Серия ежедневной практики, курс 06 — Четыре силы для устранения негативной кармы (1999, Институт Ваджрапани, Калифорния), занятие 2

[Speaker 2]
Session two.

[Speaker 1]
In the monastery they say, don't run away from your umjey. You have to listen and keep up with him. Even if the umjey goes crazy, you have to do what the umjey says.

Umjey is Channing Master. Okay, so how to actually do the four powers. We're going to cover two of them now, and then one more this evening.

The two we have to cover now are the first two. Now, which are the first two? There's a difference between what the original scriptures said, and then what has become the practice since then.

So, Je Tsongkapa, as you will see, advises that when you actually work on one of your old bad karmas, first you should do the power of the foundation. So, in practice, that one comes first. So that's tengyi-tok.

Why is that? Because you need a foundation first. First you have to have a foundation.

The idea is, there are two explanations of why they call it the power of the foundation. There are two different explanations. And then there are two other explanations that the lamas say, we don't like those so much.

I'll tell you the wrong ones first. Not wrong, but just that they're not the main thing. Some people say it's called power of foundation because you are making your purification or your confession towards a Buddha image.

And in Tibetan, the word for altar, or the main figure in an altar, is the foundation. You see what I mean? There have been some writers in the past who have said, oh, power of foundation means you're making your confession to this Buddha image on your altar at home, right?

So it must come from that, because in Tibetan that word is foundation. And they say, no, no, that's not the point. And then some people say, oh, it must be that the person confessing has a fortunate foundation.

Like your life of leisure and fortune is sometimes in Tibetan called ten, the foundation of being able to get out of samsara. And then the lamas say, no, no, that's not the main point. So those two are not the main point.

So what is the main point? Pabongka Rinpoche says, we call it the force of foundation because when you fall down, you need something firm to get back up from. Like if you've fallen down in a swamp and you're trying to get your arm somewhere and you can't push yourself back up.

But if you fall down on concrete, it's good because you can push yourself against the concrete and get back up. And that's one of the meanings of foundation. So you can think of it as solid ground.

Solid ground. Like someplace, ground yourself again. In what?

In the basic teachings of Buddhism. What are they? Taking refuge and bodhichitta.

When was the last time you did that? Sangye jodan sokye do nan. The first two lines are refuge.

The second two lines are bodhichitta. You do it every time before class. You're supposed to do that.

That is the foundation of what we do. Those two practices. Okay, what?

Going for refuge and bodhichitta. And so they say, those being the foundation of all Buddhist practice, that's why they call it the power of the foundation. So that's one explanation that the Lama's lying.

One is that you need something firm to get up from. And that's the foundation. Those are the two most important foundation practices.

Now we're going to see from an Indian master named Abhayakara Gupta why it's even sexier than that. But I'll get you into that later. The second meaning of foundation is, in Tibetan, the word ten or foundation can also mean who it was you did an action towards.

Based on whom did you do this action. And the great Lamas of history have said, look, if you divide all the bad deeds you ever did, a certain number are offensive to whom? Enlightened beings.

And a certain number are offensive to other unenlightened beings. So you can divide the ten or the foundation of people whom you mess up or whom you offend with your bad deeds into two types. Who?

Enlightened beings and unenlightened beings. And that's what foundation means. In other words, depending on whom did you mess up, or relative to whom did you mess up.

Like coming up and spray painting this stupa with graffiti would be an offense against the Three Jewels. You see what I mean? Enlightened being.

Lama Yeshe. That would be one. And then following someone who's going around this and tripping them from the back would be an offense against a normal sense of being, assuming they are.

We don't know, right? But they look like. Okay?

So if you think about it, all the bad things you do are either done towards enlightened beings or unenlightened beings, and that's the foundation towards whom you do the deed. You see? So that's the two meanings of foundation.

One, these are the two most foundational practices that you'll ever do. What? Taking refuge and trying to develop bodhicitta.

Two, based on whom did you mess up? Oh, enlightened beings and unenlightened beings. And then they tie it up very pretty.

At the end they say, guess what? Taking refuge is fixing up with the people you messed up, the enlightened people. And developing bodhicitta is making up with all the normal people that you messed up.

So they both come together at the end. And that's what foundation means. Those are the two meanings.

You do taking refuge to fix up your relationship with enlightened beings. You do bodhicitta to fix up your relationship with normal people. And those are the two practices.

So those together are the power of the foundation. Then you'll see very, very beautiful commentaries. You have some really beautiful commentaries.

In the Tenrimchenmo, in that early Kadampa book, he goes through and pulls out all these early sutras and says, see here? This guy took refuge and got rid of his bad karma. And this other guy developed bodhicitta and got rid of his bad karma.

You know what I mean? And he goes through and he shows you examples. And I think you'll like to read it.

The first example he gives is called the Pagma Tokchur, which means the... These are... What do you call it?

When they get on Oprah Winfrey and they give a testimonial? Or something like that? Like, this really happened to me?

In Tibetan, that's called tokchur. In Sanskrit, it's avadana. And these are life stories of real people who say, I was a schmuck, but I took refuge.

And now I'm a good guy. You know what I mean? And those are called avadanas.

And there's a lot of them in the Kangyur, in the Tengyur. So this is a story of someone who was in a god realm, a worldly god realm. And according to the scriptures, these people have a good time for a million years.

And then 24 hours before they die, they see life as it is, and they freak out. They say it's better to be a half-suffering, half-pleasant life like ours, than it is to be in this worldly pleasure realm, because you're too blissed out to do anything about your life until the last 24 hours. And then you get this, they say, you get a clairvoyance into your future life.

You can see what's going to happen. And the story is that this one god, divine youth, okay? 24 hours from dying, after a million years of bliss.

And he sees that he's going to be born as a pig. And he sees himself going into the womb of the pig. And he gets scared.

And he goes to Shakra, which is the king of the gods. And he says, what can I do? And they say, oh, I heard about this Buddha, Dharma, Sangha thing.

Maybe you want to try it. And he takes refuge, he takes true refuge, which we're going to talk about. And then he doesn't have to be born as a pig, he's born in another realm.

