Серия ежедневной практики, курс 06 — Четыре силы для устранения негативной кармы (1999, Институт Ваджрапани, Калифорния), занятие 6

[Speaker 2]
Session six.

[Speaker 1]
Session seven. Okay, just a very brief thing, then we'll do question and answer. The last question on homework five is about the salt in the water theory, which is another explanation about the mechanics of the four powers.

And it goes something like this. And it's mentioned in your readings, you'll see it in the sutras, that if you put a couple of tablespoons of salt into a glass of water, you can't drink it. But if you put a couple of tablespoons of salt into a bathtub, you can still drink it.

Assuming no one's taken a bath yet, okay? And they say that that's an explanation of how the karmic purification works also. It's one explanation.

Meaning, you do so many good deeds by thinking about emptiness, and by thinking about bodhichitta, that the level of good deeds is like the water in a bathtub, and then the bad deeds is only like the salt. So like before you did purification, the odds of getting salty water were, you know, two tablespoons in a glass. And now the odds are two tablespoons in a bathtub.

And so you're more likely not to have bad karmas ripen as much, because you've got so many good karmas, you see what I mean? So that if you fill up your karmic pockets with new good karmas, then in essence you are delaying and minimizing the effects of the bad karmas, because they're so much fewer. They're the same amount, but now they're in a bigger tub of water.

Get it? Okay, so that's one explanation. I think for myself, I mean, this is now getting into my own personal experience.

The way it happens is more like this. You see, in my mind they still haven't explained the issue very clearly. You see what I mean?

In my mind they still haven't said, well how is it exactly that meditating on emptiness, for example, would short-circuit your old karmic seeds? And it's well known in the scriptures that if you don't have certain mental afflictions, then certain karmic seeds can't ripen. But why?

You see what I mean? What's the explanation of that? And I would say something like this.

You saw in the Diamond Cutter Sutra, there's a story of this super-mawa. He's a monk. He's meditating in the forest.

The king's wife is out picking flowers. The king is out hunting. And this is a former life of the Buddha.

And the queen runs into the monk and starts asking him questions. She's a spiritually-minded person. And then the king comes along and thinks that she's been messing around with the monk.

So he tells his guards to stake the monk down on the ground. And then he starts cutting off his fingers and toes and his other limbs one by one. You know what I mean?

And then this is Lord Buddha in a previous life. And in the Diamond Cutter Sutra he says, if I had gotten upset... No, sorry.

If I had seen him as self-existent, I might have got upset. But I didn't. Even as he's getting his fingers cut off.

So, this is a question. And I think this is where you get into the practical issue of short-circuiting old bad karma. Something bad is happening to you.

Somebody next to you, somebody in your family is bothering you. Somebody at work is bothering you. And this is the way to actually short-circuit the bad karma that's going on.

Can you change the karma at that moment?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
No. And forget it. And don't get upset that you can't.

Don't lose faith because you can't change that situation. And you won't be able to. It doesn't matter what you think.

You see what I mean? And get used to that idea. It's very important.

Don't think that your Buddhist practice on Tuesday is going to change events on Tuesday. Because it won't. Because it takes time for things to ripen.

And nobody said it didn't. Arya Nagarjuna said, If karma was immediate, the world would already be enlightened. Why?

The minute you crush a roach. People come to me in New York. Can I kill the roaches in my apartment?

Tell me it's okay, please. You know, I'm like, aside from the fact that my Lama says they're my people because my name is Roach, you see. Aside from that fact, if as you stepped on them your own ribs started to break, would you have to come ask me?

You see what I mean? If as you step on them, you know, you step kind of down a little bit and one rib breaks. And then you step a little harder and two ribs break.

I mean, what would you do? You would just stop. You see what I mean?

Nobody would kill roaches. That's exactly what happens when you kill them. You see what I mean?

You're setting up the cause to have your ribs broken. If there was no delay, it'd be all right. If every time you cheated someone, your own bank account went down, what would you do?

You'd just stop. You see? There's this time lag.

Nagarjuna said the time lag kills people. If there was no time lag, there'd be no problems. So yeah, there is a time lag.

It doesn't matter if you do the Four Powers on Tuesday about something happening on Tuesday. It's going to happen anyway. So get used to that.

But what are you supposed to do? Remember emptiness. Remember the emptiness.

That's the ultimate power. That's the ultimate karma killer. Remember the emptiness, which is what?

Oh, the boss is yelling at me. If I yell back, I have to see him again. If I don't yell back, I don't have to see him again.

Which one do you choose? You know what I mean? Don't yell back.

It's not for it to be a noble person. It's not to be a compassionate person. It's not to be a good Buddhist.

It's to save your own rear end. It's to not meet him again like that. It's very...

It just makes sense, okay? Then don't do it. What's it got to do with your old karmic seeds?

This is my own experience, okay? You can't do anything about the physical pain. But mental pain goes away very nicely.

You see what I mean? Like you don't feel bad anymore about what's going on. You don't get upset.

You don't get off balance. You know what's happening. Okay, he's yelling at me.

I'm not going to yell back at him because I don't want to see him again. Now, he may continue to yell at me or not. And then I'll continue to be patient with him or not.

You know what I mean? But I understand I can't do anything about the present. But at least I'm going to do something about the future.

And that decision, I think, destroys a lot of old bad karmic seeds. Okay? That's my feeling.

Why? Because immediately after that you don't have any more mental pain. It's very interesting, okay?

The mental pain goes away. You know, like you can have very bad things happening to you, especially emotionally bad things. And if you understand where they're coming from, somehow they're not as painful.

You know what I mean? There's a distinction between having anger and then being upset about the anger. You see what I mean?

There's a distinction between having problems and being upset about the problems. So I'm not saying that immediately the problems go away. They don't.

Your boss will probably yell at you and continue to yell at you for a while until the karma wears out. But the karma of refusing to answer, aside from saving your future life, your future self problems, in the next year or so, it has this immediate effect of removing the mental pain. You see what I mean?

Because you can... What I'm saying is that if you get this stuff down well, and if you understand karma well, you'll be able to sit in a situation with someone attacking you, or someone bitterly angry saying things to you. You know, it happens.

I've had it happen. Every day, I mean, it happens. Somebody, you know, when your head moves up a certain level as a teacher, then you start getting attacked too.

You know what I mean? And then, will you get upset about it? How will you feel about it?

If you understand karma well, then you're able to just maintain this joy all day long. And it doesn't matter what's happening to you. It's very interesting.

The more you understand karma, the more that attacks karmic seeds. And the first thing to go is your mental upsetness about the event. You see what I mean?

