Серия ежедневной практики, курс 06 — Четыре силы для устранения негативной кармы (1999, Институт Ваджрапани, Калифорния), занятие 3

[Speaker 2]
Session three.

[Speaker 1]
It looks silly to put on all the mics, you know, and it started by the idea of this guy named John Stilwell in New York, and he decided from the first class... It was seven years ago we started the Baby Geshe course, and they're finishing in December, the first crew. And he said, I'm going to tape everything.

And he sat in the back with these dogs, and I was at the Kalachakra. I think maybe 30 people came up to me and said, you don't know me, I'm from Iowa, and I've been listening to those dog tapes for three years, and it saved my life. So I think it's worth it to put up with it, I think.

I think a thousand people are now taking the correspondence course. So it's like that. That was John's idea.

Anyway, we have two choices. We could go to number three or number four. And what I'd like to do is go to number four because it's brief.

And so we'll go out of order here. You're going to get homework number four before homework number three. And it's not very much to say about this particular power, okay?

Which is... I'll give you the full name of it. Say Nyepa.

[Speaker 2]
Nyepa. Le. Le.

[Speaker 1]
Larn Dope. Larn Dope. Top.

Top. All you have so far is Larn Dope Top, okay? We just added a little bit.

Larn Dopa means to turn away, literally. Nyepa Le means from the bad deeds you've done in the past. And Top means power.

The power of turning away from bad deeds you've done in the past. Some people call it the power of restraining yourself, but some people say the power of stopping yourself from doing it in the future. Okay?

And again, this is just basically a decision not to keep doing the same kind of karma, alright? And the source for this that the Tenrim Chenmo, that Kadampa book, gives is a sutra called... Did everybody get this much?

Do you have a eraser? The nice thing about the Tenrim Chenmo is that since it was like the first book written in Tibet, the first major text, he's just quoting Indian sutras, which is beautiful. A lot of nice sutras.

And he quotes the Sai... Say Sai. Sai.

Ningbo. Ningbo. Do.

Do. Sai. Sai.

Ningbo. Ningbo. Do.

Do. Sai. Ningbo.

Ningbo. Do. And in Sanskrit that's Kshirigarbha.

And I thought you'd like it because of that nice statue you have up in LMB. It's Kshirigarbha, right? And Domen Sutra.

And this is the source for the teaching on the power of turning away from bad deeds or stopping yourself in the future. And it gives the example of killing. It's talking about the act of killing and it says the decision not to take life any longer is like a gift to all living beings.

And I don't know if you know the three kinds of perfection of giving, or four, but one of them is to give freedom from fear. And it says this is a form of giving protection or freedom from fear to all living beings is the decision not to kill anymore. And then it goes into a long description of how that decision not to kill anymore actually works in a subconscious way on all the imprints from karmas you committed in the past of killing other beings.

You see what I mean? So you've killed other beings in the past. Now you decide not to do it anymore.

And for as long as you maintain this restraining of yourself, that good karma works on the old bad karmic seeds and wears them down. So it's like John Wayne and some other guy in this little town, it's like there's not room in this town for both of us. And the good karmic seeds start to wear down the bad karmic seeds.

So for so long as you decide and maintain a decision not to kill, then that karma is working on old karmic seeds that you have from killing people. And then he goes into a long description of a thing called dhrupa. Say dhrupa.

Dhrupa means spiritual obstacles. And what it means here is that when you kill other beings on a regular basis, you start to get these blinders, spiritual blinders, like you're unable to see certain basic spiritual truths. I'll give you an example of one.

It's like people say, where does bad health really come from? So a person gets, let's say, backaches, or let's say that you get a cold easily. Where does that come from?

Is your immune system down? Are you not taking enough vitamin C? What's the real reason?

Yeah, failure to respect life. Sometimes I think the ten bad deeds should be stated positively. I think it'd be more helpful.

For me in particular, I don't like people telling me, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. They come up and say, respect life. Respect other people's property.

Be sexually pure. Always tell the truth. Always try to bring people together with your speech, etc.

For me it works a lot better than, don't do that, don't do that. So there's this principle about where things really come from. And Jesus can sit there and say, where's Bonnie Moore?

[Speaker 2]
I'm right here.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, she's my quotation expert.

[Speaker 2]
Figs from thistles and grapes from thorns.

[Speaker 1]
You don't get grapes coming from thorn seeds, and you don't get figs coming from thistle seeds. And that's all he had to say, and people got it. Because they didn't have dripas in the Middle East 2,000 years ago.

And we have dripas. It doesn't strike you as solving all the problems of your life. To say, look, you don't get apples from lemon seeds.

Get it? You know what I mean? And that's all he had to say, and people got it.

Meaning, if your health is not good, it had to be that you hurt someone else's health in the past. Period. There's no other cause for it.

Forget vitamins, forget working out, forget microbes, germs, forget everything. There's only one cause for backaches and bad health, and that's that you didn't respect life in the past. Now, it's expressing itself through those other things, you see what I mean?

We say it's the difference between how and why. And kids get this. In New York, we teach it to the kids.

We say, it's like a very hot day and the air conditioner's broken down. We say, why is it hot? Why is it hot in this room?

And some kids say, because the air conditioner's broken. And then you say, why is the air conditioner broken? And they say, maybe I didn't share my air conditioner with somebody in my past life.

And that's the difference between how and why, you see? Forget the how. You gotta ask the why.

Am I right? Yeah. Okay?

