Серия ежедневной практики, курс 08 — Сутра сердца: медитация на пустоту (2000, Сокел), занятие 5

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

[Speaker 1]
So is it true that all existing things are emptiness? No. What this sentence means is very specific.

You are focusing on all things, and all you are seeing is emptiness. So you could have, you know, Lord Buddha or Chenrezig would have been better if he'd said every existing thing appears to you at that 20 minute period as emptiness. Okay?

But he put is. Why? It's more sexy.

People will keep reciting sutra century after century, you know, thinking that everything is emptiness. It's not. Everything has emptiness, not everything is emptiness.

But at that moment, everything is appearing to you as emptiness. As one emptiness. Is there a question?

[Speaker 2]
When you were talking about that experience, you said it's mostly the I, the emptiness of the I. So does it kind of, in that 20 minutes, does it go from the I to all existing objects, you know what I mean?

[Speaker 1]
There's a debate about it, okay? Technically, you're focusing on all existing objects. Among them, I guess you could say that you're focusing mainly upon yourself.

When you get to J-top Geshe afterwards, and you look back, the main emptiness you're aware of is your own. I mean, when you reinterpret the experience later, and there's a huge debate about it in the scriptures. I mean, it was my last Geshe exam question, you know what I mean?

But what happens is, technically you are focusing on all existing things. They are all appearing to you as one emptiness. When you come out of it, when you think back on it, you're mostly aware of your own emptiness.

And how you just saw your own emptiness, okay? So, you will think of it as Petra's emptiness. And then there's other details about it we'll talk about next class, okay?

We'll talk about it in the next class. You do, during the aftermath, which is called J-top Geshe, have an intense awareness that you are empty. Although you're not perceiving it directly.

And you're very much aware of the emptiness of the future enlightened Petra. And we'll talk about that, okay? So, in that sense, you're aware of a person's emptiness.

Which one you see first is a huge debate. This scripture says, you are focusing on all existing objects, but all you see is emptiness. So, that completes the direct perception of emptiness, okay?

I'm going to give you a few details about what happens to you in the next ten hours, okay? And then we'll take a break. And then we'll come back and finish those.

There's still some, the rest of that paragraph, which has a lot of technical meanings. But I think it's more important to talk about what actually happens to you that day, okay? And then we'll go back and make sure you understand what the sutra says, okay?

Which is not as fun, okay? It goes like this. You come down out of that experience.

You have a... The first thing you're aware of is that you're coming down out of that state of meditation. That state of meditation is related to a higher realm called the form realm.

And you are coming down out of that meditation. So, you have a physical feeling of descent from that level of meditation, okay? Again, that's called samdhen damo nyerdo micho me, which is called the preliminary stage.

The actual stage of the preliminary section of the meditation, which correlates to the first level of the form realm, okay? Something like that. Anyway, it's a specific kind of meditation that you learn how to do.

Your first emotion is of coming down out of that experience, okay? That's the first emotion. Then I would say the first thought you have is, I did it, okay?

Like, I saw emptiness directly. People come up to me and say, I had this special experience when I was 18. Did I see emptiness?

And if you have seen emptiness directly, you know it. There's no question. Absolutely, 100%, without question, you know you've seen it, okay?

So, if you're not sure, something like that, then you did not see it. Did you have some insight? Yes.

Did you have a special experience? Probably. Was it a direct perception of emptiness?

If you have to ask, then it wasn't. Because all of these other experiences happen to you on the same day, and they always happen to anyone who sees emptiness directly. So, if you have any doubt about it, you didn't see it.

A, you come out and say, I did it. B, you have what we call a confirmatory pramana, meaning you check your own mind and say, am I crazy? And then you say, no, okay?

I mean, there's actually a secondary perception right after the perception that I saw. First, you see emptiness directly. You come out and you're aware that you saw emptiness directly.

I did it. And then you have a third valid perception, which is, I'm not crazy, you know? You check yourself.

You say, for real? And you say, yeah, for real. You know what I mean?

And then that's the end of that experience. Then starts the whole Four Arya Truths experience. Four Arya Truths is not some kind of principles that Lord Buddha taught at Sarnath during the first turn of the wheel.

That's just a very crude way of explaining it. Lord Buddha triggered in his immediate disciples, on the first day that he taught, the direct perception of emptiness. Khaldinya went into the direct perception of emptiness.

You know, he didn't sit there and enunciate four principles of Buddhism. He triggered an experience in his disciples that after that direct perception for 20 minutes, they saw all these things themselves. That's why they're called Arya Truths, okay?

The first turn of the wheel is a description of what went on in the minds of his disciples when they went into the direct perception of emptiness because of his teaching. He was so powerful, and they were so closely connected to him karmically. Remember, these are the tiger cubs that he saved by giving his own body earlier in Nepal, you know, lifetimes before.

He's got this blood connection with them. They ate him, okay? And because of that connection, the first time he covers this stuff, they're like, boom.

You know, they go home and start meditating, and they see emptiness directly, which doesn't happen in centuries after that. You know, it doesn't happen that easy anymore, okay? So, anyway, what are the four Arya Truths?

These are a group of experiences that anyone who's seen emptiness directly goes through. And here are some of them. A.

You see your own enlightenment in the future. B. You have a direct perception of your own Buddhahood.

C. You know you're going to be a Buddha. D.

You know you see yourself becoming enlightened. Do you see it with your eyeballs? No.

It's a kind of clairvoyance, okay? You know how long it's going to take, okay? Exactly.

And it happens to be very typically seven lifetimes. And you see that directly. You are directly aware of how long it will take, okay?

By the way, you just confirmed about two very sexy things. A. What?

Buddhas exist. You know what I mean? I mean, you're a Buddhist.

You don't even know if Buddha exists for real. You see what I mean? You can call yourself maybe a Buddhist.

You see what I mean? Maybe Buddhas exist. You see what I mean?

Because you don't really know for sure. You know what I mean? And on that day, you confirm the existence of enlightened beings.

Because you see your own enlightenment. You see what I mean? Directly.

You also confirm what? Future lives. I'm going to take seven more lifetimes.

It's not a weird thing in your mind at that moment. It's not like, oh wow, future lives really exist. Maybe I really was Napoleon and Miss America.

[Speaker 2]
You know what I mean?

[Speaker 1]
You know what I mean? You don't have to... It's not a...

You're just sitting there and saying, oh, seven lifetimes. And it dawns on you that you just confirmed future lives. You know what I mean?

And you perceive roughly the content of those seven lifetimes. For example, you are aware that during each of those seven lifetimes, you will be under the direct care of extraordinary lamas. Your whole lifetime.

And that you will be born into very good circumstances. Nice family. Beautiful country.

Religious people. Spiritually inclined people. People, you know, think a good time is like meditating most of the day or something like that.

