties that was selected for a nationwide web theme. You know, and there's going to be this huge web. It's already being laid.

I mean, so that you... I think that commerce is going to change in the next 5 to 10 years. And most objects will be sold on the web.

And most people will work a lot on the web. And personally, my immediate group of students, we do everything on the web. We don't have an office.

We don't have a location. We're in the airport, or we're at Raleigh, or we're in LA, or... It doesn't matter.

We get paid to do... We get grants from various people to do different kinds of scholarship or different kinds of activities. And we don't have an office.

And I think it's going to be that way. So I think more and more people... You don't have to really...

The reason to live in a city becomes much less in future years, I think. And I think that kind of place will become very popular. I think people will start to spread out more.

Because you can get everything you need by ordering it. For example, I don't think a record store will exist in 10 years. It'll just be on the web, and you'll get it.

There'll be a lot more coffee shops because people will miss each other. Seriously. You still need that experience.

But anyway, there's a village being built nearby, which is a very high-tech and very quiet, ecologically responsible village that's being built about 2 miles north of us by a very beautiful man. And so... So there'll be a place for like that.

But my concept is that. And I still intend to be back in New York like half the year, and traveling half the year to teach. Because I can't see...

It's not for everybody until you get older.

[Speaker 2]
And...

[Speaker 1]
It'll become messy.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I know.

[Speaker 1]
No, no, I still will have other kinds of courses there. But what I mean is I think that, especially in New York, especially where we are in New York, it's still a great place to meet new students and meet talented new people. And I think that the main stops that we're going to now, we'd still continue to do that.

So that's just... That's my spiel. Yeah.

What can we do to support you while you're on your pre-year retreats?

[Speaker 2]
Oh...

[Speaker 1]
Right now we don't have much money even for that. So I think we started a... You can talk to Ora.

But it'd be very nice if you could send Cheerio money and stuff. And I've never asked my students for money. But I think this is important.

And I think that... I think that place is important. And I ask you this.

I'm not expecting... I don't know... I don't believe anybody in this room has much money.

But if you know anybody who we could approach and we could do all the work, you know, somebody who might think that saving Tibetan books was important or something, or somebody who thinks that bringing that cultural thing here would be important. We've been very successful in meeting friends of friends. Like we've gotten literally two very large grants from friends of friends.

You know, and... Somebody knew a rich person who kind of likes Tibet. Give her his number.

But anyway, anything like that would be appreciated. Yeah. Yeah, stuff like that.

So put your brain to it. It's important that it happens. What it'll mean is whether Buddhism is introduced into America in an organized way or in a disorganized way.

And I think it's very beautiful if it happens that way. And just think about it. I'm not asking that you support it directly.

Because I don't want to taint my teachings by asking for money. But if you know anybody or if anything comes to your mind, then really think. Because a couple of people come to us with kind of wacky ideas and they worked.

You know, so... If they don't include selling T-shirts and stuff, okay? Stuff like that.

Lastly, do you have that CD thing? We have a book that you can look through, a picture book of this proposal for the place. It's called Dragoon Mountain.

That place is called Dragoon Mountain. It's surrounded on most of the sides by national or state forests. So that makes it kind of cool too.

There'll be a three-mile buffer around the place, basically. What's the name of it? The mountain is called Dragoon, like Dragoon meaning a soldier.

And that's where the US cavalry used to try to chase Cochise for 40 years. And that mountain has caves peppered all over it with springs in them. The Apaches lived there for 40 years and avoided the entire US Army.

And it's great. So my idea is like, if we don't get the money for the building we'll just go out in the caves. And the Park Service can try to find us.

And the Park Service has been very sweet. They say, you know, we're right on the border. So they say you can even have your teachings in these natural amphitheaters where the Indians used to have their...

There's prehistoric drawings on the rocks. And they said, sure, go ahead and use it. And they said, there's a problem with the road.