Now, what kind of refuge is that? We've got to talk about it. Is it saying, Namo Buddhaya, Namo Dhammaya, Namo Sanghaya.

Is that enough? No. Is it enough to seek the help of a two-dimensional piece of canvas with some paint on it?

Can they help you? No. Is it enough to go to Lord Buddha in your mind and say, help me out here?

No. There's a story, when you talk about refuge, Lord Buddha was the chief of a small village called the Shakyas. And they got attacked by another clan.

And people came in with swords and spears and started slaughtering people around him. And people ran into his house and held onto his robes. And they were cut down holding Lord Buddha.

And it didn't help them. So how's it going to help to bow down to a picture of Buddha? Those aren't refuge, you've got to forget that.

Saying some kind of thing, Namo Buddhaya, Dhammaya, it's not going to keep you from getting cancer. You know that. You know, as beautiful as they are, and not as beautiful as the real thing, this two-dimensional piece of paper is not going to help you either.

You can bow down to it all day, it's not going to change it if you have cancer. Try. And then, even if Lord Buddha were here, or Lama Zopa were here, and you held onto them, and you said, help me from my cancer, they can't do it, or they would do it.

You see what I mean? That's not refuge. So we have to talk about, what is refuge?

What did the guy do that kept him from getting a pig's rebirth? That we have to talk about. Let's do it right now.

Taking refuge is basically this. There's what we call real refuge, and there's what we call symbolic refuge. Symbolic refuge is to pay homage to Buddha images, or put those books on your head and get a blessing from them, or go around as stupid.

This is symbolic refuge. It's not the real thing. Or paying honor to people who are wearing these red suits, whether they have the smallest spiritual qualities or not.

That's called symbolic refuge. And it's important to do it. It's a good practice.

It's not stupid. But it's not the main thing that helps you. Then what's real refuge?

To talk about real refuge, you have to talk about the three real refuge objects. Is it a painting of the Buddha, and a paper book, and a cement stupa? No.

It's an idea that protects you, and that's refuge. Big difference. And I'm afraid that 90% of Buddhists in the world are taking refuge to cement and paper, and they die.

So you've got to know what's the real meaning of refuge. I think the most important one, they always say, is the second one, which is to take refuge in the Dharma. What is real Dharma, and what is symbolic Dharma?

Symbolic Dharma is the books, and even the teachings are symbolic. They're not the real Dharma. What is the real Dharma?

It's cool. It's understanding emptiness, and specifically the direct perception of emptiness. Why?

Because it protects you. It keeps you out of trouble. Even just understanding it intellectually keeps you out of trouble.

And you have to appreciate that. That's what refuge means. The second half of the Dharma refuge is what we call cessations.

I hate that word. It's like one of those 12-syllable Dharma words. Cessation just means something stops forever.

For example, you get to a certain point in your understanding of emptiness where it's impossible to go to a lower realm again. You don't want to go to a hell realm. You don't want to go to an animal realm.

There's only one thing that can stop you, forever, when you reach a certain understanding of emptiness. Intellectually. You don't have to see it directly.

Just a certain level we call jor lam su. It means the mastery stage within the second path called preparation. The mastery stage of the path of preparation, which is an intellectual understanding of emptiness.

Once you get there, it's impossible to go to a lower realm again. Period. And that's what we call a cessation.

It means it can't happen anymore. For you. For you.

Once you see emptiness directly, you get a cessation for doubting Buddhism. Once you've seen emptiness directly, you also see Buddha's Dharmakaya face-to-face, you see your future lives, you see the day of your own enlightenment. Then is it possible after that to doubt Buddhism?

Impossible. Direct communication with the Dharmakaya. Direct experience of your future life.

Direct perception of your coming enlightenment after seven lifetimes or something. You know it. So who's going to talk you out of Buddhism after that?

You see what I mean? We say you get to a cessation. So those are the real protections.

They all boil down to understanding emptiness. To seeing emptiness. The real taking refuge in the Dharma means taking refuge in the idea that things are empty.

How does that protect you? We're going to talk about it in a minute. What's taking refuge in Sangha?

Who's the real community of monks and nuns? Anyone who's seen emptiness directly. Period.

Nothing to do with red suits. You can have one or you can not have one. It doesn't matter.

If you've seen emptiness directly, you are one of the Three Jewels. You are the Sangha. You belong to the elite community of people who have seen emptiness directly.

And then when people say Namo Buddhaya, Namo Dharmaya, they're taking refuge in? You. It's cool.

In Buddhism you can become like two-thirds of the god in twenty minutes. And then whenever people pray, they're praying to you, actually. See what I mean?

So you've seen emptiness directly, so you have the Dharma Jewel. And you are an Arya. You have seen emptiness directly.

So you belong to the Third Jewel, the Sangha Jewel. Okay? So when you take refuge, really you're taking refuge in people who have seen emptiness, or the perception of emptiness.

Okay? Well, what happened to Buddha Jewel? What's the most important part of Buddha?

Their emptiness. It's called their nature body, or something like that. Their ultimate nature body.

Svabhavakaya. Okay? You're taking refuge in their emptiness.

Okay? That's the cool thing. Now what's that got to do with a normal person who's at work?

You know what I mean? How's that supposed to protect you? I mean, this is, I think, where the whole thing collapses half the time, in Dharma talks.

Then they go on to the next subject, and you're like, what's the emptiness of the Buddha? You know? I don't see him around here.

I guess that's empty. You know what I mean? Something like that.

Here's how it works in real life, and you should know it, okay? And we'll go back to this, okay? I'm sorry for the people who've been through it a hundred times, but it doesn't hurt.

What is this? Be careful. They say in the monastery, sabso cheda.

You know, in the debate ground, they say, be careful before you answer that question. It's a black and white cylinder. If you're going to be scientific, if you're going to have equal rights to dogs and stuff, it's just a cylinder.

It's a white and black cylinder, okay? You see it as a pen, because you're forced to do so by your past karma. And a dog sees it as, we call it a chewable object, something nice to chew on.

They have no conception of it as a writing instrument. They're incapable of that. Why?

Because they have karma in their mind that's forcing them to see it as something to chew on. Their mouth waters, your hand itches. Who's right?

[Speaker 2]
Both.