Don't tell me how it happened. Tell me why it happened. Don't tell me there's two guys driving their car, the car hits a wall, one guy goes to the windshield, the other guy doesn't.

How did it happen? He didn't have a seatbelt. He had a seatbelt on.

I don't care. Tell me why. You see what I mean?

Don't go explaining things with the how. Explain things with the why. And all Jesus had to say was, hey, you don't get lemons from apple seeds, get it?

You know what I mean? Meaning, two things. There's a continuity in the content of events, you see what I mean?

Like you don't get a pleasant event from a bad event. Impossible. I mean, that's the biggest spiritual truth of all, okay?

You don't get a bad result from doing something good for somebody. It's impossible. Well, you know, I tried to help this person at work and they yelled at me.

It's not cause and effect, get it? You did something good for them, you're going to have a nice time six months from now. And they were unhappy that you did something good for them, and that's the result of something bad you did in the past, get it?

There's no connection between trying to do something good for them and them yelling at you. No connection at all. Forget it.

You know, you don't understand cause and effect. If you look at it that way, you don't understand. There has to be a similarity between the cause and the result.

If the cause is pleasant, the result has to be pleasant. If the cause is unpleasant, the result has to be unpleasant. Period.

You don't get an unpleasant event in your life happening because you did something good. It's just totally impossible. It's impossible, okay?

If people just saw that, then suffering would end very quickly, you know what I mean? You would never want to do anything. People come up to me and say, Can I kill the roaches in my apartment, you know?

Don't ask me, you know. If you kill something, you'll be killed. You'll have bad health.

No, no, I kill them and they go away. No, they don't. Sometimes they go away, and sometimes they don't go away.

It's not cause and effect, you see what I mean? Killing them doesn't make them leave, because sometimes they don't leave, so killing is not the cause of them leaving, get it? You see what I mean?

And people don't get it. And that causes all the suffering in the world. It's very interesting.

The cause must resemble the result, period. In content, spiritual content-wise, if it's a harmful event, it cannot bring a good result. So what about war?

Impossible. Just impossible. Prove it.

It doesn't always work, so it's not the cause of peace, okay? Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. That proves it's not the cause of peace, okay?

The cause of peace is not to hurt other people. You know what I mean? And if you have peace after fighting a war, it had nothing to do with fighting the war.

You got to get used to that. That's Buddhist worldview, okay? That is Buddhist worldview.

Why am I talking about all this? We're talking about dipas, spiritual blinders. You didn't go, aha, I got it now.

I'll never hurt anybody again, because I know I can't get anything out of it. You know what I mean? I'll never get angry again, because I know it doesn't work.

You know what I mean? You don't get it. I mean, because there's dripa.

Every time you kill even the slightest insect, it creates some kind of spiritual blindness in your mind. And you can't see these obvious things that people 2,000 years ago got the minute the guy said it. You see what I mean?

And that's called a dripa. Now this sutra says, if you decide to stop killing things, make a decision. You know, I won't kill things anymore.

That works on the old karmic seeds in your mind, meaning your health will start to improve. And I'll write that on the board in a minute. It says, your body will get stronger and you'll live longer, okay?

That's a very oblique reference to the real thing that's happening, tantrically. Your mental afflictions are lessening. The winds that they ride upon are flowing more freely, and the knots that are choking your central channel are loosening.

And if you kept it up long enough, your body would change into what we call a miracle body or a rainbow body, an angel's body, made of light, okay? If you kept it up long enough, stop killing other beings. Stop having the thought to kill other beings.

That chokes this thing inside of you and makes you get old, and causes you to get age. You know, I was at the Kalachakra. It was very depressing.

I went to the Kalachakra in 1983. You know, everybody was young and happy. Geshe Seppu was running around, you know.

And now His Holiness gets up and says, I want to thank Geshe Seppu sitting here for his incredible work. And he spoke for like 10 minutes praising Geshe Seppu, and we were all like, wow, he doesn't usually do that. And then he said, and by the way, he looks like an old fogey now.

He's walking around with his canes. He can hardly walk. He's got his knees replaced.

Geshe Seppu, you look like a wreck, you know. And you know, it was like the weirdest thing. You're like, what's he trying to tell us, you know, what's he trying to say, you know.

He says, and I look like a wreck too. And my older brother, Thubten Norbu, Thaksin Rinpoche, he can hardly walk, you know. We got to finish this thing fast, you know, we got to do this initiation.

But anyway, it just struck me that the average age has increased by exactly, you know, 16 years, give or take, you know. Everybody had gray hair, and a lot of people had canes, and it was weird. That doesn't have to happen.

That's avoidable. That's the whole point of Tantra, you know what I mean? The whole point is that.

And the number of people succeeding is like, is not too well, I think. You know what I mean? It doesn't look too good, and I don't know.

That's just my reality, okay? But anyway, this sutra specifically states that if you avoid killing, your health will get better, okay? And the implication in the long term is that you don't have to die or get old.

People tell me, I never heard any lamas say that directly, they always talk about the four sufferings and, you know, but they don't get up there and say that. Are you sure that's in the sutras? And then I say what?

ma rikpa me, ma rikpa sepa me pa ne, ga she me, ga she sepa pari, yen me do. What sutra is that? Heart Sutra.

Okay? I didn't say it. Lord Buddha said it.

Okay? Stop your ignorance, and you don't have to get old or die, okay? What's the reverse of that?

If you're getting older and feeling deadly, you're not practicing well, okay? Period. You know?

You have to... If you did the four powers well, and in this sutra they're talking about restraining yourself from what you used to do, you see what I mean? Then you start having effects on your body, and the tantric, you know, dzogrim system is not, and you have to learn it, like, quick, okay?