And you know that you will be under the direct care of these very high beings your whole life. People ask me, do you remember what you saw when you were reborn? No.

And then at a certain age you... It's called bhaktaksepa. Bhaktaksepa means you come back to where you were.

You reawaken the seeds that you planted the life before. So like age 12 or something, 13, everything comes back to you. And then you're back to where you were before.

And your teachers are like very, very extraordinary teachers. You confirm that you have met an enlightened being. When?

When you saw emptiness. Why? That is the dharmakaya of the Buddha.

And that's a long story. We don't have time tonight to go into it. But the emptiness which you saw is a little piece of an enlightened being.

It's one of the four bodies of an enlightened being. So you know that you have met an enlightened being. You're able to read other people's minds for about the rest of the day at least.

That would go under the noble truth of suffering. In other words, you're directly aware of the thoughts of the people around you. You can read their minds.

And that's just something you can do. Now you can do that without seeing emptiness directly according to the scriptures. But you definitely have that ability on the day you see emptiness directly.

During the aftermath, during that next 10 hours, you have this extraordinary obsession with finding some object that you could use for the rest of your life to remind you of what you saw. You see what I mean? Like you might want to carry it around the rest of your life.

You know, like carve something into your forehead or something. You know what I mean? No, seriously.

I mean it would be worth it to change something permanently on your body if you could remember what you saw. Because it doesn't happen again that frequently. You see what I mean?

And the thing that Arya has always come up with is a diamond. That's why Diamond Cutter is called Diamond Cutter. That's why Vajra is so important in Buddhism.

It's that when a person has just come out of the direct perception of emptiness and they search around the world mentally to find something that would closely represent that emptiness, they always come up with the diamond. So diamond becomes a very important thing. And you would be willing for the rest of your life to work around diamonds for free if you could just be near diamonds.

If you could be around a diamond and be able to look at them from time to time and say, Oh yeah, I remember now. That reminds me of what I saw. Why?

There's three things in Diamond Cutter Sutra, those of you who studied it. The main thing is this. Diamond is the closest thing in the natural world to an ultimate.

There's nothing which is ultimately long because you can always add another inch. There's nothing that's ultimately short, those of you who were in Sara, because you can always cut it in half. There's not the loudest thing or the coldest thing or the hottest thing or anything else.

But there is the hardest natural thing in the universe. It's diamond. Diamond can scratch any other physical object in the universe.

And nothing but a diamond can scratch another diamond. Like, you can break a diamond. But you can draw steel or any other hard thing across the face of a diamond for a million years and it won't do anything.

There won't even be a scratch. If you stood there for a thousand years with a piece of metal or something, it would just wear down the metal. The diamond wouldn't scratch at all.

So it's very close to being an ultimate. So you would have this obsession with diamonds. You would want to be near diamonds.

You would want to be around diamonds to remind you of what you saw. It's a very common thing for Aryas to want to be around diamonds. The other thing about diamonds is that they are clear, totally clear.

And that's a metaphor for emptiness because... How many emptinesses in this room? As many as there are things, you see.

And don't forget, any particular thing you pick, you know, the third hair in my eyebrow from the left, has itself infinite number of parts. Each one of those has its own emptiness. You only have to see one of them for 20 minutes to see your own enlightenment.

But you can't see one of them. You see, I mean, you're surrounded by billions of emptinesses. But they're like invisible to you, almost like a diamond, clear.

You see what I mean? And that's the other reason why it's a diamond. And the third reason I'll tell you when I come out of retreat.

Anyway. You have this obsession with diamonds. You realize during this 10 hours that all the scriptures are correct.

100% totally accurate, true. You see what I mean? You're a Buddhist.

You enjoy reading Buddhist books. You and I have read a lot of Buddhist books in English, other languages. But the actual direct perception that every single sentence in every one of those books is 100% true, is mind-boggling.

It's awesome. You see what I mean? There's 200,000 Tibetan scriptures in the world.

They're all totally true. Every sentence is true. All those things really exist.

And you confirm that in 20 minutes. Actually, you don't have to read them anymore after that. I mean, you can go ahead and read them, but you have understood.

Nagarjuna said you reduce the ocean of samsara to a water puddle and you step over. And that's it. You have understood in that 20 minutes the entire contents of Buddhist scripture.

And then you get this obsession with saving them. They must be saved. These are the instructions for millions of beings to get to where you've just gone.

You know what I mean? And you become obsessed with saving them. Because they're true.

And they are the path. And they really were. And you become aware at that moment that you must save them.

They must not die out from our world. And you become very adamant about that. And there's a lot of other stuff we won't go into much.

A lot of other realizations. You have more deep realizations in those 10 hours than in the last few thousand years. The power of seeing emptiness directly is such that you have more deep realizations in those few hours than you've had in thousands of lifetimes before.

That's how powerful emptiness is. By the way, you often have a direct experience of ultimate compassion at that moment. You perceive all living beings not directly.

You don't see everybody in Hong Kong, everybody in Hawaii, and everybody in Mexico. Not like that. But you have a direct, generalized perception of every living creature in the universe.

And you have a direct perception of the fact that you will spend the rest of your life devoted to them. And you will devote every waking hour of the rest of your seven lifetimes to serving these people. You won't do anything else but take care of these beings.

And you know that. And you have that direct perception. Which is the first...

This is a direct perception of bodhicitta. The texts say... Somebody in Bodhgaya came up to me and said, I heard it on that number...

And I said, yeah, the texts say you can have it earlier. And that may or may not be. But you definitely have it after you see emptiness directly.

If you're on a Mahayana track, you have that experience during that time. That's about it. There's a lot of other things, but those are the main ones.

Yeah, I'm sorry. Why does it only last five minutes? I have no idea.

20 to 30 minutes. I don't know why.

[Speaker 2]
You only experience it since one time?

[Speaker 1]
Technically, in the scriptures, you can experience it other times. On the fourth, during the next seven lifetimes, you experience it on other times. But typically, you might not experience it for another 10 or 20 years.

What has to be done after that, which we didn't get to yet, which is the next class, doesn't require, again, the direct perception.

[Speaker 2]
The projector and length screen metaphor, it's easy to understand how that would be the case with objects, but with a mental factor like consciousness, how is it projected?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, great question. That is the next thing in the sutra. That's after the break.

It's a great question. It is the next thing in the sutra. That's exactly what you said.

It's coming. Yeah, sorry.

[Speaker 2]
Geshe-la, you're the only one I've ever heard talk about diamonds in the way that you do. I've never heard any of the Lamas or Roshis read in any of the texts whenever people talk about having this obsession with diamonds. Can you give me the rare sources for this and why none of the other Lamas, and I have teachings from many very high Lamas on emptiness, have ever talked about this.

[Speaker 1]
It happens to every Arya. And that's why the Vajra is so important in Buddhism. That's why the diamond cutter is called the diamond cutter.