[Speaker 1]
Both right. So a thing can be a pen and something to chew on at the same time?

[Speaker 2]
Not to the same person.

[Speaker 1]
You have to say, not to the same person. Okay? And it can't be exclusively one.

You see what I mean? Exclusively something, a chewy toy, and exclusively a pen at the same time, to the same person. You see what I mean?

You can appreciate how a dog sees it, but you're not going to sit there and run up here during the break and try to get it away from me and chew on it. I hope. You need it, okay?

Do the red one if you're going to do one. But that's the emptiness of this pen. Okay?

And don't believe all the other junk, you know, parts, no parts, you know. I can explain it to you, but it all boils down to this. Okay?

Is this its parts? No. Why?

It's not the top, and it's not the bottom. That's easy. Is it independent of its parts?

No, you couldn't have a pen without a top and a bottom. Now, here's the hard one. Is it all its parts together?

And Nagarjuna says, no, which is crazy. Of course it's all its parts together. But there's one more part left out, the part of your perception of it as a pen.

It's not a pen until you see it as a pen. You see? You can have a bottom part of the cylinder and the top part of the cylinder, all together, cylinder parts.

But are all the cylinder parts together a pen? No. Not until your karma forces you to see it as a pen.

That's all. That's the punchline to Nagarjuna, all those weird proofs, okay? And they never tell you that.

It's frustrating. You just have to throw in the perception and it's all clear. So, yeah, is it its parts?

Is it the collection of its parts? No. Not until your karma forces you to see all those parts together as a pen.

That's all. There's just one part missing. That's the trick for all those tricky ones.

Forget it, okay? When I figured it out in the monastery, it was really cool because then I could win all the debates, you know? Anyway, the example is always your boss, okay?

This is real life, okay? Your boss comes into the room, bursts into the room. This is a real life example from my real life.

I used to be in the diamond business. We would have orders that had to go out to J.C. Penney's. They would draw the advertisements, photograph them fake, drawing the diamonds, and have it in a magazine before the piece was designed or made, you know what I mean?

And then we had like two weeks to pump it out to the stores from scratch, you know? 30,000 of them or something. And then we would do it, sometimes, you know?

And sometimes I wouldn't do it. So this is a morning when I didn't do it. And the boss comes into the room and he's like, he's all red and he's all angry and he says, you know, why the hell you didn't get these diamonds to J.C. Penney's? We don't have any rings. The ad is out in the New York Times. People are rushing into the stores to buy it and there's nothing there, you know?

And he's mad, you know? So I feel really bad, you know? I feel really guilty.

I was at the College Chakra the week before and I couldn't finish the order, you know? And then there's this guy next to me who doesn't like me, let's say. And he's looking at it and saying, Michael Rose, this guy who never shows up for work, is finally getting in trouble.

You know, he played on his jokes and his closeness to the boss for weeks and now the real thing happened and it doesn't work anymore and the boss finally is angry at him. I like it, you know? And then there's another lady next to me, the famous dharma, who comes to my class now and she could care less.

She's like, I wish these guys would stop arguing because I have to finish 5000 diamonds today. So we call one person seeing the boss as a nice thing, one person seeing the boss as a very bad thing, and one person seeing the boss as a neutral thing. Who's right?

They're all right, okay? Can one person at one time be ugly, beautiful, and neutral? Well, to three people, okay?

But not to one person. You see, I mean, that's the trick. That's the trick.

So he's empty, meaning he's not good, bad, or neutral. By himself. It depends who's looking.

It depends whose karma just swam up to the conscious mind, you know, and making them see that him as good. And that's all that emptiness means. Forget everything else.

What's this got to do with refuge? What's this got to do with taking refuge? Why is refuge so connected with emptiness?

How are you going to protect yourself at that moment? Can you protect yourself from the current yelling boss? It's too late.

Go in the bathroom and do the four powers. He's going to be waiting for you when you get out. You know, it's too late.

It's too late, okay? So, but what can you do? What is there to do?

Just don't yell back. If you don't like what's going down at that moment, at least have the brains to stop it next year. You know what I mean?

At least have the brains to stay cool. You know? And smile.

That's what turning the other cheek is all about. It's intelligent. It's self-serving.

Okay? Yes, I didn't get the order out. Now what do we do?

You know, what do you want me to do? Let's figure out what we're going to do here. Don't yell at me, it's not going to help.

And then maybe he'll yell at you or not, right? Too late. Too late.

But at least don't get angry. You know? So emptiness has protected your rear end.

Okay? He's blank. She sees him as neutral.

He sees him as wonderful. I have to see him as this ugly guy. But in his own essence, in and of himself, and by himself, he's neutral.

He's like a blank screen. That's the only meaning of emptiness. And thinking that at that moment protects your rear end.

And that's an act of refuge. And forget the namo buddhaya dhamma. It doesn't help you.

You know that it doesn't help you. How many Buddhists were praying in temples in Tibet when the million people got killed? You know what I mean?

That's not refuge. That's symbolic refuge. The real refuge is in the moment when you're about to collect the bad karma.

Just say, No. Okay? Right?

No, really. You have a choice. That's free will.

You have a choice. Say, I'm not going to perpetuate this. Samsara means reacting in the normal human way, stupid way, to events, and then making them happen again in six months.

You see what I mean? So you just took refuge. And that's real protection.

You just stopped suffering. For whom? For yourself.

That's an act of refuge. You just took refuge in dharma. That's all refuge means.

Okay? So now, let's go back to the Four Powers. That'll catch you.

Maybe at the end of the class. We go back to the Four Powers. You take refuge.

Okay? You take refuge like that. In what?

In emptiness. Okay? The minute something bad happens, you say, This is empty.

Does that make it go away? No. They always say that, people who don't understand emptiness.

You know, Oh, I wish the pain away by thinking about nothing. You know? So I say, Bring me this guy.

Bring me a dental drill. Let me work on this guy. You know?

I haven't had a single person in 15 years volunteer. You know? Wish the pain away while I drill your teeth.

You know? You know? It doesn't work like that.

That's an evil interpretation. Why? It makes thousands of people confused.

It hurts them. Okay? It doesn't mean that.