What I'm trying to say is when you get good at the four powers, you'll be able to stay in very difficult situations that you can't change right now because it's already happening, but your mind will be like calm and happy because you understand everything perfectly and you know that you're shutting it down. And then there's no kind of being upset about it. You see what I mean?

The feeling of being upset or bitter or angry goes away. And for me, that's like purification is already beginning. You see what I mean?

So, work on it that way. The events of your life have two sides to them. The bad things going on now were created in the past when you didn't know any better.

So, don't get upset about it. The important thing is to stay cool now so it doesn't happen again. And that's the bottom line.

You know, that's purification. Okay? Yeah.

What's the difference between when you're first starting out and someone's screaming at you and you get emotional and you start to freak out? Later on, what's the feeling that you're sort of having? What's the difference?

Instead of anger, what comes in your mind? It's like the feeling you had when you stripped your lama's pistons in his Volkswagen. You know?

It's just like, God damn, you know? It's this feeling of... feeling stupid.

You know, like, oh, this person's yelling at me. I can't believe I created such an ugly person. You know what I mean?

It was really dumb. You know what I mean? You know, it's like some kind of awe at what an ugly karmic production you've made.

You know? And... No, I'm not kidding.

It's like... But then you're just sort of looking at it and saying, you know, but now I know what's going on and I refuse to respond. I just refuse.

You know what I mean? At least keep your mouth shut. You know what I mean?

Just... And then your anger will come and then you apply the antidote again. Then the anger will come again and you apply...

Because the anger comes in waves. You know? Like you say, it comes up and you go, no, no, no, no, no, no.

And then it goes, there you go, no, no, no, no, no.

[Speaker 2]
You know what I mean?

[Speaker 1]
And then sometimes it overwhelms you anyway. You know what I mean? But you'll get better and better on it.

But if you understand what we've taught this weekend, you will not get upset like you used to. And that's already the result of purification. That's what I'm trying to say.

You know, the knowledge purifies the old karmic seeds. That's almost happening immediately. That's very interesting.

What I'm trying to say is that understanding in the least bit emptiness has immediate destructive effects on your old bad karmas. And you can prove it by not getting upset. Because that's also a karmic result.

It's just ripening really fast. Okay? It's cool.

You see, the power of understanding the emptiness of this lousy situation is already destroying bad seeds because you don't get angry. You're able to keep your cool. And that's already purification is happening.

And I think that's beautiful. You know? And then the other stuff, the other crap just wears out.

You know what I mean? But to me the exciting thing is that the karma of understanding the emptiness of a difficult situation with another person immediately starts to ripen into this state of mind of being cool. You see?

Because states of mind are results of karma also. Don't forget. Okay?

Your own anger and your own mind is the same as the yelling guy. They're both karmic results. You've created both of them.

But understanding emptiness seems to have an almost immediate destructive effect on the anger or the upsetness. You see what I mean? And then you take care of the boss later.

You see what I mean? That takes longer. But it's very beautiful that the karma of understanding the emptiness and refusing to respond to violence with violence is that you already start to feel happy.

And that's an immediate karmic result. It's almost immediate. And that kind of behavior over a long period of time gets you enlightened.

Okay? I'll say one more thing about the meditation and then we'll open it for questions or sleep as you wish. If you make this meditation like any other meditation too long, it will either get dull or boring or you'll stop after two weeks.

So the great Sakya tantric masters, in their text, it says, do it for 12 minutes. You know? They say, divide the day into 24 parts.

Divide that by 3. Multiply by 6. Divide by 18.

And it comes down. I calculated it. It's 12 minutes or something.

You know? Do it for 12 minutes. You know?

Or 8 minutes or something. We're talking, you know, like a strike, a lightning strike meditation. And you get down and within 10 minutes or so you have to finish the four powers.

Okay? Now you can't do your whole preliminary practices and still get to the four powers in 12 minutes unless you're really fast. So they say, do kundu noblu.

Say kundu kundu noblu noblu In substitution of the preliminaries, whether there's 7 or 10 or whatever you're doing, kundu noblu means the all-encompassing jewel. And it's just to bring up a picture of your lama. Or the Buddha.

Or Lama Serpa. Or anybody. Okay?

The Dalai Lama. You bring them up in your mind for just a second. You say, help me out here.

Okay? That's all. Light comes in their chest, into your chest.

Finished. That's the preliminaries. Seriously.

Okay? No more than that. Like a minute.

Okay? You don't have to go through all the other ones. This is like...

This is like a real Four Powers that you're really going to do, because if you spend an hour on top of your other 14 sadhana commitments, you're going to stop this in a week. And you know it, and I know it. So, do a 10 minute one.

And that's fine. Kundu noblu. You know, bring up your root lama.

Help me out. This light comes into your chest. Okay?

Then you start on the Four Powers one by one. Okay? Review what it means to go for refuge.

Which is really, think about the emptiness of your boss. There was a question on the homework I didn't cover, wasn't there? The emptiness of your boss, the yeller.

The emptiness of you, the yelli. And the emptiness of the situation, which is the yelling. Okay?

What does that mean? If I had better karma, I would hear those same decibels as him giving me a raise. You see what I mean?

They are empty. They're just like the cylinder. Don't forget the cylinder.

Okay? Those decibels and tones are the same as the cylinder. They don't have any inherent existence.

They are not by themselves words of criticism. It's your mind that's making them that way. They could have been a raise, but you didn't have the karma.

That's the emptiness of the yeller. What about the yelli? You know, hey, if I'd known about this emptiness stuff in real life ten years ago, I'd be in a tantric paradise by now.

And the schmuck won't be there. You see what I mean? That's the emptiness of the yelli.

And then the yelling is easy. Look, this thing wouldn't even be going on. This whole situation never would have happened if I didn't have karma.

If I didn't have the karma to see it, it just wouldn't be happening. That's the emptiness of what we call the three spheres. So you go over that real quick.

That's refuge. You just protected yourself. Then you go over love.

Try to feel some compassion for somebody. If you can't do it for all sentient beings, think of one person you know who has cancer and say, I wish they didn't have it. That's enough.

Then secondly, think about what a dumb thing you did. Not guilt. It's just not productive.

I yelled at him. I'm going to have to see him again. That wasn't too clever.

Really. That's the feeling. That was dumb.

That's regret. That's the power of destruction. Like intelligent regret.

Then you think, I won't do it again. Then set yourself a time. Ten minutes.

I'll lock myself in the stall in the bathroom for ten minutes for sure. He probably won't come in. Something like that.

Set a reasonable time limit. Although he did one time. But anyway.

The last one is... Well, this is the order in which you can actually... I'm saying for myself, this seems to work well.

This seems to be a flow. Taking refuge and doing bodhichitta. And then thinking about how dumb it was.

And then... What was the third one? Thinking about how I won't do it again.

