Серия ежедневной практики, курс 08 — Сутра сердца: медитация на пустоту (1998, Годстоу), занятие 5

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

[Speaker 1]
All suffering of a creature in this realm is directly brought about by their belief that something that doesn't even exist and which could never exist is here and and that so that You know that becomes important that thing which never existed never could exist and doesn't exist Becomes crucial because I'm tired of You know my life going up and down. I'm just tired of it You know if there's some way to stop it. I would appreciate it.

You know I don't want to lose all my friends I love all of you. I Want to stay with those people I? Want all the good stuff, and I don't want any of the bad stuff is the is it possible.

You know is it possible and And it all boils down to that that that also becomes crucial to understand an object, so Emptiness is the absence of that thing When I move my eyes from left to right in this room It's a lot of positive things it cannot be the case that emptiness is what I see And it cannot be the case that what I see is emptiness And it cannot be the case that what I see is nothing other than emptiness And it can't be the case that emptiness is nothing other than what I see the Buddha must be speaking figuratively, okay? So you can cancel all those weird teachings that say that Emptiness is some kind of black hole in the side of your head Or some ineffable mystical weird state that you know if you get lucky and you're Walking in a nice garden you might see it.

You know or something like that. It's not that at all okay No such thing It can't be what you see Because that's positive thing. That's the first thing to say so there has to be a Something else you must be saying something else, okay?

What he's saying is that In Zajic Topatade, okay in Zajic Topatade we studied. It was not a big subject, but we studied it and the idea is Zajic means same stuff, okay, Zajic means same stuff Dhopa means that idea of the opposite of all of the thing is not Okay, Dhopa means for example Sukhmayambalai Lofa The opposite of all that I am NOT Is is me you see I mean if you take everything that's not Michael Roach, and you reverse it You get Michael Roach. It's Picasso's theory of painting I forget who it was but anyway by by arranging the spaces properly you define the figure You know You don't paint the figure you paint all the background and thereby create the figure.

You know I have one like that I was just thinking of that That's a that's our CD-ROM cover or something like that But you see the This one is the reject okay, but the the flame in the middle is defined By the absence of what's around it you see what I mean. That's all it's that idea. That's called a Dhopa Okay, and in the in the logic schools.

That's how you perceive all things your mind cancels everything. That's not the The object and that's called a Dhopa, so what are we getting to Zajic means same stuff essentially the same stuff Dhopa today means different identity or a different version of the same stuff And that's a very important concept to understand Rinpoche refers to all American fast food As a Zajic and Dhopa today, okay, it's all the same crap In a different format you know I mean like it's the same sugar and the same flour and the same salt and the same food kind Exactly You know when you go into a 7-eleven you try to find some real food. It's like impossible.

It's all the same It's exactly the same materials with different food coloring and different processing in different form in different versions of the same crap and That's a Zajic Dhopa today. Okay. It means they're all the same junk exactly salt sugar flour Ribble flavor FDA approved food coloring and But it's all a different version of the same stuff, okay, and it's important to think of that.

That's Zajic Dhopa today That's what Zajic Dhopa today means If you think about it You can't say that the emptiness of this and it are the same thing you cannot say that they are not chik There's a difference between jik, chik and Zajic Okay, big difference. Okay, those of you who studied logic you're completely comfortable with what I'm saying, right? There's a difference big difference between chik and Zajic chik means Okay These two are not Chik okay, they are not the same thing.

There's two different things. Okay, they're today. There's two different things They're not chik.

They're not one thing because I got two hands and I'm You know one's over here and one's over here. So they're not chik. They're not one and the same But they are Zajic, right?

It's the same stuff Zajic Dhopa today. This is paper Mixed up in a certain format and this is paper mixed up in a different format. Are they one in the same?

No Are they Zajic? Are they the same stuff? Yes.