Okay? You just have to... The boss is empty, my karma is forcing me to see him a certain way, and I don't want that karma to be perpetuated, so I refuse to get angry at him.

That's all. Then you just saved yourself a lot of trouble. That's taking refuge.

Okay? So if you really understand refuge, when you do the first power, you're already really ahead of the game. Okay?

You're already halfway finished with the karma. Right? And you think about, Oh, I got mad at the boss yesterday.

Now what was really happening? And that is the first power. Okay?

That's taking refuge. Okay, it's 24 hours too late, but at least the karma is not like 16,000 times more powerful. Okay?

It's only twice as big. Okay? And that helps get rid of it.

To understand it gets rid of it. You see what I mean? You're going to hear that again and again.

To understand it gets rid of it. Okay? That's the perfection of wisdom.

So that's the power of taking refuge. We left out one. What is that?

What's the other one now?

[Speaker 2]
Bodhicitta.

[Speaker 1]
Bodhicitta. Now there's two ways that bodhicitta helps you get rid of old bad karma. Okay?

And they're both in the reading. You're going to get the reading. The first reading is this beautiful thing about...

And I've often told you this story, and I couldn't find it. I read it in a sutra once, about the kid who... We're going to tell the story in lojong, probably.

Oh, we're going to get to it when we get to the sunje korlo. Say sunje? Korlo.

Sunje korlo. Sunje korlo means crown of knives, and it's been lousily translated as wheel of sharp weapons. And it really refers to a specific instrument of torture that is shaped like helicopter blades or something?

And it spins around your head and chops your head into pieces. It looks like a helicopter blade or something. And it's like a hub with nine knives going out.

And just by your karma, it spins near your head and slices your head open. And so there's this story of a young man... I'll tell you very briefly.

Should I tell you? I don't know. Yeah.

I should tell you when you... I should make you wait till the lojong course. Yeah, let's do that.

We don't have much time tonight. The bottom line is... The bottom line is, this young man is about to have this thing descend on his head, and he knows it due to his past bad karma.

Okay? He hurt his mother, actually. He did some physical violence to his mother.

And the karma of that is that this wheel is about to lower on his head. And he sees it coming, you know, and he hears this voice that says, you're about to get the wheel, you know. And he's like shaking, but he decides, he does this weird thing at that moment, and he decides, you know, may I take on the karma of all beings who ever hurt their mother in the past, or hurting their mother at this moment, or ever going to hurt their mother in the future, and may they not have the bad karma that I'm about to experience.

And he says, as the thing cuts my head, I will suck in all the bad karma of other people who've ever hurt their mother. You know, and then he's like... You know, and then he looks up, and the thing is gone.

You know what I mean? And that's bodhichitta. You see, that decision to take on the pain of everyone who's going to get that in the future, or who has, or will, you know what I mean?

Stops the wheel. It just goes. You know what I mean?

And the Long Sutra is very beautiful. You're going to get an abbreviated version in this reading, and then we'll do the whole thing in the lojong. It's one of my pet peeves, the way it should be translated.

It's like a crown of knives. Then I like it, because the Indian master says, and by the way, don't forget there's two kinds of bodhichitta, which is what? There's real and contrived, or you can say, I like to say ultimate and deceptive.

Sometimes translated as relative. You can say ultimate and deceptive, or you can say to think like a bodhisattva and act like a bodhisattva. That's called juk-sem and mun-sem.

Mun-sem and juk-sem. One's called, they say prayer, or something like that, and the other one is action, or something like that. But it boils down to thinking like a bodhisattva and acting like a bodhisattva.

The decision to think like a bodhisattva, and the decision to act like a bodhisattva. So that's two divisions of bodhichitta. I'll do it one more time.

The decision to think like a bodhisattva. I commit myself to the ideal of spending my whole life serving other people so I can get to be a Buddha and really help them. That's the commitment to think like a bodhisattva.

And then there's acting like a bodhisattva. I agree to keep my 64 plus bodhisattva vows, which are the essence of the six perfections, in action, so I can act like a bodhisattva. And then normally when you take bodhisattva vows, you take two.

You take it twice. And it's better if you take it on two separate ceremonies. One is a ceremony to commit to thinking like a bodhisattva.

And you just commit to one thing. And that should be done like six months or a year before you do the other one. And then you study the bodhisattva vows, how to act like a bodhisattva, then you take that vow.

And in the old days of Nagarjuna and those guys, it was two separate ceremonies. Nowadays, there you go, blah blah blah, good luck. See you.

Don't forget to keep your vows, that I didn't explain to you. Anyway, that's an old way to take vows. Now, the second kind, the vow to act like a bodhisattva, has two versions.

And that's called the real one, or I should say the ultimate one, and the relative one, you can say, or something like that. The ultimate one is the one we're talking about here. What is the ultimate bodhicitta?

It's called ultimate bodhicitta, it has almost nothing to do with bodhicitta, or maybe everything. Yeah, the direct perception of emptiness. The direct perception of emptiness is the ultimate form of compassion.

It's the ultimate form of bodhicitta. Now there's another kind of bodhicitta which says, I want to become a Buddha so I can help all living beings. That we call normal bodhicitta, or something like that.

Then there's this ultimate bodhicitta, which is the direct perception of emptiness. Now what I like about Bhayagara Gupta's commentaries, he says, guess what? When we talk about the first power, we're really talking about...

Guess. Yeah, the ultimate one. He says, yeah, you can get those wheels to stop cutting your head by having normal compassion for other beings.

But you really want to wipe out some bad karma? Try to understand emptiness. It's very interesting.

He says, that ultimate bodhicitta, the ultimate bodhicitta, that's what saves you from your old bad karma, is understanding emptiness. So I think you have both here. Compassion clearly wipes out your old bad karma.

It has a very powerful effect. And taking refuge, like the guy did when he saw himself was going to be born as a pig, or with your boss, that obviously has the power to wipe out your old bad karma. It helps.

But the ultimate solution, the ultimate foundation power, is ultimate bodhicitta, which is what? The direct perception of emptiness. Understanding emptiness.