And I can't say more about it right now. It is universal for anyone who sees emptiness directly.

[Speaker 2]
You speak of it as though this happens early in the day. I don't know.

[Speaker 1]
That I can't tell you. I know that the whole Jetal Bhyasi would take about 10 hours. Maybe you just stay up later.

[Speaker 2]
I had read that, and I must be misunderstanding, that when you experience the direct reception of emptiness, that's when you get off cyclic existence. But you're saying that you perceive that you're going to have about seven more lifetimes.

[Speaker 1]
She said I heard somewhere that... I have to read the question for videos and stuff like that. She said I heard that that was the end of samsara, for example.

No, that's only the end of the third path. And in the fourth path, which is called the path of habituation, if you use tantra, you could finish it in one life. Typical is seven lifetimes.

It could be longer also, according to scripture. Seven lifetimes is very, very typical. You have 84,000 negative emotions.

Only three of them are finished when you see emptiness directly. I mean, that's the depressing... What are the three?

You can no longer doubt the Buddhist path. You saw your own enlightenment. No one, forever, could talk you out of Buddhism.

It's just impossible. You've confirmed enlightenment itself for yourself, and you know. I mean, you're just totally impervious to any other influence at all.

You've seen emptiness directly, and you know it. And you've seen your own enlightenment directly, and you know it. That's it.

So doubt is impossible after that. So that's one of the mental afflictions. The other primary one is an intellectual belief that the things around you are the way they look.

Like, when you come down out of seeing emptiness directly, I forgot to tell you the bad news. You go back to seeing things as self-existent. You must go back.

By coming down, you do go back. Coming down is going back to seeing things as self-existent. And then, it's almost like this depressing knowledge that now you're absolutely sure that you're seeing everything wrong.

You're still seeing everything wrong. But there's a big difference. What?

You know you're wrong. And I'm not kidding. By the way, that's the only meaning of illusion in Buddhism.

Everything else is just some kind of thing that people who didn't understand it were talking about it. And the instructions and the descriptions... I mean, if there are a couple hundred people here, if you went home tonight and wrote down what Geshe Michael said about seeing emptiness, how many versions would we have?

You know what I mean? That's exactly what has happened in many of the accounts. The Abhidharmakosha, for example, describes what happens during those realizations.

But that was 1,600 years ago. You know what I mean? And it's very hard to go back.

You can go back and reconstruct what really happened from the scripture. But it's difficult. It's really difficult.

So what I'm trying to say is that when you come back down, you know again that you're seeing everything wrong. But at least you know. You see what I mean?

And it takes seven lifetimes to remove the tendency to see things that way. And nirvana consists of removing that tendency. General definition of nirvana is...

I always get them to show off with the same definition. Now, nirvana is defined as removing your last mental affliction, your last negative emotion. The last one you remove is always the tendency to see things as self-existent.

So it takes seven lifetimes to remove the tendency to see things as self-existent. If you're on a Mahayana track, that's bodhisattva bhumi number eight. If you're on a Hinayana track, that's the fifth path.

Either way, that's your last negative emotion that you remove. And there's huge debates whether that's a negative emotion, and the higher schools say it is. And it's your last one.

But for seven lifetimes, you go around like a crazy man. Because things look self-existent, but they're not anymore. You know they're not.

So you removed your intellectual belief in self-existence permanently. That's mental affliction number two. So you only got rid of two so far out of 84,000.

The third one is a belief in wrong kinds of spiritual paths. And especially ones which are harmful to your body. You know, like whipping yourself, or fasting until you hurt yourself, or any kind of spiritual path which would involve self-abuse.

You realize that those are worthless. And those are the only three mental afflictions you remove when you see emptiness directly. Then it takes all that time to get rid of the rest.

Okay? Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
So, did she remove the intellectual belief in self-existence on your next life? Do you remember that?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. She said, on your next life, do you remember that? In this life, if someone came up to you and said, is that pillar self-existent?

You'd say, no. And then they'd say, have you seen that directly? You'd say, yes.

And they'd say, well, how do you see it right now? I'm seeing it as self-existent. You know what I mean?

That's what it means to remove the intellectual belief. Would you remember in your next life, not at the beginning, I mean, not in your childhood, but at a certain age, I'd say 12, 13, again you come back to where you were and you make progress on it. Okay?

Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
You talked about emptiness in terms of things, like thoughts. I'm wondering about the concept of emptiness in terms of an event.

[Speaker 1]
Beautiful question. It comes next, after the break. I promise.

Okay? No, really, that's the next thing in the sequence. Ma kye pa ma ka pa.

It's the next thing in the... It's a very great question. It's the next thing to talk about.

Okay, I think better we take a break. Okay? You know, what I described is...

Think about it sometimes. Okay? It's very, very important to think about it.

Your whole reason to be a Buddhist is to reach that 20 minutes. That will change you forever. Okay.

Okay. Somebody asked the question, I understand the thing with the pot, which is basically sukhi pumba, right? The skanda of your body.

Okay, but then somebody said, how do you describe that with your mind? How does your mind have emptiness? And then somebody else asked about events.

Can an event have emptiness? See, it's one thing to talk about a pot and realize that it's a result of some kind of perception. But what about events?

And what about your own mind? And this all ties in. We got really one more day of teaching tomorrow.

I'd rather plant a seed in your mind tonight, the deeper level of the sutra. Okay? We had that stovetop.

It's not getting any better. We had this guy looking at it. It's getting uglier.

Okay? And we had this thought in his mind of a pot. Okay, that's not getting much better.

And then he's overlaying that on this, a piece of shine and a little curve and a black rod. And he looks at that data, right? The eye can only pick up shapes and colors.

The eye is helpless. The eye is like a camera. Camera doesn't think, oh, we're taking a picture.

This guy doesn't look so good. I hope we don't have to take too many. The camera can't think like that.

The camera just opens the shutter and whatever is there in front of it, it records. And the same with your eye. The eye can only detect colors and shapes.

And then it passes it on to the brain. And the brain decides how to interpret it, how to organize that stuff. Now, the punchline, the whole point of the sutra, in your own life, is this.

Why did the guy choose to make a pot? You see what I mean? That was just some data.

And by the way, when you watch photos, I mean, there's these psychological studies where it watches the eye and the eye actually jumps around, you know, like every few seconds. The eye is going, your eye is actually, when I see a whole room full of people, my eye is actually going, picking up little indicators and then my mind is filling in a whole panorama of people. But if you even just hook up a wire to a guy's eye, and they go like this, and they're just jumping around and catching little indicators, and then your mind is filling in this beautiful room full of people.

But actually, technically, I can't see more than a few inches of anybody at one time. And then my mind is filling in the rest. Because, you know, it's like a really good computer that's like enhancing a picture which only consists of not enough dots, you know.

And then the computer is filling in the rest. You see what I mean? And I really, I can't see more than a few inches of colors and shapes here at one time.