People say, oh, I can't believe you're doing tantra, you know, and I say, what the hell do you expect me to do? You know what I mean? What do you want me to do?

What are you doing? You know what I mean? What are you waiting for?

You know what I mean? What are you... You could die tomorrow, you know, you have to finish it.

You have to get going on it. If it's the highest teaching, then what are you waiting for? You know what I mean?

Do you want to save all sentient beings or not? You know what I mean? Okay, anyway, that's that sutra.

I wanted to talk about something else. The reverse, okay? There's something tricky here.

And then I'm going to go to... Elizabeth's going to show you how to do the fire thing. There's something tricky here.

It's one thing to go on what I call a search and destroy mission for karmic seeds that you've collected in the past. Like, you know that you did such and such a dumb thing before you became a Buddhist, you know? Everybody has a list.

Some are longer, some are shorter, okay? You have your own list. So you have to actually sit down, figure it out, write out the things that you particularly did, and then you have to go after them, quite consciously, okay?

You have to figure out what to stop doing that would work against that karma that's already in your mind stream, you see? Like if you're involved in killing something, then you would want to take special care to take care of other beings' lives for the rest of your life, okay? Whether or not you are the kind of person who enjoys hurting other people now or not, okay, get it?

Like, you might not have that seed in you anymore at all. Like when I was a kid, I lived in Phoenix. We used to tie lizards to stakes and burn them, you know?

And we thought that was funny in Boy Scouts, okay? And then, you know, it's not like I enjoyed doing that. You know, like now I think that's really stupid and gross.

But I have to, to remove that karma, I have to take special care not to hurt life, okay? Even though I'm not interested in hurting life anymore, okay? Like, you have to take special care not to hurt life.

It's not enough not to tie lizards to stakes and burn them anymore. Now I have to like drive carefully, you know? I have to make sure I don't give other people harmful food that would hurt their health or stuff like that, you see what I mean?

I have to go down to a very subtle level of respecting life. You know, I say to the level where you, if you see a pencil on the ground, you stop at work and you carefully pick it up and you put it up on a desk so nobody trips on it. And as you do it, you think, I dedicate this to the lizard, you see what I mean?

I dedicate this to what I did in the past, okay? And you go around your whole life like that from now on. Even though you have no attraction to killing anything, you go to a very subtle level of respecting life, you see what I mean?

And that, every time you pick up another good deed, every time you pick up another pencil, there's this energy working against that old karmic seed, you know? So maybe I won't get burned at a stake somewhere, you see what I mean? Because that new karma is like inexorably wearing away at the old karmic seed, you see what I mean?

And you have to think like that. You have to identify the ones you did, and then you have to work on the opposite level to a very subtle level. And by the way, it doesn't have to be jumping in front of a car and throwing someone out of the way and getting run over, okay?

You don't have a chance to do that very often, okay? It's going to be on the level of picking up pencils, making sure you don't pour some toxic chemical on the ground, you see what I mean? Walking around ant beds, you know, little things.

And that's the karma that, if you respect life to this subtle level, then it'll keep working at those old bad karmas. And it creates this counter-energy that's working against the old bad karmas, okay? And it wears them down and wears them out.

And that's what the sutra says, Kashiri Garbha Sutra. I want to talk about one more thing. The opposite, meaning, if you understand these principles, you can now extrapolate backwards from your current problems, okay?

Meaning, you can identify karmas you must have done in the past that you don't remember anymore. What are you talking about? If you're a person who has a backache, like a bad back, it was from not respecting life.

That's all, you've figured it out. There's what we call the correlations, okay? Correlations means, if you do this, this will happen to you.

And if you have this problem, this is what you must have done, you see what I mean? Because of what Jesus said, okay? And it's true.

So it's interesting, you can work backwards. And that's very useful, you see? Like, if you have a trouble that you can't understand scripture or you can't remember words or stuff like that, you work backwards.

You find out what it is that causes that, like useless talk. And there's another part to this. Even if you're a person who's no longer interested in useless talk, you must have been a person who was interested in useless talk.

So how do you get rid of that seed for useless talk if you aren't even interested in useless talk nowadays? You avoid even the tiniest tendency to do that, you see what I mean? Like, somebody asked me one day, what caused the lousy road from Vajrapani down to Boulder Queen?

I said, it's in the scripture. It's in, by the way, there's a very important lojong text called, what's the wheel of, what do you call it? The Crown of Knives, okay?

And we're going to study it later in the week. But they have in there all the correlations, meaning, do this, get this result. Oh, you got this problem?

It's because you did that in the past. That particular thing is caused by harsh speech, right, am I right? Yeah.

She's my correlations lady, yeah, and she made this beautiful chart which we'll give you. Divisive time? Sure.

I don't remember, anyway, you can look it up. So if you're a person who's affected by that road, you have to be careful not to speak harshly to other people. Now somebody like Janice is going to come up and say, hey, I don't speak harshly to people anyway.

You know what I mean? So what am I supposed to do? Then you have to avoid it, even at the most subtle level, okay?

Even the tiniest level. That's the idea. That's the idea of figuring out what you must have been like in the past, and then going after that karmic seed by avoiding even the most subtle form of that, okay?

Get it? So that works for anything, bad back, lousy road, okay, anything. You have to study the correlations.