That, for me, this order works. And then lastly, I think, what are you going to do to make up for it? You know what I mean?

People ask me, is it important to go back and make it up to the same person? It's more powerful if it's appropriate. Sometimes if you talk to them, they get more mad.

You've got to judge the situation. It's powerful if you can go to them. If it's not appropriate, don't try.

But do some kind of make-up activity. My experience with the book, and if you don't know about a book, you've got to learn from somebody who's doing it, is that it should be brief. It should be tiny.

It should be something you can really do. I won't yell on the phone for the next 20 minutes or something. No matter who calls.

Just hang up.

[Speaker 2]
Something like that.

[Speaker 1]
Something immediate that you can achieve. Don't make it too big. If you don't know how to do a book, you have to learn.

It is the key to happiness. It is required in all anuttara tantric initiations to do this practice. It's been translated as six-session yoga.

It's been corrupted into reciting something real fast twice a day. And the real intent of it, and the real meaning of it in the ancient tantras is six times a day you stop and check your life and see how you're doing and write down something positive, something negative, something to do. And you really should do that.

I don't know anybody who's very happy in their practice, in my particular Dharma centers, who's not doing the book. And conversely, all the people who are miserable, who come to me complaining all the time that meditation's not going well, they don't get along with other students, they think I'm a bad teacher. And I say, are you doing your book?

And they say, no, that's a stupid idea. And really, there's people who go from one to the other, you see? There's people who say the book was stupid for years, and then they start doing it, and then they come to me with tears in their eyes, literally, and saying, oh my God, my whole life has changed.

This is the real practice of dealing with your negative karmas immediately, within two hours. And there's nothing like it. There's absolutely nothing like it.

You will definitely get happier immediately if you start it, okay? So if you don't know how to do it, there's lots of people around who do, and just do it. That's my spiel for getting rid of bad karma.

I say there's four stages if you start this practice, if you try to remove your old bad karmas and keep your book. First one I call the, what do I call that? Surprising stage.

Miro wrote that. Interesting, surprising, amazing. Okay, yeah.

Interesting stage, okay. Interesting stage is like where you start doing this just because it was a nice weekend, you think maybe it'll work, you have some... and you try it.

And then little things start to happen, you know, like that pain you've had in your back all the time gets less. You know what I mean? Or they start playing Neil Young more often on the radio.

I'm not kidding. That's like interesting. Like you're like, hmm, that's interesting.

And then there's a... you know, is it coincidence or not? Like you're not convinced yet.

You're not convinced about this version of cause and effect. Okay? Maybe it's just a coincidence.

Okay? And then I get to the surprising stage. Surprising is like they decide to do a Neil Young weekend or something.

And you're like, that's weird, I was just thinking I'd like to hear some, you know. And like that, you know. And just it's kind of surprising.

Your boss comes in and says, you're really a great employee and I'm glad you took two weeks off for the Kalachakra and that other course. You know? And that's like, that's weird.

You know? Okay. And that's surprising.

We call surprising. And then there's like the amazing. Okay?

And amazing is... and these are not exaggerations. Somebody comes up to you and says, here's a three million dollar property for a dollar.

You know? I think you might need a retreat center. This is a real story.

I mean certain things like that start to happen. You know what I mean? And you're just like, wow.

Maybe this... He's the famous one. He said, Geshe-la, I think this stuff really works.

You know? And then you start to get confirmation. And then you're good on a roll.

You see what I mean? You're like, wow. That's amazing.

You know? It's still not impossible, but it's amazing. You see?

Your boss gives you a major raise. You know? Like, not impossible technically, but amazing.

And then the fourth one is just totally impossible things start to... miracles start to happen.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
The one I like to tell is, say you're sitting in a restaurant in the East Village, right? And you're having dinner with a student and you have a long interview with them and you're talking and then you keep eating, which in New York is dangerous because the desserts and the drinks cost more than the dinner. I mean, drinks meaning coffee and tea, okay?

And you're sitting there and you have four more coffees and all this desserts and then you're like wondering how bad the bill's going to be. And you call the lady over and she's this old Israeli lady and she leans down and says, can I help you? And you say, well, we need the bill.

And she goes, what do you mean a bill? You know? And you say, you know, the bill is going to be major.

And she says, oh no, we wouldn't do that. And they say, what? And they said, do you think that we would charge somebody who's doing Vajrayogini practice?

Then they say, have a nice evening and they just turn around and walk away. You know? And...

By the way, that's the verge of starting to see... Then you're on the verge of seeing tantric deities. And I'm not kidding.

And I'm not exaggerating and I'm not making claims, okay? We're not allowed to do that. It's a big bad deed.

And I'm not like revealing miracle things or something like that. I'm not saying that. I'm saying very consciously, very logically, very persistently, do these practices in your own quiet, persistent way, week after week, and you start going through these stages.

And in the end, towards the end, you start meeting tantric deities. Just the first time it's like a brush, you know? It's like passing somebody on the street, you know?

And then it happens twice. And then it happens three times. And then it's like, wow.

And then you start to believe it. And then you start to work harder at your book and at purification. And then it becomes commonplace.

And then it's like too many of them. You see what I mean? Like, what are you going to do with all these people, you know?

And like that. I'm not describing something... I'm not making this up.

I'm saying that's the way Buddhism is supposed to happen. That is how Buddhism, as it's taught for the last two and a half thousand years, is supposed to work, you know? It's supposed to be like that.

It's not like something that this American guy is making up or something like that. That is how it's supposed to work, you know? And then you meet these tantric lamas and they teach you these amazing practices and you do them and then even more amazing things start to happen.

And it's all from keeping your vows and wiping out your old bad karma. And it's like a dream, you know? It's like a fairy tale.

You know? You don't have to just do this stupid sadhana for two hours every day for the rest of your life. That's not the point.

Slowly the world changes. And very consciously, very purposely, you push it along by keeping your vows, keeping your book, wiping out your old bad karmas. And then all this stuff comes true.

You know, all those stories. You don't have to be Milarepa. You don't have to be those guys, Naropa.

They happen to anybody who does this. You see what I mean? Just do it.

You know, those are not like stories of some great saint that lived 500 years ago and nobody nowadays is doing that. There's lots of people doing that nowadays. It's happening to lots of people.

You just don't meet them because you're not doing it. Okay? I'm not kidding.

I'm not kidding. It's happening all the time to people. Just do it.

And it's not like some mythical thing or some Bible thing or something that used to happen to people in Tibet because they had different faces or something. You know? They have the same mental afflictions that we have.

You know, you're born with so many mental afflictions. Everybody. They just knew how to fix it.

You see what I mean? And then you can do it. You just do it.