And then my mind is filling in the rest. Now the big question becomes, how? You see, why did this guy's mind think, You know, that's the $64,000 question.

That's the real question you got to ask. And that's where we get into the following subject. You know, and those of you, this is my mantra, this is Jetson Kappa's mantra.

Karma and emptiness. Okay, why did Lord Buddha spend 25 and a half years teaching emptiness, and 25 and a half years teaching karma, morality, okay? Oh, and then he spent some time teaching tantra.

But anyway, okay. It's about 50-50 tantra and the rest, okay? But why does this person invent this thing called Vinaya?

Why is there this complicated moral structure? And at the same time, in the same moment, talking about emptiness, at some point they have to come together. At some point there must be a huge marriage of emptiness and karma.

And here's the punchline, okay? Why did that image come from those indicators? You know, why did it pop into this guy's mind to see a pot there?

Yeah, yeah. Previous instances of seeing their pot. Similar pot.

Okay, anyway. It comes from karma. Okay, it comes from the person's karma.

That's all. I mean, once we got to here on the fourth path, then you have to say, what's the application to my life? Okay, what's the application to my life?

The application is, you can control what you see on the stove. Okay? You can call the shots.

Human beings have wanted to do this since humanity was invented. You know? Human beings have wanted to control their own lives.

Human beings spend their entire lives trying to get things to happen the way they want them to happen. That's what you do for a living. Every person in this room is dedicated to the goal of learning how to make the things they want happen, right?

And your whole life has been a search for the key to make things happen the way you want. Basically, when you say escape from samsara, it's not some rebirth thing. It's like, could I learn to make things happen the way I want them to happen?

That's all. You know, is there a method by which anybody in this room could make exactly what they want to happen, happen? Okay?

And for that, you have to understand what made the pot come in the guy's head. Okay? It's karma.

It's karma. You know, emptiness requires karma. Karma requires emptiness.

Okay? If this pot existed on the stove, this self-existent pot, right, from its own side, then you can just kiss your life goodbye. You're going to get old.

You're going to die. You might as well just forget it. Okay?

If there's a pot there, on the stove, from its own side, existing at you, okay, existing at you, then you're dead. Then life is hopeless. You know?

Don't waste your Friday, Saturday nights here. Go out and, you know, you know, really, really, I mean, at least have some temporary pleasures. You know what I mean?

Because it's hopeless. You're going to die. If it's true that the pot is existing at you, then you're in trouble.

Okay? The fact is, it's not. It's an overlay or a projection coming from your mind.

Now, at this point, half the people in the room are thinking, cool, I'll just project differently tomorrow. You know what I mean? Like, all those people who irritate me, I'll project, you know, playboy girl, and they won't bother me anymore.

You know what I mean? I'll just project anything I want. And now I get it.

You know, I didn't understand before. They don't exist out there at me. I'm projecting.

So I'll just project something more pleasant than I was projecting last week. Go try next week. Okay?

It doesn't work. Okay? There's a very nasty thing about these projections.

They are forced on you. You don't have a choice. Okay?

Once you have planted a projection in your mind, then it will come up to your conscious mind and affect your reality. It'll call the shots. It'll create your reality.

And you will not have a choice. By the time the projection is coming out of your mind, it's too late. Okay?

I often say it's like trying to pull a tree out of the ground. You know? You have a choice of moving the seed or breaking the seed, and you don't act.

And you wait ten years, and then there's this huge tree, and then you decide to move it. You know? Then you decide to tear it out of the ground.

It's too late. Okay? It's too late.

You cannot affect your current reality. Forget it. You can't.

It's too late. Okay? Once the projections are coming out, once you see this room as normal people, it's too late.

You know, once you see your arm as flesh and blood, it's too late. Okay? It's too late to do anything about today's arm.

Once you've already got the flu, or diarrhea, or sick, or cancer, it's too late. Okay? You can't wait that long.

Okay? That's a projection that's already coming out. It's been forced on you.

You can't call it back. You can't, like, pull a tree out of the ground with one hand. It's too late.

Okay? You have to deal with the future. Okay?

You have to deal with the future. Alright? And the trick is, this is it.

Okay? Here's the Heart Sutra. Heart Sutra.

Here's the guts of the Heart Sutra. Nothing is happening for the reasons you thought it was. Okay?

Not only is the pot not a pot. Okay? Not only is the pot not what you thought it was.

Nothing in the world, nothing in your life, is happening for the reasons people tell you. Okay? Nothing is caused by what it appears to be caused by.

Nothing. Okay? This is what Tawa means.

This is what worldview means. Your whole samsaric worldview is 100% wrong. You know?

The things you think make other things happen have nothing to do with those things. What's an example? Somebody comes into the room.

They say, you're stupid. You know? And then you want to get rid of them.

People came and asked me during the break, we have a person in our Dharma group, we want to get rid of them. Okay? Sound familiar?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
You know, how do you get rid of them? I mean, they come up to me with a choice. A or B.

You know? A, do we kick them off the board? B, do we leave them on the board and poison their food or something?

You know what I mean? Okay? But the answer is, pungsumbha.

What's pungsumbha? Pungsumbha means a third logical option. Meaning, get this, okay?

The question is not, do you treat them nice? The question is not, you know, do you get them off this way or do you get them off this way? It has nothing to do with what happens.

Nothing. Okay? Take action A, take action B.

It doesn't matter. Because it has nothing to do with whether they stay. Nothing.

Okay? Your whole idea of what causes other things is totally, 100% wrong. You meet a person you don't like, there's only one cause for that.

Okay? If it existed like a pot on the stove, then you could discuss pushing it off the stove or kicking it off the stove. You know what I mean?

It's not the question. That thing's in your mind. That thing exists because of your mind.

It has nothing to do with that. You know? You don't get rid of this person through A or B.

You get rid of them through karma. And that's the only way to get rid of people. You get them off your board, I swear to God, in six weeks there'll be another one.

We'll come back. No, I swear. Okay?

Because you didn't remove the cause. Okay? They are a projection of your own mind.

Okay? They will come back. You can kick them off the board, or you can poison them.

Either one. But six months later, there'll be six weeks later, there'll be somebody else back there. Same person will come back in another form.

Okay? Because you didn't deal with the karma. They are a projection.

Okay? They are a projection. Stop manipulating things externally.

It's ignorance. It doesn't work. It has nothing to do with that.

Okay? You don't like the people around you, there's only one thing you can do. What?

Change your own goddamn karma. Okay? That's your problem.

It's not some noble thought. Okay? It's not like, oh, love your enemies.

You know? It's not the thing. You literally create them.

And if you don't like them, then fix it. And the only way to fix it is to fix your own mind. You see what I mean?

It has nothing to do with... There is no external reality of those people. It doesn't exist.

They are over here. You don't like... What are you going to do?