Then there's a beautiful thing from sutra, and they will quote it again and again and again, that says, hey, look, what's the worst ten things you can do? When I saw ten bad things, I thought, oh, killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, you know. And then I got to another part, and it was like, kill your mother, kill your father who's also an arhat, rape your mother who's also an Arya.

And they start listing the ten worst versions of the ten bad deeds. You see what I mean? They're trying to figure out what would be the worst way to kill somebody.

Kill your father who's also already an arhat. Sneak into the gomba and steal everything of value and go sell it in Boulder Creek. I mean, that would be really doing it in style.

And then they list those ten ultimate versions of those ten bad deeds. And then they say, what do they say? They say, oh, he says a very beautiful thing.

Lord Buddha says, if a person has done all ten of what I mentioned, you get the point, right? But they start to get interested in emptiness, and they learn a little bit about emptiness, and they get to a certain point of understanding emptiness, din dawe kaza de, ngen sen dor, nga mi ma'o, means, I don't say that that person will ever take a lower rebirth. It's very cool.

The Buddha is very sneaky. He says, I don't say that that person would ever take a lower rebirth. Yeah, yeah.

No. Double negative means they ain't never going to take a negative rebirth. They just got through raping their mother, who's also an Arya, killing their father, who's also an Arhat, stealing all the money from the Gomba, selling it in Boulder Creek.

But if they understand emptiness to a certain degree, after that, okay? Probably have to be after that, I guess. But if they get to a certain understanding of emptiness, a certain attraction to the idea of emptiness, he says, din dawe kaza de, ngen sen dor, nga mi ma'o, I don't say that such a person could ever go to the lower realms.

Could go, meaning they can't go. Okay? It's very beautiful.

That's a homework question. You better get it straight. I don't say that such a person could ever go to the lower realms.

Okay? And that's quoted all over the sutras. By the way, that's that specific understanding at the second path, the mastery level, which is a certain degree of intellectual understanding of emptiness.

You can no longer take a lower rebirth. You never have to worry again. Your fate is sealed for all future time.

That's a cessation. You can never take birth in the lower realms again. All you have to do is understand emptiness to a certain degree.

Okay? That's all. And intellectually, not directly.

Okay? The direct one comes later. Alright?

And that's cool. That's deng gi tob. So this gets much more complicated than putting up a Buddha statue and saying, oh, I'm sorry, you know.

That doesn't mean that. Okay? It's very powerful.

It's taking refuge in the way I described it with the boss at work. You see? Already you're starting to get emptiness in there.

And if you keep doing that for months, then you'll reach that level of understanding emptiness where you just protect yourself from ever taking a lower rebirth. Why? Because you're not generating bad karma.

You won't do it anymore. You see? You'll just say no.

You see what I mean? Once you understand emptiness to a certain point, once you understand where this boss is coming from, who made the boss? Who made him screaming?

Who made him screaming an unpleasant screaming? Because the other guy's screaming, he sees him screaming, but he likes it. You see what I mean?

I did. How? I yelled at somebody.

Probably some boss yelled at me and I yelled something back. So what am I going to do now? Anything but yell back.

Please. Okay? Like, what am I?

Masochistic? You know what I mean? And then you've just taken refuge.

If you keep that up for a few months, you're automatically not going to collect bad karma anymore. Period. Your understanding of emptiness has just protected you.

And it's wiping out karma. It's eliminating karma. Karma that's never going to happen.

What to do for your old bad karma? This we have to talk about tomorrow, okay? Apparently, the understanding emptiness and refusing to do the thing anymore, because you understand karma and emptiness and all that stuff, starts to short-circuit your old karmic seeds.

Are they still there? In your mind stream? Yes.

Will they ever ripen? No. There's something about understanding emptiness that defuses them.

They can't go off. Like, they're still there. The energy is still there.

But it can't be triggered. Apparently, it takes ignorance, it takes misunderstanding the boss to trigger them. You see what I mean?

It's very interesting. The more you understand emptiness, the more the causes and the conditions for our karma to ripen become incomplete. And as long as one major condition is not there, the thing will never go off.

You can have all these karmas in your mind stream for, you know, getting in 40,000 car accidents. But apparently, if you don't have certain kinds of ignorance about emptiness, they never go off. So we have to talk more about that.

Like, how is that? How does that work? Because that could be very interesting.

I don't even have to get rid of the old seeds. I just have to make sure they don't go off. I'm thinking of Broken Arrow, John Travolta, and Christian Slater, and Christian Slater sitting on an atomic bomb that's about to go off.

And it's this vision of him straddling the bomb. And he's trying to figure out the timer thing. And it's going 7, 6, 5.

And he's like, maybe if I pull this wire. And that's the whole idea. And he pulls the wire and guess what happens?

It doesn't go off, because he's the hero. And that's exactly what happens with your old karmic seeds. You are straddling these atom bombs.

You know what I mean? You're sitting on them, and they can't go off. There's no trigger device.

You see what I mean? That's the theory. That starts to give you a feeling about how it works.

Do you remove the karma? Not technically. But you diffuse it.

It can't go off. It requires certain emotions and certain misperceptions for it to go off. It is.

Yeah, there's a big debate about it. But it boils down to this. The time between seeing emptiness directly and reaching Nirvana or Buddhahood, which is typically seven lifetimes.

During that time, you still have more subtle forms of ignorance. You see what I mean? Intellectually you understand everything.

And you've even seen it directly. But things still appear to you to be self-existent. That's why they call it the illusory stage.

At that point, things are illusory. Why? You know they're not that way, but they still look that way.

You know you're crazy. You know? But at least you know.

Okay? And that's called the illusion. That's all illusion means in Buddhism.

And then people misinterpreted it and said, oh, the dental drill is illusory, so it doesn't hurt anymore. So they said, show me this guy. And no one's ever volunteered.

So, you know what I mean? That's kind of silly. Lastly, I think we won't take a break and we'll stop the class, but we have to go to sun gyur me tok, number two.

So anyway, you get the feeling, you get the, what do you call it, the taste here. Everything has to do with emptiness. Okay?

Everything in the power of foundation has to do with emptiness. Don't ever think that you're saying some words to us. Buddha statue is going to help you that much.

Okay? You have to go a little deeper. Okay?