If you have a personal problem, a relationship problem, a physical problem, if you have anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, etc., they all have karmic causes. Even mental events, even whatever problems you have in your mind, you know, normal problems like depression or stuff, anxiety, they all have their karmic causes. All you need is a chart of what activity causes what kind of problem, and if you have that kind of problem, now you have to be more careful about that from now on, even if you don't do that anymore.

You see what I mean? You have to go to a more subtle level of it and stop it. And then every time you stop it, dedicated to that old karmic seed, your backache will go away, stuff like that.

I've had people do this who had frozen joints, you know what I mean, who couldn't actually move certain joints, and now they're dancers, you know what I mean, it's the total opposite now. It's pretty amazing and pretty cool. And I have people with phobias.

These are not Buddhists, okay? I just taught them about this and they did it, and they're not Buddhists, they're Christians, okay? And this lady has a phobia about people breaking into the house, and she was married to my best friend from high school, and he had to get up every night for 12 years with a flashlight.

And walk around the house with her. I'm just not kidding, okay, it's this phobia. Now she sleeps with the window open on the ground floor, and she's like, doesn't have any problem at all, because she did this thing, you see what I mean?

And you identify the karma that you must have done, even though you're not interested in that kind of karma anymore, and then you avoid it on a subtle level, and then the thing goes away. And it's really cool. It really works.

So you have to study something called the correlations. I think we're giving a business talk in San Jose, when? I don't know, one of these nights we're doing Buddhism in the Workplace.

I'm actually going to present a version of the chart I made for people who work in corporate offices. And we did that in Australia, like hundreds of people came, and it was really cool. Like how to use this in an office setting, and how it applies to working at a normal office.

So there'll be a chart of the correlations there, and also in the Lojong, I think. So in the Lojong, you'll get this chart. What I'm saying is, on this power, realize that you can work two directions, you see?

You can take care of stuff that you know about, that hasn't given you any trouble yet. And then you can take any trouble you have, mental, relationships, or physical, and work backwards, and figure out what you must have done in the past. And then you work on it with this, you see what I mean?

You work on it by avoiding that thing now, even at a very subtle level. And it's really cool, like physical things just go away, and mental kinds of phobias or depressions or anxiety, they just go away. It's really amazing.

I've seen many people do it, okay? So you have to go to the Lojong thing, all right? Yeah.

Does your promise not to continue your bad deed, and the way it works on the past bad karmas, for it to work on the past bad karmas, is it dependent upon you thinking about it in the moment? Oh, you mean all the time, or? Yeah.

No. I mean, you don't have to think of it constantly. But it helps, the more you think about it, the more powerful it is.

So if you do an act of protecting life, without you thinking of the zillion years ago...

[Speaker 2]
Oh, good, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
At two levels, okay? They talk about perfecting these four powers, meaning they are more and more powerful the more complete they are, and the more conscious they are. And there'll be that in class number five, if we ever translate it.

It'll be, look, it all depends on how consciously you do them, how long you do them, how sincerely you do them, you know what I mean? And as far as, like if you have a health problem, you get down, you see the pen on the ground that someone might step, one chance in a hundred, one chance in two hundred, someone might slip on it. And you consciously get down, pick it up, look at it, say, I dedicate this to my back problem, you know, and set it down on the desk.

And that's a very powerful antidote. You see what I mean? You're not going to get a chance to stop a guy from bombing Kansas City or something, you know?

It depends on the floor. And that's the level at which you become enlightened, okay? What does Master Shantideva say is the perfection of giving?

Is it the ending of all poor people in the world? No. He says if that's what it is to perfect giving, then no one's done it yet, you see what I mean?

It's the attitude of being willing to give whatever you have, whenever, to whoever needs it. Period. And you might not have anything to give.

You see what I mean? If you got fifty cents and you give fifty cents, you've perfected giving. If you have a thousand dollars and you give half, you didn't perfect giving, okay?

And that's all. And will there still be poor people in the world? Yeah, okay?

That's not what perfection of giving is. It's the state of mind that's willing to give everything that you have. You see what I mean?

So that's the thing. Maybe this is the most important power, you see? Because you can take whatever particular problem you already have, the karma that's already gone off, and work backwards, okay?

Then don't forget to work on the karma that hasn't gone off yet, okay? You have to work on that too. But basically you can remove any physical problem you have, mental anxiety, depression.

Those are all caused by karma. The lower schools say no. Abhidharma says no.

Depression is not caused by your past karmas, because it's mental. And then the higher schools say, forget it. Everything is caused by your past karmas, okay?

What you hear going on in your mind all day long is a result of your past karmas. And you can work on it. You can change it, okay?

You have to. Work backwards, okay? Figure out what's the two things that bother you the most, and find out the causes, and then avoid that kind of thing.

What do you call it? There's a word. It's like stringently, but it's like perfectly, you know?

Even the smallest version of it. Meticulously, okay? All right.

Oh, and then there's a little section where Jetson Kappa says, By the way, don't bite off more than you can chew, okay? Like, if you can only... Before you commit not to do the thing again, think it over carefully and set yourself a time limit, okay?

And he says, maybe you want to make it a month, or maybe you want to make it a week, or maybe you want to make it a day, okay? I will not yell at this person for the next 24 hours. You know, and then get some strapping tape, for 24 hours, you know?

But make it something that you will not break. I always tell a joke, which is a sad, true joke, that I have broken a mental one before I finished the fourth power. You see what I mean?

Like, I said I won't get angry at this person for another four minutes, you know? And it took me five minutes to get to the end of the four powers, and I was already thinking about them again. You see what I mean?