Are they different expressions or different versions of the same stuff? Yes, they're Zajic Dhopa today. Choneyed Lama makes a very compelling argument here about emptiness and dependent origination Okay, and that's the whole point and you know Then lights will go off in your head and you'll understand the whole Heart Sutra and we can just Go swimming tomorrow The fact that nothing in this room Exists number two way, okay The fact that nothing in this room really is coming from its own side Which is its emptiness Okay, and the fact that everything in this room is number three It is my mind Forcing me to organize sense data in a certain way because of the influence of karma Whose karma my karma in my mind is making me see things a certain way Those are Zajic Dhopa today, those are two versions of the same reality It's the same fast food in two different versions one happens to be positive one happens to be negative I'll say it again, okay The fact that nothing in this room That you can lay your eyes on is coming from its own side is the emptiness of the colors and shapes in this room the fact that everything in this room that I'm forced to see everything in this room a Certain way because of my past karma and and the effect of that karma on my mind. It's dependent origination It's just another expression of the same reality. Okay, one is positive one is negative One is Twinkies and one is Hostess cupcakes Okay, you know one is black and one is white Okay, I mean one is totally black and one is white one is negative one is positive, but it's Zajic Dhopa today It's the same old stuff.

It's different configurations of the same raw material and That's what the Buddha meant. God bless him, you know when he said You know, I mean now that's the That's the holiest thing a person can say probably Except for I love my Lama Something like that So that's what he's saying, okay suitable means The things around you are empty number two. Just remember number two.

They are not number two They don't exist from their own side. That's their emptiness What are they don't believe so They are what your karma forces you to see So who cares about all this philosophy I was hoping to straighten my life out You just gave me more complicated stuff to worry about The implications are immense the implications are life-saving If you can find out the best way to collect powerful karma your whole reality will automatically change You can reach a Buddha paradise in this life.

No problem Okay, that's the Whole point That's why he's teaching it so the implications are Are the most important in your life? soup don't bow don't mean you soon. So everything you see Doesn't come from its own side Don't mean you soon.

So it's all coming from your mind. Okay, and you can fix it Even that event you call death and even that event you call aging and if you practice well enough You don't have to go through either one We'll get to a part later people say I'm being extreme They say don't tell Americans that you get there at their hopes up and then they have to go to the doctor the next week And you know and it's unfair, you know, it's a lot harder than that It's not harder than that and I'm not just I'm not unfairly raising your hopes. It's exactly that and Later on in this sutra that the Buddha will say Gosh, you sip it bought a young man.

Don't you can stop your death and you can stop your aging and don't say that Michael Roach is making it up or trying to raise your hopes or something like that. It's in the heart sutra You know, it's you know, it's not I'm not just trying to You know be heavy or something like that. If the whole point of Buddhism is that It's that and that's why the heart sutra goes down to that We didn't get there yet, but You know, if I claim that I'm teaching classes to reach that it's not a claim, you know, it's a it's a purpose of having a class It's what you want out of your religion So we'll get there.

All right, so that now you understand the four applications Sutan ball don't miss it. So so so first one is talking about the emptiness of this room that it's not what you thought It's not coming from its own side If it was coming from its own side, we're dead ducks You see the Buddha said that Jetsun Kappa said that if things are coming from their own side, we're in trouble You can't change them. You know, you got to die.

You must have gone have but one life to live Dominating soul means hey look the real way it is is that it's coming from you. Okay, it's coming from your mind There is data out there in a way and and Your past karma is forcing you to interpret it in a certain way if you could Straighten out your life if you could keep your vows carefully Checking them constantly Then your reality would change, you know, you can have anything you dream up and and when you get good at it You get confirmation and it's very sweet and you get into it, you know, like hey, man I could get rid of that supervisor at work if I just be nice to her It becomes an art form, you know, you go after this person Okay, I'm gonna change them either.

I'll change them into the sweetest person in the office or or they'll get transferred And I will accomplish that by being compassionate and understanding towards them and it works It's just so unnatural that you don't ever get the chance to try it. You never really seriously test it If you did you could get rid of all those people and be in a Buddha paradise They would change the people you think are the most hopeless the people that irritate you and That you imagine could never ever change will change and you have to love them It's very profound. So anyway, so they don't many shimmy and don't mean they can't sushi enough then he goes on to say It's nothing other than that Emptiness is nothing other than what you see and what you see is nothing other than that That that second the second two.

Okay, so let don't many shimmy and don't mean they can't sushi. I mean, oh, why does he throw that in? Why didn't he just say Everything you see is empty and what you everything you see is Determined by your your former karma, you know what you did before.

Why didn't he leave it at that? Then why does he push it? Why does he say look?

What you see is nothing other than emptiness and emptiness is nothing other than what you see No, why does he go ahead and push it? He's trying to stress The dope that the Zaychik part the part that they are really different versions of the same fast food Okay, he's trying to stress That they are truly different manifestations of the same essential material. Okay And then he gives an example Choney Lama gives an example and he says If you go out at night on this lake on this pond, you know, and it's a quiet night and it's dark Like I've gone out there at very weird hours of the night just to look at it and it's Quiet and the moon is up above like a full moon.