You have to take real refuge. How many times a day are you supposed to take refuge? Three times a night.

Three times during the day. How? Every person who pisses you off.

That's an opportunity. You can keep your vows easily. You know, you'll get more than six chances.

You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's cool. Okay?

Everything that irritates you, traffic jam, backache, person next to you at work, your husband or wife, there's a chance. You know, they say something to you and you say, oh, emptiness. I created this.

My karma is forcing me to see them this way. The last thing I want to do is perpetuate it. You know?

I want to change you, so I'll stop saying anything back to you. Let's just cool it. Will they cool it?

Maybe yes, maybe no. It's too late, right? So just grin and bear it.

There might be a lot more junk coming towards you. And you just have to keep refusing to respond. Okay?

It does not work in the present moment. Don't think it does. And don't get disappointed when it doesn't.

It doesn't. Because karma takes time to ripen. That's the way karma goes.

Okay? It won't work in the present moment. People will attack you.

People attacked Lord Buddha. People strung up Jesus Christ. You know, were they doing something wrong?

No. Was their viewpoint perfect? Yes.

Were they full of virtue? Yes. But in the moment, they still had karma from something else.

I mean, apparently. Okay. I had one more point.

Oh. Let me finish the last part. We got to go to the second part.

It's very brief. Okay? The power of destruction.

Right? Oh, by the way, anybody doing Tibetan track? A lot.

Palma? Let me at least write the two... the two...

Okay, Phil. This is for Phil. Say, Khemdo.

Khemdo. First half of the power of the foundation, right? Which is going for refuge.

And forget the refuge thing. Just say protecting yourself. How's that?

And then you get more in the mood of, yeah, protect yourself at work, protect yourself in the kitchen. I was taught in Ireland, you know, this lady said, I know where I'm going to become a bodhisattva saint. They call it warrior saint.

Warrior saint. I said, where? They said, in my kitchen.

With my husband. And my kids. And they said, you got it.

She got it. That's where you take refuge. You don't even have to go to your altar.

Okay? Kyab means refuge or protection, and dro means to go. Okay, second half of the power of the foundation is what?

Bodhicitta in either form, right? That ultimate compassion, I'll take all the pain on myself. Or, that boss is empty.

I refuse to yell back at him. Okay? How long does it take to remember that?

Usually 24 hours. I call it the art of lowering the gap. The art of narrowing the gap.

You know? So, first time you only remember it the next day, like you're angry until the next day. And then you say, oh, I was supposed to remember he was empty, and I was supposed to not yell.

And then it gets down to half an hour, or then you remember in the bathroom ten minutes later, after you yelled at him. The idea is to shorten the gap until it's instantaneous. You get so good at it that someone starts to yell at you, and before the sentence is over, you've already taken refuge.

You're already chilling out. Because you don't want them to come back. You see what I mean?

It's a very sincere motivation. Okay? Sem kye.

And then if you want to say ultimate bodhicitta, you just add here. You add the word... Oh, sem kye is bodhicitta.

Did I say that? No, sorry. Sem means state of mind, and kye means to develop it.

And it's a code word for bodhicitta. This word means ultimate. Say dundam.

Then you say dundam sem kye is ultimate bodhicitta, which is a direct perception of emptiness. And either form helps you. Okay?

Either form is a foundation. And it was so cool to see it written in a book that was written 1400 years ago. You see what I mean?

That this Indian master, you've got the whole reading, translated the whole thing, that he goes through this reasoning about the two kinds of bodhicitta. So it's really cool. Last thing.

Power of destruction. Okay? I touched on it, and there's not much more to say about it.

It is regret. It is to understand that your mental tape recorder has just recorded something that's going to hurt you bad, and you were really dumb to do it. Does that equal guilt?

See the big difference? The implication here is, you just ate some poison. What are you going to do about it?

You see what I mean? You just swallowed two grams of cyanide. What do you want to do?

Oh, I'm guilty. No, you want to get to a hospital and see if they can give you some kind of antidote. Okay?

Something to do about it. That's the feeling. I used to tell people, I don't know if people were in that class, three guys sitting in a bar, the guy puts out three shot glasses, the bartender, Rob used to do that, but I won't tell everybody, until he took refuge.

And then the guy pulls the bottle down, and he pulls the wrong bottle, he pulls some lye down, and he pours out three shots, and they all clink it, and they all down it, you know, and then the first guy goes, and he falls down dead, you know, and the second guy is like, and then think of how the third guy feels. It's already down in his stomach, he knows. And then how does he feel at that moment?

And I used to say that from some dim memory of some scripture I read. I found it, and it's in your reading. It's four guys.

And they're not in a bar. Somebody said to me, I bet there weren't any bars in Old Tibet. I said, you don't know anything.

But I won't tell you. Anyway, it's supposed to be some, what do you call it, that food botulism? You know, some kind of horrible Burger King hamburger is going to kill you, you know.

And they all eat the same one, from the same one. And then the first guy is already dead, and the second guy is about to die. He's breathing his last breath, and the third guy is writhing, writhing in agony on the floor.

And then the fourth guy is like, you know, and you're supposed to be the fourth guy. And what I saw in this scripture, and I put it in your reading, was they close up the metaphor and they say, we've all collected karma to go to the hell realms. Some people are already there.

Some people are going to die today. Like, they're on the edge, on the verge, you know. And then some people don't know about purification, and they're just on their way there, like the guy who's on the floor.

And then you're sitting there, now what are you going to do? You know, you have time to use the four powers. So are you going to do anything or not?

You know, that's the feeling. It has to be some kind of, I call it the intelligent regret of a well-educated Buddhist. Okay?

The intelligent regret of a well-educated Buddhist. You know what that karma is going to do to you. You know how it works.

You don't believe in rebirth like dog factories in Kansas. Okay? You understand that reaching a hell realm is a slight change in your perceptions that could happen any five minutes, and will happen in your life.

I mean, it's just a question of when, you see? It's just a slight change in your perceptions. People say to me, oh no, that's not possible, I don't think so.

You know, and then I say, well, is it possible to crash your car, you're sitting there drinking a shake of McFlurry, right? And you're concerned about whether it's M&Ms in it or Oreos, you know? And then suddenly you didn't notice this big truck, gas truck.