You have to be careful not to add a lie to the bad karma, on top of the bad karma. He says, be like Katyayana, okay? Katyayana is a famous Arya from the time of the Buddha, a being who saw emptiness directly.

And I didn't know what he was talking about, so I went into the computer and I said, what did Katyayana ever do bad, you know? What's it got to do with setting a time limit? And then I found this obscure story of his past life, where he was a butcher.

And I guess the Buddha or somebody came to him and said, you shouldn't do that, you know? And he talked to him a long time, and he says, do you promise to try not to do it anymore? He says, okay, I promise, you know?

I'll try. He didn't promise, okay? And then he's like, he can't avoid it, he likes doing it, and he gets a good pay for it, and he needs money, and he starts killing animals again.

So then this person comes to him and says, what are you doing, you know? And he says, I don't know, you know, the money's good, and, you know, I need to pay off these bills, and, you know, everybody's doing it, and I can't really stop. And so he says, look, will you at least agree not to do it after six o'clock at night, until six o'clock the following morning?

He says, I can do that. Okay, so this Arya, later he became an Aryan, but in an earlier life, he was following this weird vow that after six o'clock he wouldn't kill cattle, and then after 6 a.m. he could kill them again, okay? And so what Jetsun Kappa is saying is, okay, if you can only keep it for six hours, or ten hours, or twelve hours, okay, at least do that, okay?

Even if you have to go collapse the moment after, all right? At least restrain for five hours, six hours, whatever you can do, okay? By the way, the end of that story, which is really nasty, is that because of that karma, he was born as this guy who would live in a house, and this beautiful woman would caress him and embrace him for half the day, and then she'd turn into a snake and eat his head for half the day, okay?

Anyway, maybe you want to keep it the whole day. Anyway, okay, so Elizabeth is going to come up, and she did this a couple of times in New York and other places, and then Christine Ora did it on Mongolian TV. She does this practice a lot, and it's helped her.

I personally know that it's helped her a lot in the last few years, overcome some very heavy obstacles. So I thought it'd be better to have a person show it to you who's really doing it and who's benefited from it, okay? So she's going to show you how to do it.

We're not going to have everyone do one tonight because there's a fire near here, and we don't want them to know how it got started. But tomorrow morning there'll be a kit here, and one person has graciously offered to pay for half of the cost of them. It looks like it'll be like $5 each or something like that.

So she's going to explain to you what's in your kit and how to use it, okay? And please use it. My guess is that if someone gives you a kit, you're probably going to try it a few times just to see how it looks, you know?

So go ahead.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, everyone's going to get one of these tomorrow. This is your purification kit, right?

[Speaker 1]
Right?

[Speaker 2]
Everyone laughs at me when I do this, but I just take it as a good sign. So you'll get some things in here. You'll get a twinings tea can, which is the thing that you put the things in and burn them, okay?

This is your container. This is very important. This is to prevent melting through the table, which we did in Mongolia, which was, that's really fun.

So put the twinings tea can inside. It's a ceramic dish, so it'll absorb any heat, so you can do it anywhere. It's also a really good idea to keep...

I either do it on a cement area or I put out a lot of aluminum foil because when the sesame seeds get really going, they fly out of the can, which is not going to happen today. Ian. Yeah, so try to put something else around it too, if you have a nice carpet or something like that.

Or if you don't want to sweep the floor every single five minutes. These are black sesame seeds. They're black because you're putting your mental afflictions in them.

Okay? So I like to use black mustard seeds or black sesame seeds. The white ones, you know, I don't know.

Black is really good. So if you can find them in New York, we have a whole street of Indian restaurants and they always have these there. But where did you get them?

[Speaker 1]
I think a lot of places.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, it's California. So you can get them at a lot of places. This is clarified butter.

It's a little bottle of clarified butter. It's called ghee. So this you can also get at a lot of places in California.

Or you can make it. And if you want to learn, well, I'll tell you really quick how to make it. You can do it in the microwave.

Yeah, it's really good in the microwave actually. It separates really nicely. So I'll tell you really quickly.

You take butter. Non-salted butter is better because it's more pure. I usually do about a pound at a time because it's manageable.

Put it into a bowl. If you're going to microwave it, put it into a bowl. Microwave it for how long?

Ten minutes? Five minutes, stir it, and another five minutes? Three or four, and then that's too long.

Yeah, three or four minutes, and then stir it, and then do it for another three or four minutes? Yeah, and then what you'll see is that you'll see that it separates. And if you're going to do it on the stovetop, boil it on really low temperature because if you burn it, it loses its ability to burn.

So put it on medium temperature and low temperature and just kind of boil it until maybe 45 minutes. Let the butter separate. So you'll get this kind of scum on the top of the butter.

Then have a tea strainer and a jar and pour the butter into the jar through the tea strainer, and all the scum at the top will catch in the tea strainer, and all the clarified butter will end up in the jar, and you're going to find stuff at the bottom, clumpy things. It's called the curds, and you don't want to let it go over the lip of the pot because it'll slip through the tea strainer and ruin the ghee. And if you want more details, we'll talk.

So that's what's in here. You have some with you already, or you'll have some tomorrow. And then matches.

Diamond matches. Not just any matches. And wooden matches, okay?

Wooden matches, not paper matches because you need something as kind of starter fuel for the sesame seeds and ghee, which you're going to put in here. So that's in there. And then you have a little notepad and pencil.

So these are for writing down your M.A.s. These are for writing down your mental afflictions. So if you have a really nasty one, or even not so nasty one, but one that you're concentrating on. They're all nasty.