It's like a full moon And you see this beautiful moon in the In the lake, okay Is there a moon in the lake? You have to say no Okay Is there a reflection of the moon in the lake you have to say? Yes Is the reflection of the moon in the lake the moon You have to say no Now catch this and this is the meaning of the second two of the four statements when he says hey Emptiness is nothing other than what you see and what you see is nothing other than emptiness What it means is put your mind on these two things the reflection of the moon in the pond Hey over here.

Okay, which is a positive or negative? positive Okay Then over here you have the fact that that ain't the moon itself Okay, I'll do it again over here. You have to forget the moon.

It's forget the moon in the sky We're not talking about that. Let's leave him out of the picture We're talking about what's in the pond. There's a reflection of the moon in the pond Think on it in a jury trial.

I say I exhibit number one Okay, is it the number one the reflection of the moon in the pond? exhibit number two The fact that that ain't ain't the real moon. Okay Which both exist, okay, do they have a relationship?

Yeah What's the test of a relationship you logicians who took? guildale Okay If you remove one The other has to go away. Okay, if it weren't true that there was a Reflection of the moon in the pond could it still be true that the reflection is not the real moon?

No If it were not true that the reflection was not the real moon. Could you still have a reflection in the pond? No, they have to have a relationship They have to have a relationship One happens to be negative Exhibit B and one is positive exhibit a they are Twinkies and hostess cupcakes Same stuff Different expressions of the same stuff black and white, you know, and they depend on each other for their existence okay, the the one is a positive thing the reflection of the moon and One is a negative thing the fact that that's not the real moon, but they go hand in hand So he's trying to say hey look the fact that everything is being Foisted on you by your past deeds and what you said and what you thought last week about and Joan, okay the fact that that's being forced on you and The fact that the things around you don't have any other mode of existence Are two versions of the same stuff and don't ever think they're different from each other. Okay, are they separate?

Yes Could you ever have one without the other? No, so when he says no other than not other than Sule shen my in he means They are not unrelated they're not Unconnected emptiness and dependent origination depend on each other and you can't have one without the other One is the positive expression of the other one is the negative expression of the other They depend on each other that by the way Eliminates the very wrong and harmful view That emptiness means that nothing matters or nothing counts or everything is an illusion I don't have to I don't have to be moral. I don't have to relate to the world in the normal way It's all just nothing so I can do whatever I want That's a very evil wrong view Jetsun Kapa said it's like a hailstorm that moves through the Hasa Valley and cuts down the wheat of the entire valley the wheat being Representing the happiness of the entire world and that viewpoint that emptiness somehow means that nothing matters Being the hailstorm and It's an evil To say that and it's not at all what it means If emptiness is true over here, right? cup cupcake Then Then karma is absolutely true And you must be moral and you must be a good person and you must be compassionate and kind to others You must take care of everyone You know not the opposite come you don't understand anything if you say that, okay That's that's the whole implication of that of the third and fourth statements.

Okay, so he's covered them like that I think it's very sweet Place to stop actually I'm getting hungry That's the point okay, and now you got it it's very very powerful and It can save your life, you know, I hope it does I hope at least a few people in here keep your book and take your vows and move Properly and sweetly into the tantric teachings and then get enlightened, you know, then think of us All right Ah

[Speaker 2]
This is the end of session four session five

[Speaker 1]
Ah I'm sorry for the delay and We did it as fast as we could couldn't finish in time Sutra after that by the way in the root text for On the last line of page three He just got through applying the four descriptions of emptiness to your physical body and The main component of that being what you can see And now he's going to move on and apply it to the rest of your being The other four heaps so then he says Deshindu so I don't do she don't do to the number ship and I'm Tomo which means Just as I described it for physical form meaning Just as the things you see are not coming from their own side their Twinkie nature sorry cupcake nature and Just as the things you see are being produced by your past karma in your own mind their Twinkie nature Just just as that the negative thing and the positive thing the emptiness and the dependent origination both apply to every Seeable thing and by extension every physical thing in your world and about you The same is true of all the other parts of your world and those are Sarwa meaning your capacity to feel things and I think for us I Mean for normal most people I think the goal would be to feel great all the time bliss you know the supreme ecstasy of enlightenment and Since feelings are also empty and since they have no nature from their own side Then the capacity is there to reach total ecstasy forever, you know if they were not empty from their own side If they existed from their own side We'd be in trouble because then you couldn't change them.