And you crash into it. And suddenly your body is covered with gasoline and it's on fire. Does that ever happen?

It happens. It happens to people. It's probably happening right now to somebody.

Okay? And it's just a shift in their perceptions, you see? A new karma has come up.

It's forcing them to see that nice old McFlurry shake hand is now on fire. You see? Don't think it doesn't happen.

It happens. It's just a shift in perceptions. It's not fire.

The Heart Sutra says, mikme nawa me na me ten me nu me yi me su me dan me ten me no ten me There's no eye, there's no ear, there's no nose, there's no hand, there's no McFlurry shake, there's no gasoline. It's your perception. Okay?

Suddenly it's gone from, which milkshake do I have, to, oh, my hand's on fire. You know, my whole body's on fire. And that happens to people.

All the time. It's just a slight shift in your perception. So don't think hell realm is impossible.

Don't think like that. You know? Then gasoline trucks crashing into people with shakes is impossible.

You see what I mean? And it's not. It happens all the time.

It's just a shift in your perceptions. And it takes about a minute. You know, how much time between sucking the shake and being covered with gasoline and fire?

It's like a minute or something. It happens. It happens to people who die.

Okay? Your karma wraps up in one minute. All through your life it's been getting worse.

Wrinkle here, wrinkle there, gray here, gray, no hair here. And then suddenly it all, whoop, wraps up in one minute. And that's called dying.

You see what I mean? And that's how karma works. It all accelerates towards your death.

And then suddenly, you know, it's not a question of do I have the karma to have the rent money or not? Do I have the karma to have a nice dress or not? It's a question of do I have the karma to breathe or not?

You see what I mean? And all the other ones are already wrapped up suddenly. You see what I mean?

They all just finish at one moment. And that's called death. And it happens.

And it's a perception. And it's just a slight shift in your perceptions. So you have to get rid of those karmas.

You have to deal with them. That's the idea of this exercise. And by the way, speaking from experience, and the experience of my students who do this practice regularly, it really works.

I'm not perceiving myself as Manjushri yet, but amazing things happen. The better you do it, the more these amazing things start to happen to you. You can clearly see how it will wrap up that way as a tantric paradise.

You see what I mean? You can clearly see how things are going and that they could clearly end that way. You know what I mean?

If you get pretty good at this, it's really exciting. Because you get on a roll. You see?

You've never tried it. And then when you've tried it like ten times and something happens, cool. Then you say, maybe that was because I did that little fire thing.

Let's do some more. And then you do more, and then clearly it starts to be because of that. And then you're out.

Then you're on your way. You see? And then it's just a question of doing it well.

And then just all these weird things that you thought were impossible start to happen. And then you get faith in the practice. Then you're on your way out.

Once you see that it's working, you can start to manipulate it. You can say, oh, I'm going to do two every day. You know what I mean?

And then it's not like this drag, oh, I have to do one today. It's not like that. You're like, man, if I did three a day, what would happen?

Maybe I'd get two raises in a year. Something like that. A few questions.

Do you have a question? He said, is working on trying to understand emptiness a tantric practice? Absolutely.

His Holiness said over and over and over at the Kalachakra, he said, look, this stuff doesn't work if you don't understand emptiness. Just forget it. Oh no, you've got to have compassion also.

Wisdom and method. You've got to be trying to develop love. Yeah, they all work.

But none of them works unless you are constantly tongyi gitarway sumpa means imbued with an understanding of emptiness. Like every two minutes you're thinking, wow, that relates to emptiness. Wow, that relates to emptiness.

What if you're not doing it? What if you're just doing emptiness? I mean, that's in creation or perfectionism.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you something about the two stages of tantra, okay? If you keep the plain old, normal, wimpy ten good deeds, okay, with an understanding of emptiness, tantric gurus will flock to your door.

Tantric deities will start popping up at work. I'm not kidding. How do you think you get them?

How do you think you attract them? You're going to go to Dharamsala and pay more money than the next guy? I can't afford it.

You know what I mean? It doesn't work like that. If you keep the plain old ten morality well, understanding emptiness, you start meeting these deities.

You don't have to do a sadhana. Is the sadhana important? Absolutely.

But the other method is infallible. You will meet them, because they're a creation of your karma. You know?

It's just an ordinary guy, before you started practicing. And then suddenly your karma is forcing you to see them as a deity. And you run to your friend, who hasn't been keeping their book.

And you say, Did you see this person who came in today? It's the Buddha themselves. And they say, Don't be naive, Michael.

It's just Joshmo. And I say, No, no, really, I see him that way. And they're like, Yeah, yeah, right.

Get real. But that's just the boss, and that's just the three people watching the boss thing. You see what I mean?

Don't believe those people who tell you that, because they don't understand emptiness. Yeah, he is a normal schmuck. To whom?

To them. They haven't been keeping a book. Where are the tantric deities?

Where is Danden Tushita Paradise? They didn't find it in the Challenger spaceship. It hasn't hit it yet.

Come on. It's the boss thing. Your karma purifies to a point where you start seeing things that way.

And I can explain it to you, and you understand it intellectually. But wait till you do it. It's cool.

That's the whole tantric path. But you've got to dump your old loads. Dump your old load.

Dump your old karmas. You've got to get rid of the old karmas. That's half the battle.

You know what I mean? You don't have to work so hard about being a good person. If you can just dump 50% of your old bad karmas, you already start seeing things.

It's really exciting. Could you explain the karma of the guy that really enjoys seeing you yelled at? Possibly a positive?

Yeah, it's a very important question. You know, we had this question in Ireland. I had a lady...

I walked into this... They sent out 10,000 flyers. 28 people came.

And the first two comments I get are, what the hell are you doing here? And the second one was, you know, what about the guy who's... That was the question.

The second question was, you know, so suppose some guy is laughing at me while I get yelled at. What about him? And so I said, that guy is enjoying the result of a past good karma.

It's enjoyable to watch someone else get in trouble that you don't like. So it's actually... The definition of good karma is any action which ripens as a feeling of pleasure.

So he's enjoying the result of probably having helped someone in the past. But at this moment he's creating new, very bad karma for the future. You see what I mean?