Smash this thing up here? You can smash this one. Okay?

You can just jump on that one and stomp it and it'll be flat. Right? What's it do to this one?

You know? Nothing.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
I mean... No, no. Your whole idea, your whole culture, your entire culture is 100% wrong.

Okay? About how things work. It has nothing to do with that.

Fix this one. Okay? Because that's the only reality there is to the pot.

Okay? You can't remove the pot by... You know, by jumping on it and stomping on it or something like that.

That's nothing to do with it. You have to manipulate your own karma. Okay?

Which is two parts to that. Okay? Get rid of your old bad karma and collect a lot of new karma.

That's all. Do purification. Really smart, four powers, fire, puja thing.

If you don't know how to do it, I'm going to talk to one of the older students here. Get rid of your old karmic seeds. Number two, keep your book, a diary, throughout the day, every two hours, you check your next Buddhist vow.

And then... And that's how you manipulate your reality. You can have anything you want.

You can have your cake and eat it too. Tantra is the science of successfully manipulating your reality with your thoughts. Okay?

You don't have to do anything else. You can sit at home and do this stuff. You can sit on the couch and do this stuff.

You know what I mean? It has nothing to do with external manipulation of things. Nothing.

Because that doesn't work. Because they don't exist. Those things just don't exist.

You manipulate your own attitudes. You clean up your own heart. And the world follows.

Because the world is a creation of your own mind. You see what I mean? It's extraordinary.

Because the pot that you see here is an overlay of a mental image that's dictated by your past deeds. You can... You can actually redesign your reality.

Okay? Shinkopa they said in the Diamond Cutter Sutra. What was it?

Any bodhisattva who comes up and says I'm going to manipulate my reality into a Buddha paradise in the next six months. What did Lord Buddha say? Is a liar.

Okay? He said that in the Diamond Cutter Sutra. Anybody who thinks that through attitude manipulation they can create a Buddha paradise they're a goddamn liar.

Sorry. That's what Lord Buddha said. What he meant was you can do it but not self-existently.

Okay? Once you understand that just to follow a certain code of behavior called bodhisattva vows pratimoksha vows and tantric vows can actually it changes your whole reality. Your reality is not coming through natural resources.

It has not been produced by factories. The economy is not running on Greenspan's command. Nothing has anything to do with Clinton.

Okay? Nothing. Okay?

No. Okay? Nothing.

Nothing. Your entire world that you perceive on a national level community level personal level family level relationship level is only created by your own mind. And you have total authority over that.

No one can tell you anything. It's very amazing. You can because things are created by this power because things exist this way because of dependent origination you call the shots.

You can make anything you want happen. And once you get a taste of it you know, I'm sitting here describing the idea that nothing causes anything else. Okay?

Just forget it. Okay? You want to know whether to deal with this person by kicking them off the board or suggesting they stay home or poisoning them none of the above.

You change your mind. Or this person will come back in six months anyway. Okay?

You have to change your mind. Okay? What's wrong with this person?

They're very divisive thinking. They talk very divisively. They cause division in our group.

They gossip a lot. Oh, you don't like people around you being divisive? How do you fix that?

Do you fire them? Clean out your own karma for divisiveness. Yeah.

Yeah, work actively to bring people together. And God... Oops, sorry.

And it's so cool. It's so cool. This person will change within six months.

This person will either decide to leave on their own or they will change within six months. And that's how you get people off your board. Okay?

It's very interesting. If you have a person on the board who's divisive, gossipy, unpleasant, then be extremely careful with your own tendencies towards that. And the karma of that is that they will be gone in six months.

Okay? It's unbelievable. You see what I mean?

Nothing has anything to do with external causation. No two things in the world cause each other. Forget it.

Okay? It's not true. It doesn't work.

Everything is produced by your own mind. Okay? And so, now we can go back to the sutra.

Okay? Then it says, We finish that. It means, everything is emptiness.

It means, everything that appears to you during the direct perception of emptiness is emptiness. Okay? We finish that.

Chen yi me pa ma ge pa ma ga pa. Chen yi me pa means, nothing is the way it is by itself. Nothing.

What do they say in the sutra? Nothing has any characteristics. Okay?

What characteristics are we talking about? Does this have any characteristic of being a pen? Is it a pen or not?

Yes. So it must have a characteristic of being a pen. It works as a pen, right?

Okay. Now, what Lord Buddha should have said, from its own side? No.

No. You make it a pen. Prove it.

They're chewing on it. Okay? They cannot perceive it as a pen.

Okay? They cannot conceive of it as a pen. Okay.

Who's right? The human or the dog? Is the dog ruining a perfectly good pen?

Or has the human been wrongly denying a perfectly good toy to the dog? You see what I mean? Who's right?

Who's right? They're both right. They're both right.

They truly are right. Okay? Don't be the chauvinist, human chauvinist.

You know what I mean? You're ruining a pen. No.

You're ruining a good play toy by standing up there and waving it around on the table. You know? Okay?

No. And they truly perceive it that way because of their past lives. They truly perceive it that way.

Both are pramana. Both are tsema. Both are valid perception.

Notice we didn't say correct. Who's correct? Nobody.

They're both valid. Okay? In a dog's world, it's a good thing to chew on.

In a human's world, it's a good thing to write with. Valid. That's why Buddha is so big on valid perception.

Pramana. They're both having a valid perception for their world. They're both...

Okay. So, sen yi me pa means nothing has any... There is no penness here.

Okay? You're putting the penness on it. Okay?

There is no penness here. You're laying that trip on this poor cylinder. Okay?

And there's no dog toy here either. But there's no characteristic. Okay?

That's one of the characteristics they're talking about here. There's a second characteristic they're talking about. It's impermanence.

The fact that it's a working thing. The fact that it's a positive thing. The fact that it's a physical thing.

You see, it's more general characteristics. Even those, you are laying on this poor thing. The fact that it's a cylinder.

Okay? Now, on this, humans and dogs can agree, right? Can they?

Yeah. I mean, both are seeing a cylinder. Am I right?

What about blind people? No, I don't. Without touching it.

The shape of the cylinder. Are they having a valid perception that it doesn't have the shape of a cylinder? Yeah.

For them. Don't be a seeing chauvinist. You see what I mean?

Because a blind person doesn't have the karma to perceive it visually as a cylinder. And it's not a cylinder for them. Okay?

Get used to it. Even its cylindricalness isn't a quality of it. Okay?

Even its blackness is not a quality of it. Okay? So get used to that.

It doesn't have its specific characteristics of being a pen. And it doesn't have its more general characteristics of being a cylinder or black or anything else. From its own side.

You're also creating that. You're also making it that way. Your karma is making it that way.

Okay? Two minutes after you die, it's not a cylinder for you anymore. Okay?

Because you're dead. You don't have eyes to see it. You can't see it anymore.