Then you write it down and kind of wad it up and pop it in there, and it burns. And you know, then it's purification of that particular specific bad deed, mental bad deed or problem. So those are all out.

And then you'll also get a cloth. Maya put these together. Yeah.

With a lot of help from Sage and Corey and Amber. And Kizum. And Pearl.

And Tom Flynn.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. She had a lot of help.

[Speaker 2]
This is to wrap your Twining's tea cannon. Because when you do your fire puja in here, then it gets a lot of soot. So you want to keep it in a cloth to kind of keep it from getting all over everything.

Because if it touches something, it's like charcoal. And it'll stain and it won't come out very easily. So this is a nice little cloth to keep it separated.

Okay. So when I do this, I'll just tell you what I do. Okay?

Because that's all I know how to tell you. And Geshe-la says it's okay. So I usually sit down for a few minutes and just kind of even out my mind so that I can focus on what I'm about to do.

So I do short breath meditation just to get my mind kind of calmed down. And then do short, you know, refuge and bodhicitta just as a beginning to a meditation. Because it's better if you can focus your mind on what you're doing.

You know, instead of just kind of sitting down and popping some ghee in a can and then setting it on fire. You know, so you want to give some kind of concentration going. So then, after I do refuge and bodhicitta, then, well, the first thing I do is put ghee in the can so I don't have to think about it later.

It's sealed for your protection. I'm going to use my fingers. Usually I have a spoon.

That's okay. I forgot to tell you that. Oops.

[Speaker 1]
That's alright.

[Speaker 2]
Thanks Amber. And then what you need to do, the ghee is kind of hard now. You need to get it kind of evened out on the bottom of the can.

You don't want to have one big clump of ghee. Because it will drown your matches. So how much do you put in?

I put in a...

[Speaker 1]
One tablespoon.

[Speaker 2]
A tablespoon. That much?

[Speaker 1]
Oops.

[Speaker 2]
That's okay. And I always use my cloth to wipe my butter off on. But we can use this one for now.

Thanks. So I put about a heaping tablespoon. You know, like a clump.

Depends on how big your container is. But in here, like a good tablespoon is really nice. And then, and then I kind of take some of the black sesame seeds and put them in my hand.

You know. And then I'll hold it right here. And then I visualize whatever I'm working on at that point.

Like if I'm, if I'm really heavily, like one really heavy thing to do is criticizing your Dharma brothers and sisters. So I have a really good time doing that. So I try to purify that.

And then I imagine all the specific times that I've done it in the last day. In the last 24 hours. And I try to be very specific.

Like I remember where I was. Who the other person was. You know, what were we doing?

What time of day was it? What exactly were the thoughts in my mind? And I visualize them very clearly.

And I, and I put them in, I make them in my body as black, blackness. You know. Usually around here.

Then, then I put it, I put those thoughts into the sesame seeds, you know. Take them out. I think one good thing to do is put it out on your breath.

Like tong len, you're always following your breath. So if you do this, then if you breathe out through your nose, and then on your out breath, you imagine all the blackness coming out of you. All of it.

And don't leave any of it inside of you. And put it into the mustard seeds. Or sesame seeds.

So sometimes for me it takes a few breaths. You know. Sometimes it feels like it doesn't want to come out.

So really make sure it's all out. And all in here. And then this starts to feel kind of heavy, or gross.

You know, because they're in here. So really feel a conviction that they're all in the sesame seeds. And then I dump them in the, dump them in the can.

Yeah. On top of the ghee. You know, make sure it lands on the ghee.

Then, no one tell the fire department. They're not here, right? Then these are diamond matches, okay.

Something I really enjoy doing is just thinking for a minute about whatever my understanding of emptiness is. You know, however tiny it may be, I try to bring it to mind. And then, then use this as a symbol of my understanding of emptiness.

That's been happening a lot lately. That never happens when Geshe-la does it. And then, drop it in the can.

And then what you need to do is follow it up with five or six more. And keep, I always try to keep emptiness in my, Ellie's got, Ellie has a support. She has dependent origination over there.

And then I just drop, you know, I drop a few in and I try to criss-cross them. Like when your boys get, they teach you how to make a fire, you make a little teepee out of the matches. So you get a nice kind of flame going.

And then the whole time I'm just thinking, you know, while I'm doing this part, I just think about how the different ways in which I understand how that emptiness helps you to overcome and destroy your mental afflictions. You know, and just try to keep that in mind while I'm doing it. So I have a really big box of 250 diamond matches.

And, um, just in case my understanding of emptiness is particularly weak that day. So you can, you know, you can go out and get more materials after you get done with these. Because I think these are going to run out.

And then when the fire's going a little bit, you know, I go back to yesterday and all the times I did it yesterday. And just kind of really quickly call it to mind whatever the deed was, you know, call it to mind, put it into the seeds and then drop them in. You know.

Then the day before. You know. Then last week.

You know. Then kind of last month. It's kind of fuzzy, you know, now it's getting kind of fuzzy.

But still, you know, all the times last month. Whoops. Fire's going out.

And then what will happen is if the ghee is hard at first it'll start to melt. And, um, the sesame seeds will start to it'll sizzle a little bit like a frying pan. And if you use too much ghee it'll drown the matches.

So you have to yeah, you have to be kind of careful about your proportions and just get it worked out to where you have it. Kind of a nice, even balance of ghee and sesame seeds. Like there should be enough sesame seeds to provide fuel.

Just chemically. Yeah, what do you call it? Chemically speaking.