You just go about doing it. Okay? And it works.

And then you're just like there. You know? Anybody can do it.

So you have to use this stuff. Okay? It definitely doesn't work if you don't try it.

Anyway, I don't like to threaten people. I don't like to say hell realms and blah, blah, blah. You know...

Tantric deity. You know, you meet them. You hang out with them.

You know? And then you start to turn into one. Body too, okay?

You don't like your body? Keep your vows. You know?

It starts to change. Okay? It's cool.

It's really cool. That's the whole... It's not some mythical thing that happens to high lamas or something like that.

Okay? It happens to any joshmo who does what they're supposed to do. Yeah?

Okay, questions.

[Speaker 2]
What if you're keeping your book and you put down something to do and you flip the pages and you notice you didn't do it and then you look at it later and you realize, oh my gosh, I'm never going to do that and I don't want to do that. What do you do then?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, you mean you never intend to do the do? Well, when you write it down, you kind of intend to do it but then you realize later, wow, this is really a big thing. No, I don't...

No, in practical... I hereby give you permission to go back and reduce it to something doable. You should have made it doable in the first place.

You have two quotations in the readings, one by Je Tsongkapa and the other by... I think it's Pabongka Rinpoche. They just say, look, come on, do something reasonable, okay?

Don't make it an hour thing because you have six things to write down, that's six hours. You don't have six hours, you know? Do something that takes a minute or two.

[Speaker 2]
Can you... You know you're going to... Say you know you're going to do something anyway.

Can you just do that? You know what I mean?

[Speaker 1]
Pre-dedicated to do a future bad deed. It's a new idea.

[Speaker 2]
No, I mean if you know you're going to be doing something, like you know you're going to be taking somebody out to dinner, you know, and you have a vow about practicing generosity, and then you're like, oh, okay, well, to do, you know, to take them out to dinner to dedicate it to this vow. Can you do that?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, that's fine. Yeah, dedicate something... You know you have a date with them to take them out to dinner.

You've already planned. Oh, you've already planned. No, that's fine.

That's all right. She's saying, you were already planning to give a birthday gift to someone, and you got to the vow about not being chintzy, and you already intended to give them a certain present, and can you write it down as a to-do? Yeah, that's fine.

You know, I intend to give them this thing that I already intended to give them. That's okay. But dedicate it.

That becomes a different virtue. See what I mean? Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
How can you distinguish between fast ripening karma and slow ripening karma?

[Speaker 1]
Again, it's the factors with which it was collected, and I think the main question to ask is something else. I mean, the question I would think of when you say that is, how do you get tantric karma to ripen in one lifetime? How do you speed it up?

You see, sutra system, it takes 10 to the 60th power years or eons to get where you want to go. More. But tantric system, something about tantra that you ripen it within one lifetime.

You see what I mean? You get it to ripen within a year or two years or ten years. You see what I mean?

What is the difference? You know, what makes it different? And they say compassion.

You know? They say the decision that you want to speed it up so you can help other people. You see what I mean?

Like, never be satisfied with the book is working and an amazing thing is happening to me and I'm so happy and I never expected to have Jesus type of things happen to me in my life. And then, don't be satisfied with that. Say, hey, we got to speed this process up because I have to help other people.

You see what I mean? It's that intention, I think. And you should throw that in at the end when you get to the amazing stage before you get to the miraculous stage.

You got to be working heavy on... Don't be satisfied. Say, we got to speed this up because people are out there who are getting in car accidents today, you know, and I could have helped them.

You know what I mean? Like, speed it up. It's the intention to speed it up.

[Speaker 2]
If I'm going through something really difficult, do I know that it's because of a past life, a deep in the past life?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, it's a good question.

[Speaker 2]
That's this life that I'm really trapped.

[Speaker 1]
I think you have to... She's saying this. Some kind of crap is happening to her.

Now, did that come from something I did that I still remember? Or did that come from like 20 lifetimes ago? Like, how do you distinguish?

Is there like a distinguishing sign on the karma? No. Okay, but...

Find out the correlation. Go to the scriptures. Go to the printouts we gave you.

Did we get the correlation? I think you got... No, that's in number 5.

See, if you're not coming to LMB, you got to give us your address. Debbie Boy from Australia. And you have to...

You got to... Sorry. You got to have the correlations.

So, you go to the correlations, check what caused this person. You know what I mean? And then decide whether you've been doing that in this life or not.

Okay? And then either way, you have to watch out for that particular bad deed. And it may not have anything to do with what you expected.

And that's why we got omniscient beings around to tell us what the correlations are. Guess what causes pollution? Sexual misconduct.

Okay? Who could have known? Who would have known?

You know? Okay? You know what I mean?

It takes a Buddha to say that's what causes this. You see what I mean? They say that's more difficult to see than emptiness, those correlations.

Also, you're going to get a very good text on correlations and a nice chart invented by Aura in the Crown of Knives Lojong this week. So, if you're not going to LMB, try at least to get a notebook. And so, figure out what's giving you problems.

Go back and figure out what karma was that caused it. And then you'd be able to decide, I think, if you'd done it in this life or not. But either way, the fix is the same.

You have to avoid even the tiniest version of that. You have to become anal about that particular bad karma, even if you have no attraction to it nowadays. Okay?

Yeah, I haven't committed sexual misconduct in 25 years, but I still have pollution in New York City. Okay. So, stop looking at the covers of Vogue magazine, you know what I mean, as you walk through the bus station.

You see what I mean? Really. Get it down to very subtle, and that destroys the karma.

Okay? It's very interesting. Okay?

Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
It's been bothering me for a while. I don't understand how conditions work.

[Speaker 1]
You know, I understand that they're empty and that they're created by your karma, but what the relationship is between the ripening karma and the secondary causes, and why the secondary causes don't appear to have the same kind of qualitative relationship to the karma that's ripening, and what kind of relationship could there possibly be between a job and money, or gas and the car going? You've said many times, like, don't quit your job unless you have this incredible store of karma to be able to get money without it.

[Speaker 2]
Why would you need this extra boost of incredible karma? Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
This is an argument you hear, okay? They say, and it's a bitter source of argument between me and my students, okay? We talk about this all the time.

We talk about this question all the time. So, like, if there's this seeing you here, and I hear Tibetan lamas say it a lot. I'm not criticizing, I'm just saying you hear it a lot.

They say, it's true that whether you have money or not depends on your past karma and on your generosity level. That's the primary cause. Now, there's all these conditions, you know, like, do you have a rich uncle?

You know what I mean? Like, they're implying that the principal cause of cancer is something you did in the past, but you should still avoid smoking. You see what I mean?

And things like that, because that's a condition which is outside the laws of karma. You see what I mean? I mean, the implication is you have a karma that's going to give you cancer or not, but if you don't smoke, it won't activate, or something like that.