Okay? So that's what Lord Buddha means when he says sen yi me pa. Sen yi me pa means it doesn't have any characteristics.

Okay? Ma ke pa ma ga pa. This is what people asked about earlier.

Was this thing produced by a factory? Yes.

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Your karma produced. Your karma produced a factory to make it.

How's that? It doesn't come from a factory. Get used to that.

When it runs out... Now get this. This is one of the most important ones.

When this thing runs out of ink, did it run out of ink? No. No.

Your karma ran out. Your karma... Poor old karma got tired and slowed down and wore out.

And then it ran out of ink. Okay? It doesn't externally run out of ink.

Get used to that idea. That's a lie. You don't put chemicals together and wrap it better and it doesn't run out of ink anymore.

It has nothing to do with whether it runs out of ink. The only thing that determines whether this runs out of ink is one thing. Is your karma going to stick it out or not?

You see what I mean? And when your karma gets tired and when your karma wears out, this runs out of ink, you die. Okay?

It's the same thing. Your arm doesn't stop moving on its own. Your life energy doesn't seep away over the length of your life on its own.

Your karma wears out. Okay? Nothing happening out there.

I saw a National Geographic at Don Brown's house and I was petting... What's her name?

[Speaker 2]
Yeshe.

[Speaker 1]
Yeshe. And we was reading National Geographic late at night because I never get to read them. And I saw this thing on aging.

You know, National Geographic on aging. And there's pull-out you know, of the body, human body, you know. And it was all stripped off and they had little arrows going to all the parts of your body and it said this is how your brain gets old, this is how your nose gets old, this is how your ears get old, this is how your pancreas gets old, this is why your bones dry out.

And then there was a little footnote at the bottom and it said we don't know why. It was really amazing. You check it out.

You know, go see. It was this horrible depressing description of and then there was a thing at the bottom like we don't know why it happens faster in some people and slower in other people and we don't know why. We don't know, we understand how sorry, it happens.

We can describe how it happens but we don't know why it happens. I mean, why after 70 years suddenly this thing decides to get old? You know, I mean, why does it take that long?

Why doesn't it get old after 6 weeks? You see, I mean, why does death happen at all? So, the next part of the scripture is ma kye pa ma ga pa.

I don't know, the English says no starting, no beginning. Nothing ever begins, nothing ever ends. It refers to pens running out of ink.

It refers to your body stopping. Okay? It does not happen externally.

If it did, we're dead meat. Okay? Since it doesn't, then what?

You know, you can become a tantric deity and you don't have to die. All these things are reversible. Okay?

Because you're empty. Thank God you're empty. Praise the Lord.

You know, that you're empty. You know what I mean? If you weren't empty, you'd be in trouble.

Because you're empty, we have a chance. Okay? You just change your karma.

And, and then you don't have to die. Then, then there's supposed to be this thing come in your mind, I never read in Time magazine that nobody ever didn't die. You know, I, I never read anything.

I'm sure there would have been an article. If, if someone had read if someone had not died, if someone had suddenly reversed and become a 16-year-old girl, you know, permanently, you know, like a permanent Barbie, you know, and, you know, I'm sure there would have been an, at least there would have been a little article somewhere in, in Time, you know. No, I mean, it would have been in a reputable newspaper, okay?

It would have been in the New York Times or something. There, there must have been an article. What are you talking about?

either you're describing something that's so difficult that no one ever has pulled it off. You know, maybe Moses disappeared. Maybe he didn't.

So, either you're describing something which is so extraordinary difficult that it's almost beyond, you know, it's almost hopeless anyway. Or, could there be another reason why you didn't read this article? You don't have the karma to read that article.

You see what I mean? It's one thing to walk on water. It's one thing to have the karma to walk on water, and you can.

One of the things you see when you see emptiness is that you could walk on water, if you practiced, okay? That it's possible. But, but it's a very similar karma to be able to watch someone walk on water.

You see what I mean? To walk on water takes a hell of a lot of karma. To be there when somebody walks on water and watch them walk across water takes almost that much karma.

You see what I mean? So to be, to even meet one of the people who had reached the state where they don't have to die anymore would require almost that much karma. And I'm not kidding.

I'm not just making dharma excuses for why Time Magazine missed this one. I'm not, I'm not making excuses for Buddhism. You don't have the karma to meet those people.

And you don't have the karma to see those people. And in fact, your karma would dictate that, that you would see them as normal people, okay? Which one are they, by the way?

Are they normal people? Or are they Tantric deities? Both.

Valid perception. Are you wrong? No.

Which would you rather see? You see what I mean? Would you rather have a pen or a dog?

Would you rather have two legs or four? I mean, you know, normally. It's up to you.

You see what I mean? Both are valid perceptions. You could have seen a...

I always think of could have had a V8, you know? Like, you could have seen a Tantric deity. If you had kept your book.

If you had kept your tundra, your six-session yoga. If you had kept your vows very, very, very sweetly. By now, you'd be starting to have run-ins, close encounters with deities.

You know? And it wouldn't be some kind of inquirer thing or something like that. You would actually be seeing them.

Okay? Then you might go to the New York Times and say, you know, I met Vajrayogini. They're working as a waitress in this restaurant on 6th Street.

And I'd say, yeah, okay, man. And they'd say, no, no, come with me to the restaurant. You'll see, you know.

Maybe you can talk about the coming. And then, you know, the waitress would say, would you like six things to eat today? Meaning six star of Vajrayogini, right?

And you'd say, see, she said six. You know? No, and the guy would say, so what?

You know, I don't get it. You know what I mean? And that's a...

really, your whole life would be like that. You'd be swearing that, you know, did you see that? She said six, you know.

And the guy's like, yeah, she could have said five too. Oh, five! You know?

No, really. Really, like that. And then they would just call you naive or crazy or silly.

And then you'd be in Vajrayogini's paradise. Okay? And you would seem silly to them.

They would have a pramana or a correct, valid perception that you seem silly. And you would have a valid perception of having met Vajrayogini that day. And that's why the New York Times hasn't reported it yet.

No, really. Okay? And because of the pen thing, because this could be different objects.

You know, there's this dog's league and they are objecting to people who call these pens. They say, we never saw a pen. No, really.

The Dog Times magazine never called those a pen. This rumor that you could write with dog toys is naive. You know?

No, I'm not kidding. You see? I'm not kidding.

But you insist that people who talk like that are crazy. You know? It's real.

I mean, okay? It's just a different way of seeing things, right? And that's only possible if they are empty.

Okay? So, Maikepa Magarpa in the Sutra, things don't start and things don't end. Meaning, externally.

Just forget it. There's no such thing. If you were born externally, if you're going to die externally, then you should really just try to make a decent amount of money and invest it wisely in pleasure seeking.

You know? Very selective, intelligent pleasure seeking. You know?

And we've done that. Some of us have done that. But that's not true.