Then I do like last year. You know. Because I know, you know, criticizing other people or behaving in a judgmental way towards other people you know.

Probably do that a lot, so. There we go. Then then I try to do so I try to think about all the all the tendencies in my mind to do it, you know, like all the kind of non what do you call it?

Not the active seeds, but the latent seeds, you know. And just think about them and then put them in there. Because you can get rid of all your tendencies even to think that way.

So I try to get rid of any every little speck of possibility of doing that bad deed again. And then it starts to pop a little bit. When it gets really nice it starts to pop a little bit.

And you want to kind of stay back from it because sometimes they fly out and hit you. So something else you can do if you have a really specific thing that you have a problem with. Write it down.

If you have to put a person's name when you're doing it or a symbol of their name it's good to circle it, you know, because you don't want to put someone's name in there. You know, you don't know who they are. Especially if you're having some mental affliction towards your Lama.

You don't want to write your Lama's name down and then crumble it up and throw it in the fire. So if you put a circle around it then it's symbolizing, you know, you're not burning this. This is something that's exempt.

So it's good to do that. So then you write it, you know, write it down, whatever it is. Crumble it up nicely so it burns.

Then it will catch on fire, you know. And then just think, really have some conviction in your heart that you are actually burning that negative deed or that negative way of thinking or that habit, you know, that you're actually destroying that habit. And have some conviction of it, you know.

And when you're sitting there and looking at the flame then just think, you know, this is really symbolic. These are my mental afflictions. This is that habit that I have and it's burning right now.

And I'm not, you know, at least for that moment, you know, I'm not going to be weighted by that. I'm not going to be controlled by that any longer, you know. I'm free of that.

And then Geshe-la has said before that if you want to put it towards, if you have a major deed, you know, Geshe-la says that you can't just do one. You know, you have to do many, many, many. So, also a good thing to do is to say, I'll do them every day for three months, you know, or one month.

And then at the end of that month, have a really special, special one, like a celebratory fire, what do you call it, fire offering? Fire puja, something. Do one special purification ceremony and say, okay, you know, after this one, then it's finished.

Then I purified that negative karma. And then just feel, okay, that's finished. I've finished it.

So that's something else you can do. Then it takes a little while, but they're cooking now. So...

Every time I do this, I worry that they won't cook, you know. Yeah. What you're writing on the paper, is it the same thing that the beads symbolize?

You're emphasizing that, or is that a separate thought altogether? No, I try to do a theme. You know, it's good to do a theme and be really focused about whatever theme that you're going to do.

You know, like if you're having problems with stinginess, you know, if you're having problems with generosity, you don't want to be, you know, you have problems with practicing generosity, then, you know, you could write down one, you know, one specific kind of your overall problem with generosity summed up and throw it in there. Or one specific thing that you, one habit, you know. That's really nice.

Can you see? It's kind of blazing up. Yeah, that's really nice.

So I try to keep a theme, you know, and try not to get too distracted and say, oh yeah, and I did this, and oh yeah, and I did that, on different, kind of different ideas, because there's 84,000 and you could just kind of get really, spend a whole month just doing that. Does anybody else? Yeah.

Why do you see fan pieces of paper? Do they have, is there a different purpose in using these pieces of paper? I mean, not really.

I think, I think there's something really, I mean, I don't really know. I think there's something really good about the paper where you're putting it into words. Well, technically speaking, it probably won't.

Oh, well, I used to just do the paper, but why not just do the paper? You can. It's traditional.

And the paper's new.

[Speaker 1]
So it's just like following the tradition.

[Speaker 2]
And then the paper?

[Speaker 1]
The paper's like being more specific.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah. So, Geshe-la says, the bad deeds are from Kedrutje's tradition of, you know, symbolizing your bad deeds. Pakpa, yes, pakpa.

Pakpa. Papam.

[Speaker 1]
Papam?

[Speaker 2]
Papam. So, the seeds are very traditional and have always, for maybe two and a half thousand years, have been used as the symbol for your mental afflictions. And the paper is more specific.

You know, if you have one very specific thing, one very specific issue, you know, maybe deeper problem, also to write down and put there. Does anybody else have questions? Health problems?

I'd put them right in there. Yeah. I was, I mean, I had, I was using for back problems for a while, you know.

First I would put my immediate pain into the seeds and burn it. And then you have to, I mean, of course you have to think of the karma that you've collected to have that problem. So you put the karmas that you know you must have collected.

Even, you can't remember, but especially if you can remember something that you must have done to cause yourself health problems. You know, think, oh, that's a specific cause of this problem that I'm having. I'm putting it, you know, put it in, put it into the seeds and then burn it.

And then also just generally because you have from beginningless time you have this karmic collection has been happening. So you don't know what you have in there. So I always like to just kind of put a general blanket negative deeds seed deposit.

Just because, you know, because I just like to think back. I mean, I just like to think as broadly as I can about all the bad deeds I've done, you know, and just toss it in there because it's beginningless. Yeah, so.

I don't know how many I threw in there. You can throw in as many as you want. You know, at the first one no, you really can't.

You just keep tossing them in and when it heats up like to this point maybe a little bit hotter. What happens is when you throw them in they start to pop right away. Yeah, it's cool, right?

It's really great. And then you just, I mean, just contemplate on how it's destroying your mental afflictions, you know. You can just sit there and watch it and it's really nice, you know.

And you can just keep tossing them in the whole time. You don't have to stop. You know, if you think of new instances of the mental affliction.

Yeah, and you have to be careful. I won't burn Ian up. And then it depends on how much ghee you put.