Okay, but since they're empty the potential is there Unfortunately, you have to keep your vows to make them change Okay, you have to keep your morality. You have to keep your bodhisattva vows. You have to keep your tantric vows Otherwise it won't work.

So the capacity is there the potential is there because they're empty they should do do she done do she meaning discrimination the ability to tell things apart and This applies especially to the world and the people around you if you had different set of karma in your mind stream You wouldn't be perceiving this room and the people in it the way you do know, okay if you had a different set of Seeds in your heart by behaving Sweetly over a long period of time. You wouldn't see what you see No, you'd see something totally different your capacity of discrimination will be different and actually each of the five heaps Corresponds to a kind of ultimate knowledge that you get at the end like sort of yes She for example, there are five great wisdoms and each of them is Born out of one of the five heaps okay, so the capacity of discrimination turns into the capacity to see your world and the beings in it as as Paradise, okay Do you know met other emotions and number ship a met even your capacity to Be aware at all will change into that of a Buddha and it does not have Any nature number ship in them Tombo has no nature of its own.

Okay, those five heaps have no nature of their own All of what he has said up to now and I think you get the same feeling even from what we've said Applies to the first two paths of the five Okay, if you take the heart sutra to be a manual about how to go through the five Levels of spiritual development we have just covered two of them Okay, we've covered What the thought process is during the path of accumulation so long and during the path of? Preparation which is Jorlam? So glum is mainly The spiritual level you get to to where you're tired of things going wrong in your life, you're tired of relationships constantly changing and Going up and down and you're tired of of things falling apart and you're tired of your own body getting old and Getting sick and you just get tired of it.

It's not like Getting to Nirvana is giving up anything good. There's nothing there You know that and then you will have Michael and Zoe shakes there and you know that kind of stuff You don't have to worry about it. I think sometimes people present Buddhism in a very You know self-flagellation way where if you're a good Buddhist you have you can't enjoy anything and If you were a good Buddhist you wouldn't be at Michael and Zoe's enjoying that milkshake And you know what?

I mean something like that and because of our Judeo-christian Background we attracted to that idea You know Nailing yourself. That was a holy thing, but it mean The point of paradise is to enjoy yourself there and it whether you want it or not, it will be extreme ecstasy there You know Michael and Zoe shakes all the time. Michael Zoe shake is a metaphor for what it's going to be like later and it's not and you don't have to try to avoid it or feel guilty that you're enjoying yourself if you watch his holiness for ten minutes you have to believe he's enjoying himself, you know and It's not like that, okay So it's not like you want to remove your capacity of discrimination or it's wrong to feel good or something like that You serve others best by be reaching total ecstasy yourself You know It sounds right You know, I mean, it's not selfish.

It's it's the way you have to do it You can't like not reach there on purpose and be miserable and then lead others there. You know, I mean No, and people have said that people believe that people have heard, you know, that bodhisattvas delay their enlightenment or something like that. Forget it You know, it's a metaphor, of course There's no point if you Purposely staying miserable so you can teach other people how to reach ecstasy, you know what I mean?

It doesn't make sense and it's not like that. Okay But you have renunciation for the lousy things in this life and everyone has that automatically or you wouldn't be here You know, I mean you you're not out at a bar or a football game or Or at a disco or something that you know, you're not there you're here. So you haven't done It has to get stronger then Jorlam is where you go through an intellectual understanding of emptiness and in a way we've done that this morning You went through that this morning.

That is the examination that you do. There are four increasing levels To where you get better and better at it. And those are the four levels of the second path and the final level of The second path you have your first direct perception of How you are?

Projecting all of these things you catch yourself clearly doing it for the first time like you can understand intellectually when I describe it to you But at the highest levels of the second path and you do not have to be in meditation At that moment you perceive yourself You catch yourself Projecting these things you see I mean for the first time you truly see that the window and the and The tree and the wall are not coming from their side.