Things don't exist externally. Things don't start. Things don't stop.

Maikepa Magarpa. Thima mepa, thima dantawa. Okay?

Thima mepa means things don't have impurity. Thima dantawa means in the Sutra, where the modern Tibetan versions are wrong. Okay?

They left the word out. Okay? So, it's in the ancient version that you have here.

It should say thima mepa, thima dantawa mepa. Write the version you have, or the version that we memorize in the monastery that all Tibetan monks recite, is missing a word. Okay?

Which says, not. Okay? It says, thima mepa, thima dantawa mepa is the correct reading.

And that's the ancient one you have here. It's from the Dergye edition of Kanya. But the way it's recited in the monasteries is thima mepa, thima dantawa.

Thima mepa, thima dantawa. The modern recitation means things don't have impurity. Things are free of impurity.

Okay? Then the ancient reading is different. The ancient reading is thima mepa, things don't have impurity.

Thima dantawa mepa means and things don't get pure either. Okay? Things aren't impure.

And things don't get pure either. And that makes more sense. Why?

What's he saying? Yeah. Without your karma running it.

Yeah. From its own side, samsara is not going to continue to be screwed up. And from its own side, samsara is not going to straighten itself out.

Okay? Things are not impure. And things don't get pure.

Meaning from their own side. Okay? How are they going to get pure?

You keep your book. You keep your vows. And don't imagine it's going to happen any other way.

It cannot. Okay? The single requirement of every anuttara yoga initiation, track your vows.

Two hours. Every two to two and a half hours, you check your vows. Because there is no other way that this thing will work.

Okay? It's impossible. Being a vaguely nice guy doesn't cut it.

Okay? When you feel like it. Okay?

When you had enough hot chocolate in the morning. Okay? It just doesn't cut it.

Your natural instincts, you know, your natural nice guy-ness doesn't cut it. It wears out the minute you need something bad. It just goes away.

You have to bring yourself under the strict guidance of vows. And you have to honor them and keep them. Otherwise it's just impossible.

You can get all the holy initiations you want. They can ring all the bells. They can pour water on your head.

They can say all this stuff that you don't know what the heck you're talking about. They can wear any kind of weird headdress. You know, they can be a friend of His Holiness, personal friend of His Holiness on the poster.

You know, all of that stuff. It has absolutely no lasting effect on you. You, personally, have to change your moment-to-moment behavior in this small thing called your immediate world.

Okay? Unfortunately, it has to take place with your family and with your immediate workers. Okay?

I mean, all sentient beings would be a lot easier. Okay? But, you know, the person you live with, the people you work with, the people in your Dharma center, okay, those are really hard.

You know, all sentient beings would be a lot easier. Unfortunately, whether or not you get the karma to see your body turn into light depends only on how you treat the people right around you. You know what I mean?

It's much more difficult. Okay? You have to keep your vows on a moment-to-moment, minor event basis.

You don't get a chance to be burnt at the stake every couple of weeks. You don't get a chance to push someone out of the way of a moving car. You know, you don't get a board, a Dharma board, what do you call it, inquisition, asking you, do you really believe in Jatakarpa?

You know, it's not going to happen. You know, whether or not you see the people around you, whether or not you get this little he-raised-it thing in the guy's head of tantric deities around you depends solely on minor kindnesses, constant awareness and kindness and service of touching your vows every two or three hours. Just checking them is enough to trigger the process.

Okay? You are purposely changing your reality not by moving your house, dumping your old boyfriend, getting a better job, making more money, going to the gym, not eating ice cream, you know, eating ice cream. Okay?

It's not none of the above. It has nothing to do with it. Okay?

It's only whether you keep your vows, which is mainly whether you keep a happy attitude or not and a kind attitude to other people. That creates your reality. That's the only thing that will affect your health.

And then there's a tantric thing. I mean, it's really, really amazing. As you start to keep your vows better and better and as the karma starts to kick in, the channels in your body change.

The very tiny pathways along which spiritual energy passes through your body start to change. The passage of that energy through your body begins to change and your body starts unaging. Okay?

Very noticeably. And it's amazing. Okay?

And then you just slowly go into a process which ends in a tantric deity's body of light. And it's quite clear in the scriptures. The process is quite clear.

The steps to take are quite clear. How to do it, how to pull it off, which visualizations to do. It's all very, very beautifully set out by Lord Buddha in the tantras.

So after you finish studying emptiness carefully, then you have to find a really good tantric teacher and get going on that. You see what I mean? Tantra is not a ringing bell at the right time in the sadhana.

It's not like long, boring ceremonies. It's not reciting something in a language that you don't know year after year while you're thinking about something else. It's a very exciting, real, beautiful books of instructions which really work.

And you can actually pull it off. And you just... You know, I'm looking forward to that in America.

I think it will be really exciting to see tantra happen among people who understand emptiness clearly. You know what I mean? Who are keeping their vows very, very strictly, happily, because they want to turn into Tara.

You know what I mean? And they understand how they will turn into Tara. And on the basis of that understanding, they keep their tantric vows.

Like they spend all day dreaming about keeping their tantric vows. I have this fantasy, you know, that if you really understood this stuff about emptiness, and someone gave you tantric vows, you'd be up all night long. You'd be under the covers with your vows with a flashlight.

You know, oh man, you know, look at how you change. You know, that's going to make me Tara, you know. You know.

And I had a guy in New Jersey, he said, you mean my body's going to change into a Buddhist body? I said, yeah. He says, I'm not interested.

You know, and I said, why? He says, I don't like that big bump on his head, you know. And I have to agree, you know.

And what you have to realize about how this stuff works is that you have certain predilections in your mind right now. Like every culture, every family, every, like your own physical background, cultural background, when you become a tantric deity, you will become the most exquisite thing that you can imagine, you know. And it's not going to be the same for me as it is for you.

Like, I have my vision of what I'm going to be like, right? Based on my own background, based on my own childhood, my own past lives, you know, all my karmic seeds in my mind If you ask me what's the most beautiful thing in the world, I have a certain vision of it, you know. And it won't be the same as most other people's.

You see, I mean, you become the most exquisite thing that you can imagine, and more. You see what I mean? So you don't have to worry about the bump thing.

All right? The bump thing is a fallacy. Okay?

You will be the most exquisite physically thing you can imagine. Mentally, you will be Mother Teresa, Dalai Lama, Jesus, Moses, everybody else dumped into one incredible mind, you know. So just once in a while sit in your bed at night, or I do it when I wake up in the morning.

This is actually a caring practice, right? Just imagine what you're going to be like, you know, and say, you know, try to get it straight in your mind what you'd like to, like close your eyes and imagine that you're already like that. You see what I mean?

And how you're going to look, and how you're going to think. And that is a tantric practice. That is a cause for making that happen.

Okay? Because the thing exists in your mind. Because the thing will be a projection of your own mind.