You see what I mean? If you can avoid the conditions, the cause won't hurt you. But that doesn't make any sense to me.

I mean, I don't think you can defend it logically. You see what I mean? If you have a karma to cause cancer, and if you don't purify it with the four powers, I don't see how smoking or not smoking would make any difference.

Okay? I don't understand that. I don't think it's true.

And in fact, I think that that thing would then not have any emptiness. You see? That would be a self-existent object.

Why? Because it would not be a projection of my karma. You see what I mean?

And everything's a projection of your karma. The idea that some things are and some things aren't is lower school. You know what I mean?

And that's why they don't understand emptiness completely. They're trying to say that your thoughts are not caused by your past karma, but your house is. You see what I mean?

Why? I don't know. One's harder than the other.

You know, I mean, something like that. It doesn't make any sense. When you get up to the highest school, prasangika, everything is only caused by your karma.

And forget this thing about secondary conditions. It doesn't make any sense. That's why you don't like the idea.

That's why you're asking the question. It doesn't... What?

Big things happen from karma and little things don't? How big does it have to be? Four inches?

Six inches? I don't know. It doesn't make any sense.

You know, either everything is or everything's not. Empty. And everything is.

Completely empty. One hundred percent empty. You know, not half caused by karma and half caused...

This businessman in New York tried to convince me of that one time. I said, Well, look, either everything's made by God or not. He says, I don't believe it's made by God.

So I said, Well, it's made by karma, right? He says, Yeah. So I said, So you're going to be generous from now on?

He says, Wait a minute. He says, Half karma, half hard work, and getting ahead of the competition. You know what I mean?

Something like that. Look, you either have to buy it or not. Does that mean that you're okay to smoke?

Because if you're going to get cancer, it doesn't depend on the smoking or not. Now here we get into what I call like similar patterns. You see what I mean?

If you go to a better doctor, are the odds better that you'll get cured? Yeah. And the people who can afford better doctors usually have more money.

Okay? Does that imply that if you have more money you'll get cured more often? Yeah, maybe so.

But only because the people who have the karma to have more money also have the karma to meet better doctors. You see what I mean? It's not that the money's causing the better doctor.

Because that would be self-existent. You see what I mean? You've got to get used to that.

Yeah, and in the end odds don't matter anyway. You know, there's a very famous story in Pancha Tantra, which is not a tantra at all. It's an old Sanskrit fairy tale book.

Animal stories. Aesop's fables came from that. And there's this lion who's attacking the rabbit burrows and eating one every day and destroying all the burrows to get at them.

So the rabbits have a meeting and say, why don't we just send a rabbit to the lion once a day and it'll still be the same result but we won't all get our houses ruined. So they have a lottery. One rabbit a day has to go get eaten by the lion, you know.

So then it comes this rabbit's turn and he gets the wrong number. They say, okay, you've got to go. So this is a lion pacification program.

And he stands up and he says, well, what's the use of a lion pacification program if I'm going to get eaten this afternoon? For me, you see. Yeah, that's the point.

Once you're the guy, it doesn't matter what the odds were. You see what I mean? There's no such thing as odds in karma.

There's no such thing. There's no such thing as probability.

[Speaker 2]
But then what's the practical application of this then?

[Speaker 1]
The practical application is spend more time doing virtuous things to get the things you want and spend less time doing things that seem to cause other things that don't cause other things. You see what I mean? If you understood karma perfectly, why is it that lazy people get rich and smart people get rich and stupid people get rich and active people get rich and lazy people, stupid people, smart people and lazy people also get poor?

You see, it doesn't matter. There's lots of smart people who can't feed themselves and there's lots of stupid people who get rich, you know. It doesn't matter.

What's the practical application? Do the ten virtues. Concentrate on, really.

[Speaker 2]
But then what's to prevent everyone from just quitting their job tomorrow? Because everyone's going to be able to find a penny here and there to give away their last penny with.

[Speaker 1]
Why can't you eat cookies with sugar in them when I give them to you? That's a good question. Then I should eat the things that are unhealthy for me, seem to be unhealthy for me.

No, because if you had the karma it wouldn't matter, you see what I mean? It really wouldn't matter. Are you telling me there'd be a point where you wouldn't have to eat?

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying.

[Speaker 2]
But why isn't it like that right now then? I mean, what makes that karma distinct?

[Speaker 1]
Because you haven't destroyed those seeds yet.

[Speaker 2]
But why do those seeds seem to correspond so very well with whether we're hired or fired?

[Speaker 1]
Why then don't we live in a world where the paycheck keeps coming in even though we let it out? Yeah, the karma to be angry and the karma to get fired often occur in the same person. Okay?

Yelling doesn't cause getting fired because many people who yell don't get fired. You see what I mean? But also quitting your job very nicely and happily.

No, but you could have the karma to quit your job nicely and not have the karma to get paid the next day or to find any money the next day. Those are separate things. People who have the karma to go and work in an office more often have the karma to get paid.

How's that? But there's no cause and effect between going to the office and getting paid. That's very difficult.

That's really hard. That's really hard. You know?

Do you want a 50%? Do you want to say, cover your... What is it?

Cover yourself both ways. You know? Go to work and you'll probably get paid.

Or give away your money and don't go to work. You see what I mean? Yeah, it's a big question.

And it's not easy. It's not easy. You know what I mean?

If you give away enough and wait long enough, right? No, there's a maturation period. Yeah, you can easily not go to work and you'll continue to get paid.

[Speaker 2]
And the bodhisattva vow that at a very high level that you're supposed to break that vow and for instance lie that you're supposed to...

[Speaker 1]
I think at a certain level you can't take that vow. I mean, you can't use that vow. You know what I mean?

I understand what you mean. There's this bodhisattva vow that under extraordinary circumstances some guy runs into your house. He says, somebody's chasing me with a gun.

Will you hide me in your closet and tell him you didn't see me? And you're supposed to hide him in your closet. And when the guy knocks on the door with a gun, you know, like this, you're supposed to say, I haven't seen him.

How can that work according to this theory? You see, the lie is going to cause people not to believe you in the future. The fact that the guy didn't get killed had nothing to do with your lie.

It had to do with he protecting life in the past. And I think, yeah, that vow was created for people who didn't understand karma completely. I'd say that.

But that's hard to... It's very hard. It's very hard to live by.

But I say, either you have to say that these rules govern all events, or none. You can't say they cover half the events or something like that. No, it just doesn't make sense to me.

You know what I mean? But that's such a radical thing in your life. Are you saying I should just live by the six perfections and forget everything else?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. It's the nicest thing. Someone's standing there and pointing a gun at you.