They're coming from your side and And you you truly see that you're dealing you catch yourself if you did the logic course You catch yourself working with a dingy. You catch yourself watching a mental image of God still and and then you You for the first time That's not emptiness. You see you're catching yourself perceiving dependent origination you catch the dependent origination of things for the first time in millions of lifetimes You see that when you look out the window You're actually perceiving Something that's coming from your own mind Okay, and you catch yourself doing it you like it I can talk about it, and you can appreciate it, and you can even think about it very deeply But on that day you'll catch yourself doing it directly and you realize that that whole big God stories is A small picture in your mind and that you are enhancing it and making it perfect come on you can't see The trees on the left and the trees on the right at the same time You know you have to be focusing on the left and then on the right You can't you see if I ask you are there trees on the left and the right you say yeah And I say why do you know and you say well? I'm looking both of them at the same time But you can't do you first you have to look at the one on left I'm gonna have to look on the one on the right and your eye is going like this right I mean if you watch somebody's eyeball, and then the mind is pasting it together. You know why does the eye go like this?

You know the eyes looks like you give somebody a poorly printed book and half the letters are broken And they still see the letters whole Because of the Bach Chalk's because of the seeds in their mind to see those things It's very interesting you can take a book and wipe out like half of the letters and people can still read it Because of what you're used to seeing and sooner or later you realize that You can't be seeing what you think you see in one moment.

You can't be seeing all these things at once It's a it's a nice pretty Landscape Glued together by your mind. It's not out there like that Okay, and and you catch yourself doing it. So what's the use you know?

I mean physicists tell us that you're not walking on the floor. You're walking on a collection of energy You know it's just appearing as a floor your foot never touches the floor It's just a bunch of atoms, and and they don't have any substantial existence the Electron is flying About a thousand miles from the neutral you know and it's empty space between them And I mean if even if you just picture it that way you never touch the floor So what's the point you know who cares if I touch the floor or not if I fall down it still hurts The only importance of all this is that you could Change your reality consciously and design a better one Called called a Buddha paradise and you can and that's the whole point It's not to sit here and discuss You know am I looking at the trees or not or anything like it doesn't matter really doesn't as long as you can see them And they're pretty who cares That's not the point the point is that whatever is Helping your mind to synthesize a nice pretty view could also help your mind to synthesize a nice pretty life without death and Not getting old and at the age of 40 or 45 you could reverse the process And you can okay, but you have to be virtuous enough. It comes from virtue And that and if you're serious about doing that which you get serious about 40 or 45 You have to practice Tantra and you have to learn it properly sweet sweet thing beautiful thing Chock full of morality and purity and then you have to do that if you're serious about it, then you have to learn that okay With that At this point in the heart sutra.

We're on page four in the middle, and he says shall we put it down? You know shit on to it on my knee day Jenny maple my cap on my god, but Tima maybe Tima don't know Tima may become a maple it means We've reached Tonga with this point in the sutra the Buddha or was it Chen received Has Started to describe The path of seeing okay told on the third path So you can get the feeling in the sense that in the past in the words before where he applied those four analysis He applied those four profound ideas to each of the five heaps He's made you think about what is emptiness and what is dependent origination. He's done with the thinking Now he's getting to the direct perception of it Okay, so then he breaks off into if you know Tibetan well, and when we translate into English You'll feel a big shift.

It's like he starts to accelerate and Even the words start to come at any maple my cap on my god, but Tima maybe Tima don't do him They become you know it starts to get intense, and you can feel somebody's starting to see emptiness directly you know It starts here shall we put that down in a Therefore Sure times a Dominique a all Existing objects are empty so he He says ah why go through counting everything everything's empty. Okay, it's your time to Dominique Jenny maple my team.

I'm a copper. Mmm. He had a good explanation Yeah, he says Cindy maple now, I never understood with that man Cindy means definition in Tibetan Maple means there are none, okay?

Now you're talking He starts to add mapa to everything he starts to add the word maple everything's any maple my capo my copper Tim about he starts adding there is no there is no there is no and Over the centuries these lines have been misunderstood by Generation after generation you know 80% of each generation thinks it means that the Buddha said nothing exists You know I met a Jane scholar in India On the top of the holy mountain in near Bhavnagar Gujarat state You know and these are the same people that used to bait debate Nagarjuna. You know 17 centuries ago, and he says Don't tell me about Tibetan Buddhism.

I can read Nagarjuna. I read Nagarjuna. He said nothing exists You're crazy Then we had this long discussion at the end.

He said that's great. I agree with you you know and It doesn't obviously mean that there's no Chinese. Okay.