So get your mind used to it. You know, like, like start thinking of yourself that way from time to time. You know, when you wake up in the morning, I do this whole half hour practice before I get out of bed, you know.

I like it, you know. It's like, I just sit there and imagine all this cool stuff, you know. And, you know, I do a death meditation.

You know, like I'm going to die at six o'clock today. Now what would I like to do? Then half the stuff I was supposed to do, I cancel.

You know what I mean? Like all the things I didn't really want to do that didn't have any direct relation to my enlightenment, yeah, I just cancel them. You know, already I'm halfway through the day, you know.

And then, and then get out of bed. And then slowly it starts to change. Okay?

But you have to keep your vows. This is why vows work, because of the karma. So, markepa magapa, tima mepa, tima lam dewa, tiwa mepa, kama mepa, and then we're done tonight.

Tiwa mepa, kama mepa. And that finishes the path of seeing. Third milestone.

Tiwa mepa, kama mepa. Tiwa mepa means things don't get less. Kama mepa means things don't become fulfilled.

I forget how you translate it. How is it? Nothing ever becomes more.

Nothing ever gets less. Nothing ever gets less and nothing ever becomes more. Okay?

What that means is nothing ever becomes less. Nothing ever gets less is a reference to your negative qualities. Okay?

Your anger. Your anxiety. Okay?

By the way, what's the karma for anger? You see, you have a pot karma that makes a pot look like a pot. And then you have a dog karma that makes this cylinder look like something to chew on.

Then you have a human karma that makes it look like something to The right way. What is it that creates a karma to see anger in your own mind? Yeah, previous anger.

Previous anger. Somebody came to me during the break and said, I have a problem with anger. How can I overcome anger?

Nagarjuna said there's band-aid methods and there's ultimate methods. Band-aid methods are what? Oh, think of the enemy as your friend.

Think about how bad anger is. Think about how upset you get when you get angry, you know, etc. And then halfway through his book, Arya Nagarjuna says, but that's not how to fix it.

You have to understand emptiness, okay? You have to understand emptiness. Some guy's coming up and yelling at you in your face.

Why? It's a couple of spheres and four sticks yelling at you. It's just a bunch of decibels and consonants and vowels.

That's all. Your ear can't, your eye can't see an enemy. That's your mind, okay?

Your eye is picking up fast motion, redness. You know, your ear is picking up decibels and consonants and vowels in a certain order, but it can't interpret those things, you see what I mean? Your mind is doing that.

Your karma is doing that. And your karma makes you hear somebody angry at you, okay? If you don't like it, what?

Which of the above? Yell back at them. Don't yell back at them.

Slam the door. Don't slam the door. Which one?

None of the above, okay? Stop being an angry person yourself, period. And slowly you won't see these people anymore.

Master Shantideva in the Patience chapter says, kiss them goodbye. You know, go to all the people. Once you've understood emptiness, which is where he teaches emptiness, not the 9th chapter.

People can either try to be patient with crap or you can take away the crap. You know what I mean? Wear shoes or cover the world with leather.

You know what I mean? You know what I mean? He says, give away the crap and you don't have to be a patient person, okay?

And he said, just stop being angry because that's what creates these people. And by the way, he says, at the end, go to them and do two things. Thank them for your strategic alliance.

You provided the object to get irritated at. I provided the patience. I'm so grateful to you.

And I just wanted to say goodbye before you disappear from my life. He says that. He says that.

Because I'm going to stop being angry at you now. Because why? Why am I going to not get angry at you anymore?

Because I hate you. I don't want to see you anymore. No, really.

I detest you so much that I'm going to love you. Because it's the best way to get rid of you. And I will maintain my compassion and my patience with you and the karma to see you as an angry person will wear out like the ink in a pen and you'll just go away.

And it works, OK? I'm talking corporate life, 800 people in my company, 100 people on my floor. After like a couple years of this, I went there again last week.

I've been gone for two years. I can't get these people off of me. You know, it's like going back to your high school and everyone's like, you know, can I come to your house?

My kid wants to be a monk. Three people handed me hundred dollar bills in the first few seconds. It was just like that.

Oh, here's your temple. No, I don't want it. No, no, take it.

It was a big fight, you know, and really, no, the whole department will suddenly change. You won't be able to find a single person that irritates you. It's amazing.

It works. I didn't fire anybody. I didn't shoot anybody.

I didn't even yell at anybody. I didn't correct anybody. I just fixed my own karma.

Because they don't come from the outside, they come from you. They are projection. Nothing ever gets less means negative things in your life don't get less, on their own.

Nothing ever becomes more. Your positive Buddha-like qualities, meaning, Christy, what's her name? Turlington's body, or Mahatma Gandhi's mind, doesn't happen on its own.

You make it happen. Somebody asked about consciousness. When you become an arhat, what happens?

You reach nirvana. What is that? You don't have a single negative emotion again, impossible.

Okay, anger's okay, jealousy's okay, negative desire is fine, but we're talking even cooler, not the single slightest irritation at another person, not the slightest anxiety possible in your heart, not the single slightest low self-esteem, not being sure of yourself, any kind of negative feeling, impossible, you can't have it anymore, okay, when you reach nirvana. Why? Because your mind is just like the pot, you're getting indications of thoughts in your mind, and your mind is incapable of looking black and the shine of the pot, you see what I mean?

And your mind no longer grasps onto it and organizes it into a feeling of irritation or anxiety or anger or anything else, you can't do it anymore, your karma is also running how you feel your own mind, you see, didn't it ever occur to you that there's two people in your head? One is listening and

[Speaker 2]
one is talking,

[Speaker 1]
okay, when you clean up your karma by keeping your vows, you fix the talker, you never have to hear that person say anything unpleasant again, it's amazing, you see, you're not the person talking, they happen a minute before you do, you're always a millisecond behind, I mean, some people further, but,

[Speaker 2]
okay,

[Speaker 1]
no, you have the karma to hear your own thoughts as only these most pleasant, beautiful things, okay, by the way, you're hearing the same pieces of thoughts that you're used to hear, but your karma is organizing them differently, okay, so mentally also, your reality is fixed, and that's how you become a Buddha.

Okay, we'll stop there, we gotta go to the fourth path tomorrow, okay, we finish the direct perception of emptiness, that part of the sutra marks the end of the path of seeing, page four begins the path of habituation, okay, again, emphasize that this is one whole road map for your spiritual life, okay, all right, here we go, I'll give you another homework, you get up, when you wake up, don't get out of bed, lay there, and do the Mahatma, I would like to think like Mahatma Gandhi and look like the most beautiful thing you can imagine, for yourself, okay, okay, replacing homework number three, and the graders have to go to each person's house, and make sure they don't get up, okay, you ready?

[Speaker 2]
Okay, here we go, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 54, 55, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 78, 84, 94,