And we said, yeah, what? And they said, we'll have to widen it for you, so just give us warning, you know. And it's like that.

They're very cool. So the teachings will probably be in some place like that. You're welcome to come out.

And Winston's in charge of that whole project. So if you have any ideas or any kind of... Do you want to...

Yeah. If you want to hang out with Winston while you're eating and talk about it. This is the time...

I think it's a very seminal point in American Buddhist history. I think if it goes well, lots of incredible things could happen. So think about it.

You know, you could be in on the beginning. Okay. This is something we'd like to present to Kadampa Center.

Okay? Don Braille. That's our new CD.

And it's five years of intense work by most of the people from New York who are here have contributed in some way. And there's hundreds of Tibetan refugees getting paid to put in their scriptures. There's about...

We've finished about 150,000 pages now. We are about 3% finished. Okay?

It'll take about 150 years to finish. But... But it's...

And all the books are on the web for free. So it's about 1,000 books on this CD of ancient scriptures. And all organized by Aura helped with that, Christy helped with that, into categories.

So like if you want to do... I met... Who's the Rinpoche...Rinpoche's attendant? And they said, Do you have a Guhyasamaja sadhana, but not too long and short and it's got to have this little thing in it. Do you have one of those? So, see like click on Guhyasamaja, then you click on sadhana, and then you pick out of ten sadhanas, you pick the shortest one, and then you search for this section and it has it.

And then I just gave it to him in about ten minutes. And he was like... He was so happy, you know.

So it's set up that way. It's designed that way. Yeah.

Yeah. To translate it will take about... The Tibetans took 700 years, but we have computers.

Aura is working on an English version. We're working very hard on an English version. So if you're...

For that we need lots of people who can transcribe tapes, because we've covered most of the subjects on the CD. And we're trying to do that in English and make it into a database. So like if you don't remember the order of the water bowls, you go on the web, you click water bowl.

No, you just search for water bowl order, and it tells you start from left to right, and here's the thing to do. And that's our hope, is that... She's working on that.

So we got a nice grant to start. We still need help. We still need volunteers for that.

She's finished a couple thousand pages.

[Speaker 2]
People have transcribed over a hundred tapes, and there's hundreds more. But the idea is that at the very... Before Angela's long retreat, that there'd be a place on the web where you have access to all of the translations he's ever done, transcriptions of all his elections, like a whole sort of database of any...

You know, anything that we've produced as materials. If you could listen to them online, we've got little videos for you to check out, you know, homework stuff, and we do need a lot of help for people who can type, or if you can edit. And not in this break, but in maybe one of the breaks tomorrow, I can talk to anybody who's interested in helping with that.

[Speaker 1]
This is a catalog of all the books on the CD. There's 2,700 books finished. The Tantric ones are not on the CD.

That's why it says a thousand. And we give them to people who can demonstrate that they've had initiation. But we have a custom.

I'm going to pass it around. You close your eyes, you open it up to the back, second half, you point to something. This is long.

This is very cool. And you just see what book you get, you see. Mine is Response to a Question on the Statement by Lord Buddha that those who die and migrate from the lower realms to the higher realms are no more than the motes of dust on his fingertip, compared to the motes of dust in the entire planet.

You see, people ask me about euthanasia. And they say, is it okay to kill somebody? And I say, but Lord Buddha said the odds of this person going up are equal to the dust particles on his finger, compared to the mass of dust particles on the planet.

And then there's a question. There's a book about it. Is he literal or is he just being figurative?

And they say, no, he's being literal. Okay. So it doesn't make sense to kill somebody.

You're not helping them. You see what I mean? But anyway, that's the kind of stuff.

So you go through and take it, and I'd like to leave it here on your altar, maybe. Okay, Don? It's a nice...

Okay, cool. Okay, we'll do a... We'll do a prayer.

Are you ready? Okay. ...

...

[Speaker 2]
... ... ...

This is the end of session three.