Should you kill... Is there such a thing as self-defense? Does it ever make sense?

Buddhistically. No. Better to be shot than to kill.

I mean, that's the ultimate. Now, can you do it? That's another question.

Okay. There's no bad deed to being shot. In fact, you wear off some bad karma.

But killing another person is quite... You know what I mean? And if you shot them, would you not die?

You see what I mean? Wouldn't it make any difference on whether you died tomorrow or not? You see what I mean?

It's very interesting. The whole thing is confusing because it's different from our desire realm, stupid, broken, uninspired, unenlightened, ineffective way of life. You've tried the other one for 30, 40 years.

Now try this one. It didn't work. It just doesn't work.

The other way of looking at the world doesn't work. Check it out. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
One of the places, one of the many places I keep getting stuck is you've said over and over again that being a bodhisattva doesn't mean being a wimp.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
But not... Being a bodhisattva doesn't mean being a wimp. And some people I heard were talking about this so I thought I'd ask my question.

And that is that I'm not at a stage where I could... The only way I've been able to think about things is if I was at a high enough stage then I could purely stop somebody from... Maybe they're doing something that looks like it hurts me.

Yeah. They can only do that if I've done something to hurt someone in the past.

[Speaker 1]
Right.

[Speaker 2]
But if they're not a Buddha then they could be doing something that hurts themselves by hurting me.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
So if I'm a real bodhisattva I'd try to stop that.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Without anger.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Because they're hurting me.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, exactly.

[Speaker 2]
But I'm not there yet. So what do I do with them?

[Speaker 1]
I think... Did you get the question? Did anybody hear the question?

Okay, she's like saying... Suppose someone's trying to attack me. She said, I've said in the past that being a bodhisattva doesn't mean to just roll over in the face of violence.

And it doesn't mean that. So somebody attacks you. Somebody's like going at you with a knife.

Okay? Do you stop them or not? If you're a real bodhisattva you would evaluate the question like this.

If they're a Buddha and they're going at me with a knife everything's okay. If they're not a Buddha and they're going at me with a knife maybe I should try to stop them. Why?

They'll hurt themselves.

[Speaker 2]
Because I'm a bodhisattva and they'll go to hell for killing a bodhisattva.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, something like that. By the way, the story of the Buddha as a ship captain killing a murderer that's all in the context. Who was he trying to protect?

[Speaker 2]
The sailors. No.

[Speaker 1]
The murderer. The end of the story which people never tell you is that his only intention was to help the guy with the knife. You see what I mean?

He wasn't doing that for the 500 merchants. Anyway, yeah. So, should you stop them to save themselves trouble?

To save them trouble? Yeah, you should. And now Chökyi La is saying, but what if I can't do it happily?

What if there's a little bit of wrong view in there that just wants to punch him? Should I still punch him? I'd say yes.

No, I'd say no motivation is perfect. You have to deal with that. It doesn't mean you're paralyzed until your motivation is perfect.

In fact, you need experience. I'd say you have to build up experience. No, I'd say pray for the motivation and then punch him.

Yeah. Yeah, I'd say that. Yeah, I'd say that.

Somebody asked me in Ireland. They said, are you saying that if a lady was getting mugged, are you saying that this is what's going on? And Tom remembers maybe.

It was in Dublin at the nunnery. And she says, so what's happening when somebody gets mugged? Are you saying that the lady getting mugged had the karma to get mugged?

I said, yeah. And I said, are you saying that the mugger appeared because the lady had the karma to get mugged? I said, yeah.

So, are you saying that if I try to help the lady, whether or not I'm able to help her is only up to her karma? I said, that's right. So she says, then you're implying that whether I help her or not, she'll either get away or not get away from her own karma?

I said, that's right too. So why the hell should I try to help her? I might get stabbed, you know.

No, you have to try to help them. You see? The last question doesn't follow.

The last statement doesn't follow. You must try to help them. Will you succeed?

That's up to your karma and her karma, okay? So should you try or not? You have to try.

Why? Because protecting other people's lives makes you an enlightened being. That's a hard answer for people.

People get nervous about that. It sounds selfish or something like that. But that's the only way you can help other people.

It's a very difficult thinking. It's very different. That, hey, the way it's going now is just so terrible that whatever's going to change it is probably going to be much different.

Okay? Literally. It's going to be something much different.

I say this worldview is much different. Read the thing in the reading about worldview, okay? It's much different.

But wouldn't it have to be different? I think. Now, it may not be right, but it's definitely different.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, well, there have been questions about the vow of not killing. The other day a friend of mine says, yeah, Buddhists have a vow of not killing, but I know a lot of them that eat meat. Yeah.

They even ordain Buddhists.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
So my question really concerns carrots, cows, and regulatory.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
There's a lot of logging that happens in this area.

[Speaker 1]
Some people think it's bad karma. I live in a house that is made out of wood.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
I need that.

[Speaker 2]
And you talked about that it's bad karma to slaughter the cows. Yeah. Why is it different than ripping a carrot out of the ground?

[Speaker 1]
A couple of answers, okay? Although people say there's a debate, there isn't any really debate in the scriptures of Buddhism about plant life and animal life. In other words, plants are not considered sentient in any of the classical schools of Buddhism.

Okay? Now, there are later schools in Japan and stuff like that that may have said that plants are sentient life and that you can't hurt them or something like that. It's nowhere in the original Buddhist teachings does he say that at all.

So plants we can not worry about. Now, monks and nuns are not allowed to kill a living plant without a ritual. So what's that all about?

The point is that that plant is home to many creatures. And when you kill it or tear it up or cut it, then many creatures will lose their home. You know what I mean?

So you've hurt them. So we have to do a ritual before cutting a plant. Are we allowed to eat meat in Buddhism?

I'll give you the classical answer by people who do eat meat, okay? I go to the store and I order meat. I don't order a cow.

Even the word is different, okay? I'm going to buy a thing which is already dead. You know, you don't get in your car and say, I'm going to go slaughter a cow.

You say, I'm going to go pick up some hamburger from the store. You see what I mean? They say that proves that that's not killing.

And technically speaking, it's not killing, okay? Technically speaking, when you buy meat at the store, you're not killing an animal, okay? My feeling, personally, I don't eat meat.

Most of my, almost none of my students eat meat, is that... I went to a lama who was giving this argument to me and I said, and I respect them and I love them, okay? I have to say that.

But I said, if a guy offers me a radio and I know it was stolen and I buy it, is that a bad karma? And they said, yes. So I said, well then meat is at least dealing in stolen goods.

You see what I mean? I can't see how it's not dealing in stolen goods. Nobody's agreed to have their body cut up.