So at one moment you can be enjoying a very good past karma and messing up your future big time. So that's what's happening. By the way, at the end of the Ireland thing, 28 people signed up to start a Dharma Center.

And the lady got up and said, Tom Flynn, who's there, I've got to make a testimonial here. I can't do it very well. He could probably do it better.

In 18 years I've been in Dublin and now I know why I came to Dublin. It was to meet this thing and understand karma. And now I'm going to go home and do it.

She insisted on standing up and making a testimonial at the end. So that's what I called it. The big thing in Ireland, I think, was that they're already staunch Catholics.

And they really believe in Christianity. And now they know how it works. They don't have to become Buddhists.

And it's nice. All that stuff that was taught really works. You just have to know about these details.

You see what I mean? And then most of that stuff works. You see what I mean?

And they're really excited about it. And it's kind of cool. That was really cool.

So we're going back next month, right? Next month. Next month.

Okay, anyway. One more question, then we'll stop.

[Speaker 2]
Now, if you can't take on the karma, you can't affect the karma of another person, then some of these practices we do, it's hard to get motivated to take on other people's suffering if you know it doesn't work.

[Speaker 1]
I think there's a distinction to make here. I think that eventually you will get depressed and stop doing it if it's clearly not working. You see what I mean?

Like if you pray for Joe Schmo, and he dies anyway. Or if you pray for so-and-so with cancer, and it gets worse. Sooner or later you're going to stop doing it.

You're going to say, this doesn't work. You know what I mean? There'll be a few extraordinary stories that circulate around Dharma centers that so-and-so prayed for so-and-so, and the next day they got cured.

And that happens. But 99% of the time, it clearly doesn't happen. You see what I mean?

So why should we try to do it? What's the point? When you do tonglen, if you take the ACI course on tonglen, it explains clearly how it works.

The chapter is called How It Works and How It Doesn't Work. You see, how it doesn't work is that you cannot take another person's karma. If that was possible, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Tsopo would have taken our karma, we'd be already in a Buddha paradise, and they'd be out in the hell realm suffering off the karma.

No, and they would gladly do it, but they can't. And the fact that they haven't done it proves that it can't be done. Because they would do it, clearly.

So what's the use of doing tonglen? It works. You just have to know how it works.

Doing that over an extended period of time changes your karma. And then you become a Buddha. And then you can really help them.

You see what I mean? And every time you imagine taking their pain, you get a little closer to being able to help them in an ultimate way. You see what I mean?

Does that mean there's no temporary benefit done at all? Not at all. Especially if you try to take the pain of someone you don't like, it forces you to imagine all the trouble they're having with their life.

Everyone's having a bad life, even the people you don't like. And if you practice tonglen on them, you have to identify all the problems in their life. That exercise changes you.

The next time you meet them, you look at them, and your body language is all different. And they're like, what's going on here? And this person actually appreciates the fact that I have a backache, and that's why I'm so irritable all the time.

You see what I mean? And there's all these subtle side benefits, but the ultimate benefit is that clearly. But I say do it anyway.

You see what I mean? Especially on people you don't like. And then the next time you meet them, you're like, how's your back?

Oh, I mean, I don't like you. You know what I mean? It changes your whole being.

I mean, karmically you cannot take the pain, but it changes the whole situation totally. And slowly, it also changes your perception of them. Buddhas in their own paradise cannot see a suffering being.

Think about it. Okay? They can't meet a being who's in pain.

There don't exist those beings in a Buddha paradise. Only 10th level bodhisattvas. That has implications for your question.

You know what I mean? Eventually you'd stop seeing them suffer. Okay?

Would they see themselves stop suffering?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
Do you have a problem with that? What about even in your presence? You've got to get used to that idea, okay?

You've got to think about that. Okay? Are you telling me there could be two realities going on around the same stupa?

I mean, like, I'm seeing this place as Ganden paradise, and everybody else is having a plain old schmucky life? Yeah. Yeah.

You mean nothing has any intrinsic reality of its own? Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, you mean everything's empty? Exactly. Oh, so you're saying two realities can be going on at the same time in the same place?

Yeah. Which would you rather be in? You see what I mean?

It's the chewable object and the pen thing, all over again. Same principle. Once you accept it about the pen, you're in trouble.

Because then you have to accept that it could be happening on this platform right now. You know, that certain people here would be perceiving this in a totally different way. And they are.

Okay? Does that mean you just forget all those schmucks who are seeing it a bad way? No, of course not.

You would try to teach them or something like that. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
And if you're an enlightened Buddha and you see no pain or suffering anywhere...

[Speaker 1]
For yourself. You see that they see it. How's that?

Yeah. You can see that they see it. And you see that that in no way contradicts your perception of them as a tantric deity.

You got to cook that for a while. That's very difficult. But that is the way it works.

It's a little difficult. If it went that way, it wouldn't be empty. You see what I mean?

It would be a pen that was always a pen, even to a dog. Okay? You got to get used to that.

It's the way things work. Okay. Now, you're trying to catch me.

I know you. Now, go ahead.

[Speaker 2]
Are there any benchmarks for the mastery level of jorlam?

[Speaker 1]
That's a good question. He said, how do you know when you reach the point where you're not going to take birth in the lower realm anymore? Technically, it has to do with your understanding of the emptiness of subjects and objects.

First of all, it becomes easier to understand the emptiness of objects like this born. And then it becomes easier to understand the emptiness of the mind which is perceiving the born. And it has to do with that.

It's called sung zin gin nam tok. And the four levels of jorlam are marked by that. Technically.

I think on a practical level, you start understanding subtle impermanence and chi che dak, mental images and things like that. Those are benchmarks. We've got to stop or you won't get dinner.

What time is it? 6.29? Oh boy.

What's a practical time to start after dinner? I don't know. 8?

How's 8? Okay. We'll go from 8 tonight.

You can't complain anymore. I went to a teaching by Laurence FF. Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting NAMI SAWA DUKKHA CHOK SAM CHOK RIN PO CHEN MA KHYEN PO LANG PYE YIN THA KHYEN PA YIN PA MEK PA LEN Thank you.

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