The more ghee you put in, the longer it will burn. So, yeah. Not that I know of.

Is there a mantra? Geshe-la will give it to you. Yeah.

Oh, people totally changed. Total transformation. Total transformation of three people so far.

I've eliminated three people from my life. And none of them died of a heart attack. You know, as much as I hated to think of it at the time, they all became just really sweet.

Angelic. Like, really, really sweet. Was it quick?

No. I mean, it wasn't quick. It wasn't.

It wasn't quick. You know? It wasn't.

The first one was pretty quick. The first one took about a month. The second one took maybe three months.

I think, I don't know what it is. I feel like it's the less experience you have and the quicker it is, you know, because then it proves itself to you. Then after that, you know you have to do it anyway, so.

So, then the third one took a little bit longer than that, you know, a few months. But totally different, you know, and never reverted back, you know. Like, there were people that were just wholly disgusting, you know, from their own side.

I mean, I don't know what to say. Are you laughing at me or do you know what I'm talking about? I mean, you must know what I'm talking about, or you're probably just being really sweet.

So, just people that I just couldn't even look at, you know. It was just like, I just can't do this, you know. And then, I guess it was just so bad that I had to do something about it, you know.

And then just so happy to see them every day. Oh, hi! You know, really.

Nice. Yeah, I do it almost every day. Yeah, I drew them on the piece of paper.

[Speaker 1]
For them.

[Speaker 2]
Well, okay, I'll tell you this one guy, he's really safe because I know nobody knows him. He's this guy who used to work underneath me when I worked in downtown. And every time I saw him, he was very lecherous, you know.

He was extremely disrespectful, very lecherous, threatening person, scary. You know, I couldn't get into the elevator with him. Scary.

So, I said, oh, you know, all these really... And I would react really badly to him, you know. So after a while, I started reacting badly.

So then I said, okay, you know, these problems with so-and-so. And then I would circle his name. And I would say, like, what would I say?

I would say, like, you know, that nasty reaction I had to so-and-so. You know, in the elevator on this day. And then circle his name and then ball it up and toss it in there.

And then this same man who...

[Speaker 1]
Huh?

[Speaker 2]
Why do you circle the name? Because you don't want to burn that person's name. You know, there's something about burning someone's name that's really...

I don't know. I mean, would you want someone burning your name? You know?

I don't know. I just wouldn't want to... There's something about burning their name.

It's like you burn mental afflictions.

[Speaker 1]
You know, you... Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. So you don't want to burn their name. Anila?

Yeah. You mean for the... Like, what time do each of the four forces come in?

Yes. So I take refuge first. Anipama asks, at what point do you have the other three of the four forces?

You know, because I take refuge first. And then I think before I even start the thing, I just think about how the negative effects of these deeds on my own mind and my own life. You know?

Then really contemplate them. So, you know, think about what these deeds are doing to you. And what these mental afflictions are doing to you.

And the unwholesome ways that they're affecting your mind, your body, your relationships with these people. I mean, you know, had I not done this I would have completely estranged this very kind man. He turned out to be a very kind man.

So, think about the negative things that they're doing to you. So that's... Yeah.

So that's the regret. And then this, for me, this is the antidote. This is the makeup activity of the four, you know?

And then afterwards I think, okay, I try to think of a force of turning away from the bad deed, you know? Next time I see that person for the first ten minutes, you know, I'm not going to yell, I'm not going to say something back to them, no matter what they say to me, you know? Then something like that afterwards, after you feel really kind of clean and happy and hopeful, then like that.

This looks like it's going to go for a while. Want to hang out? So, yeah, the 20s tea can's kind of...

It's going to be okay.

[Speaker 1]
It's sort of hot underneath.

[Speaker 2]
You know, it might melt through.

[Speaker 1]
Like, it might melt through whatever's underneath.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, oh no. I mean, you could, but I don't. I don't usually smother them.

You worry about fire? Well, wait for it to go out, you know? And then, I mean, especially...

Will you make an announcement? Will you make a plea not to do them here? Yes.

Should I? People of Vajrapani, please don't do this here, okay? There's a very high fire hazard here.

Even one tiny candle, one tiny stick of incense, one spark. You know, I don't know. I'm sure you got the fire lecture at the beginning of this course.

I've heard it many times. It's dry here. Things go up like that.

There was a fire report earlier today. Please don't do this here. No matter what.

If you really have to do a Four Forces, walk down to Boulder Creek and do it in a parking lot. You know? Because it's just not...

Please, just don't. So, anything else to add? Yeah.

It's just really dangerous. It's really, really dangerous. And this place is so precious and so holy and dry.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
So, please don't do this here, okay? We're going to give you these, but they aren't to be used at Vajrapani. You know, this is only being done at Vajrapani to give you an example so you can know how to do it when you go off the land somewhere.

And what else? Do you want to... We have another fire offering.

No, we have another fire offering to make, don't we? Yeah. Isn't that cool?

That's when it finishes. All this white smoke comes out and... Yeah.

Goes into Ian's face. I'm sorry. So then you know what's out.

And then, if you're in a fire hazard place, you can pour water in or something. And then it's really good to dump these out under a tree or in a stream or someplace where people aren't going to step on it. So that's a really good thing to do.

And if you're in the city, put it in a special bag where it'll be protected and where no one's going to walk over it or do anything disrespectful to it. So when I'm in the city, there's no parks or anything. So you just put it in a plastic bag and keep it safe.

Okay. So that's... Thank you for being so kind and patient.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay.

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