You know what I mean? So I've never heard an argument that made me feel comfortable that it wasn't at least dealing in badly stolen goods. You know what I mean?

The most dear thing to this person is their body. You know what I mean? And then the Lotus Sutra is very clearly, you know, says you shouldn't eat meat.

All over the place it says you shouldn't eat meat. When we do Mahayana vows, 24-hour vows, you take a vow not to eat meat during that day. That must indicate something.

You see what I mean? Because you're supposed to be emulating the lifestyle of bodhisattvas during that 24 hours. So that's my take on eating meat.

I don't think you should eat it, but I don't judge the people who do eat it. There's a claim that by eating the meat of this animal and doing proper prayers, you can help their spirit go to heaven or something like that. And I'm still...

That's on my shelf right now. I respect the lamas who say it. I can't see why it would be true.

Unless you're some... You know, because if it were true, then the Buddha should go around with guns and shoot us all.

[Speaker 2]
You know what I mean?

[Speaker 1]
Out of compassion. Because they just send our minds to heaven. You know, it doesn't make sense to me, but I'm not quite ready to say it's crazy.

Maybe there's something in there. Maybe there's some extraordinary circumstances or something that I don't know about. So I'm not saying...

It just doesn't sound... It sounds like then Buddha should go around and shoot everybody. That's my take on eating meat.

That's what scripture says. The Lotus Sutra very clearly says don't eat the meat of any animal. And then it lists all the meats you shouldn't eat, ranging from dogs to humans.

So that's my thought about it.

[Speaker 2]
Can you speak more to the difference between prioritizing and destroying?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I know what you mean. Like, are you just delaying bad karmas indefinitely? Is that how you get to paradise?

Or do you actually go after them and destroy them? You know what I mean? And I can't answer you clearly.

I don't know. I don't know. My own feeling is that...

I guess I'm not... I don't know well enough. I really don't know well enough.

I have a feeling that at a certain stage of understanding emptiness, which is beyond seeing it directly, I mean, I'm talking years after that maybe, that you're able to actually destroy them. I know that reaching nirvana, whether it's 8th level bodhisattva or lower, you know, like Hinayana, involves removing the last mental seeds for ignorance. And that would seem to me to be even nastier than old bad karmas.

But that's the only place I can take you on that. It's not discussed clearly, to my knowledge, in the scriptures.

[Speaker 2]
Might it have something to do with the emptiness of karma?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I think so. I think so. Or even your perception of who is you.

[Speaker 2]
You know what I mean?

[Speaker 1]
You know what I mean? But I'm not sure. You're into a realm where...

There's lots of places that scripture just stops, and you should know that. You know what I mean? I mean, you think...

I can stand up here and quote you something or something like that. No. There's lots of places where your mind can keep going and there's not available information in the scriptures left on this planet.

You know what I mean? So, I really don't know. Practically speaking, it don't matter much.

You know, if you can just keep them from ever going off. Although it sounds more kind of risky, right?

[Speaker 2]
I'd like to address that because I've been thinking about that. If you have seeds on a shelf and there's no contributory causes like moisture, heat, manure, soil to make them grow, they're never going to grow sitting on the shelf. So, what difference does it make if they're destroyed or indefinitely latent?

They're not going to grow without the contributory causes. So, if you have the karma there, you're not contributing to that karma ripening. It won't ripen.

It's like a seed sitting on a shelf.

[Speaker 1]
I think he's saying that the shelf thing is nervous. It's nervous to think that they're still on the shelf there.

[Speaker 2]
How can that shelf turn into an enjoyment body? How can any part of a Buddha's body be on that shelf? Because the seeds are there?

Yeah. The seeds are karma in potentia.

[Speaker 1]
They're not karma in actuality. But there is this thing in scripture that at the eighth bodhisattva level you destroy the seeds of seeing things as self-existent. And the implication, I guess, is that you couldn't go into a Buddha realm with even the seeds, even if they weren't doing anything.

That's, I think, what he's saying.

[Speaker 2]
Well, maybe as you progress on the bodhisattva path, we'll be able to have the discernment to eradicate those seeds that never were planted in the first place that we're worried about today.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, or that are on the shelf. I think that's what he's saying. But I can't remember.

I'll check it. But I can't remember anything like that. I can't remember any discussions like that.

[Speaker 2]
Because it affects how we do, basically, the four powers.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Are they gone or are they prioritized? Are they pushed to the...

[Speaker 1]
Right. Right, yeah. It's weird that a four-line being would be going around with a bunch of...

Yeah, it doesn't seem right that Lord Buddha has, you know, all these bad karmas sitting there on the shelf.

[Speaker 2]
The seeds are non-existent.

[Speaker 1]
No, they exist. Ultimately. Well, that doesn't...

And when you see emptiness, they've got to no longer be affecting you. No. People on the path of habituation after seeing emptiness directly still suffer.

They still suffer. There's a debate about it. They say they no longer have the truth of suffering, but they still have suffering.

Did you have a question?

[Speaker 2]
Back to the four powers. If somebody didn't have knowledge of the four powers, and they read about emptiness and they were studying emptiness, because you said it was the foundation power.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Antidote. That's the antidote.

[Speaker 2]
I mean, the antidote. Yeah. And you also said that, you know, I'm asking, I'm not sure.

Yeah. I'm not saying that you said this. And I understand that you said that they could become enlightened because of the understanding of emptiness.

Why would you need the other three powers? Because you're doing emptiness and refuge and emptiness and bodhicitta. Yeah, yeah.

And that there is a state of mind that they could become enlightened. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
I think Anila is saying, it seems like if you got the power of antidote down as far as understanding emptiness well, then almost by implication you'd have at least one or two of the other ones, right, covered already. And...

[Speaker 2]
And you said that you could become enlightened because you, you know, you do have this understanding of emptiness.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Could a person become enlightened just understanding emptiness well and not technically going through the powers that don't involve emptiness? Yeah, I don't think so.

I don't think it's possible. Yeah. Not by emptiness understanding alone.

Yeah. I don't think it's possible. Now, would you formally call it four powers or something like that?

Or would you just have the habit of doing good deeds more often or something like that? That'd be all right. I don't think you'd necessarily know it was four, but you'd be doing them.

You know what I mean? I think that...

[Speaker 2]
Say if you were studying a diamond-cutter student and you were going to get rid of all your bad karma, you still would have to know how to do the four powers, wouldn't you?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, in practice, if not the theory of it. You see what I mean? Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
In dedicating virtuous actions towards a specific goal, for example, body management, respect life, seems a little bit selfish to me just to dedicate it just to your own back pain. Would it weaken the dedication to dedicate it for all people who are in back pain?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yeah, good point. I mean, that's why the scripture keeps saying to do the four powers with the bodhicitta.

You see what I mean? If you look at the reading, most often it says, if a person, while thinking about bodhicitta, makes offerings to a shrine, you see what I mean? To a stupa.

Yeah. It's probably much more intelligent to do it, you know, as you're picking up a pencil from the ground, on the one chance in a thousand that somebody might slip on it and hurt themselves, and you set it on the desk, you say, I dedicate this to the pain I have in my back. I also dedicate it to the pain that everybody else has in their back.

It'd be a thousand times more powerful. Yeah. Is it selfish to want to cure your own back pain?

Not at all. Do Buddhists want to cure their own back pains? Yes.

Do Buddhists still take refuge after they get enlightened? There's a huge debate about it. Yes.

Why? They don't want to go to a hell realm. Okay?

They still have the lowest motivation. When people get up to lamrim level number three, when they're working, when they're doing their Buddhism for the sake of all living beings, do they reject level number one? No.

It's a foundation. They don't want to go to lower realm, which is level number one. You see what I mean?

They don't want to come back to a suffering life at all, which is level number two. And they want to save all other beings the same problem, which is level number three. But it's not like you get to level number three and you give up level two and level number one.

You still have them, all the time. Buddhists don't want to go to hell. If you say, do you want to go to hell to save somebody?

They say, yeah, I'll go. Do you want to? No.

You know what I mean? I wish they weren't there. You know what I mean?

[Speaker 2]
Not really. Not really.

[Speaker 1]
They're not like masochistic or something. Really. Americans have trouble with that.

You know? There's some kind of thing. You simultaneously achieve the greatest power to help other people and the greatest bliss that you personally can experience.

And it's not a choice. You get both of them. You have your cake and you eat it too.

And Americans have trouble with that. They like balk at that. You know, like, yeah, by keeping your book and by destroying your old bad karma, you personally...

I said this in Ireland. They loved it, okay? Excuse me.

It would be like an orgasm 24 hours a day. And I'm not kidding. And they thought that was the most wonderful idea.

You know? And... No, I'm not kidding.

I'm not kidding. In practice, if you see His Holiness the Dalai Lama or Lama Tsongkapa, somebody... His Holiness, I've seen him eat dinner.

He enjoys dinner, man. He is having a good time. That food, they say, the rochok nang is one of the qualities of a Buddha.

Everything tastes like caviar. Or, you know, I hate caviar, but I mean, whatever. Everything tastes like Cheerios to a...

[Speaker 2]
to a...

[Speaker 1]
to a Buddha. No, they can eat... They say they can eat poop and it tastes like the sweetest thing in the world to them.

You know? They are blissed out 24 hours a day. And they are also, therefore, most able to help other beings of anyone.

And don't... What I'm trying to say is, forget the Judeo-Christian... this thing.

You know, it's not necessary to be in pain to help others. The fact is, the closer you get to your goal, the more blissful your days will be, physically and mentally. And don't...

You don't have to feel guilty about it. That should be the way it works. Okay?

The closer you get to being able to serve others ultimately, the more bliss you'll be feeling all the time. And there's no contradiction there. And you don't have to feel guilty about it.

Okay? That's the way it works. That's the way it should work if you think about it.

[Speaker 2]
There's something you said that's really freaked me out.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Only one thing?

[Speaker 2]
In the last couple minutes. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Whether or not Buddhists go for refuge, and because they do, because they don't want to go to hell. Now, my understanding is, in Buddha's analogy of the wrath, the Dharma is the wrath to get us across to enlightenment shore.

[Speaker 2]
Once we're across to enlightenment shore, we don't strap the wrath to our back. In the Prajnaparamita Sutra, the irreversible bodhisattva on the Mahayana path reaches a state of irreversibility where he can't go back. So how could a Buddha who is the completion of that irreversible bodhisattva go to hell?

It seems really theological that you would suggest that a Buddha could be afraid of hell, or would need to take refuge having gone to the other shore.

[Speaker 1]
Now, the thing about the wrath refers mostly to your physical body. Your old physical body. The one of blood and bones and...

[Speaker 2]
I thought the wrath was the Dharma.

[Speaker 1]
Most often it's the body. But let's say it's the Dharma. Like my Lama said, the best thing about becoming enlightened is you won't have to do your sadhanas anymore.

I think all the time you'll save, you know? So that's, in a sense, it's like that. Yeah, Buddhas cannot ever...

They're mindopa in Tibetan. They're irreversible. They can't ever fall down again.

So why should they be nervous about ever having to take a... They can't. I think the point here is that they would never want to go to hell realm.

You see what I mean? And by the way, when they say that a Buddha goes to hell realm to help people, they don't feel anything less than total bliss while they're there. So forget that idea.

Okay? Because they can't. Because they don't have any bad karma.

[Speaker 2]
Well, it's axiomatic they wouldn't want to go to hell because neither do we and we're still sentient beings that are on enlightenment.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. It's like that. I'll make a joke, okay?

This is just between us. The Sarah J. monastic manuals seem to say that they don't take refuge anywhere.

I think. As I remember. But I'm not sure.

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
What bothers me is the story about the Buddha's physical death of eating mushrooms that were poisoned.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, great question. I forgot to cover it. Okay?

I forgot to cover it. It was on that list of questions they asked Master Bhavya, Lekden Je. And it was...

I really did forget to cover it. And I literally... It's in the corner here.

I'll show it to you. But it's the last question that he addresses. Remember his list of questions?

We should write them down someday as a list. But gee, whatever that is, was... There's a long question in there and they say, Well, how come the Buddha's brother, half-brother, shot a catapult?

He fixed this really neat catapult and he waited until the Buddha was walking by and he shot it at him and it missed, but it hit his ankle and he got a cut on his ankle or something. And then they say, Well... Well, what?

Buddhists don't know how to do the Four Powers or something? And then he says, Oh, come on. They're just putting that on.

Okay? The whole process of being born, getting old, dying, getting hurt by people. I could think Jesus also.

You know, they're just putting it on for our benefit. They have to go through the passion play for our sake so we can think about it and do the right things and like that. That's the Mahayana line.

They don't say, Ñaṅganle de, which means to go to their final nirvana. They always say, Ñaṅganle depe tsultumba, which means to pretend to go to their final nirvana. To play, to masquerade going to their final nirvana.

I think one more question and then we'll stop.

[Speaker 2]
You have? I have an issue with the word intoxicants and how to justify cigarettes or caffeine.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good. She's asking about the vow, it's a layman's vow that you can't take intoxicants. The Tibetan word is Ñoje, which means crazy maker.

And what's the use of that vow? It's famous in New York because I refuse to give the vows unless people take that, because that's the old line, the old party line. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
Session 6 continues on the next CD.