What does Cheney mean by the way in this case? It means cheats and a long time. Okay.

You've studied cheats in a long time a little bit in logic class, okay? cheats any means The characteristics of an object in general the general characteristic in object for example My my as a human my general characteristics would be I function my nipple nurse That's a general characteristic of me. I don't happen to have any self-made nature my emptiness is a cheat in me It's my general nature my general Features, okay, it's any in this case doesn't mean definition.

It means features, okay, so my general features Met they don't exist okay, and my specific features which the definition of a human in Buddhist logic is wasn't Washington goa which means I can express myself I can communicate with others, and I can understand clearly the meaning of what is spoken to me I mean a rough definition of a human being okay in the French Academy They said something with two legs the walks upright and expresses itself and somebody brought in a rooster Something like that That's my that's my specific features, so Choney, Dr..

Sherry Choney Lama. He makes a He makes it he wants to make it clear that we're talking about the general characteristic of something the fact that I live The fact that I'm impermanent the fact that I don't have any self nature and then my specific characteristics Which are with my humanity that I'm a human being that I fit the definition of a human being those don't exist Jenny MEPA Okay, those don't exist sending my friend. That's obviously not true Okay, we distinguish in Buddhism between the self which does exist in the self which does not exist, okay? Self which does exist is the one that you're watching and the one I'm watching okay, Winston is there he exists Why tell me big data?

You know I can see him, and I'm not drunk, and I'm not high and I'm not crazy. He's there. You know prove it.

I see him You know that's enough in Buddhism to confirm his existence Obviously you can't say that that self doesn't exist You cannot say he doesn't have his general features And you cannot say he doesn't have his specific features, and you can't say he doesn't have his feature of being Winston He has all those features, so what did the Buddha mean when he said? Nothing has any features the main thing here is that to the Namsak yes, she to the meditative to the state of to the deep state of meditation of a person who's in the direct perception of emptiness You cannot see any Winston like that. There are no Objects which appear to that mind except one thing which are which is emptiness, okay?

Cannot perceive anything else during that state of Meditation which lasts 15 or 20 minutes You Can't perceive any object except emptiness, okay? Winston is a positive thing Emptiness is a negative thing emptiness is the lack of self-existence that all things have if I took away all the things which I'm projecting you see and Just stared at the fact that they never were there by themselves I'd be perceiving emptiness directly and while I'm doing that I cannot see The house and the forest and God still and my friends, and I can't see those things Jenny Mipper, okay, you can't to that state of mind. You can't see those things even if you could They don't come from Winston if I like Winston I can pat myself on the back if I don't like Winston I can pinch myself Because there's only one person responsible for those things and that's me Okay, and that's a hard truth to live with you know you can't blame anything on anyone in Buddhism Every unpleasant object you ever encounter a traffic jam a toothache a bad back People you don't like New York City being dirty.

They're all a direct result of your own actions for each person So in that sense Jenny Mipper, they don't have any feature from their own side Whatever features they have are coming from your side Okay, and they're they're produced by your karma. Well. How does my karma work?

you know there's it like I do something bad and this boomerang floats out towards Pluto and comes back and And makes me see something a year later. You know does it is it like no no don't think external You're back into the external mistake. You're back to number two don't think like that It's your own mind Shifting you know your last relationship that was so cool at the beginning and broke down Was your karma shifting that person didn't change?

Okay, it was your own mind shifting if you're tired of it, then stop collecting the karma that makes it shift Because and you're the only person who can do it. It's very weird You know if you get really good at this you there's no use to complaining about other people You know if you're surrounded by incompetence You know it's your mind has produced them You know you have produced them by lying or letting other people down or things like that This is a common karma for producing the incompetence that surround you you know and and that's your life That's that's everything if you would just recognize that then you would keep your vows you wouldn't bother to criticize other people There's no sense you're just making more of them And everybody would be happy and you'd reach enlightenment That's what keeping your book is for you know Give up complaining about other people in fact you're perpetuating it you're creating more of them.

It's an irony of life That the natural reaction is the one that creates more of what you don't want And if you just lay off for a while you would see it If you lay off for a while just out of Blind faith, you know maybe what Michael wrote says true Let's see if it works, then you'd make some progress and you start to believe it. You know they transfer that person from your office That lady goes out on maternity The company does well, and they give you a bigger bonus, and you start to believe it if if you keep it for a while, okay? Seri Mepa Makiapa Magapa We'll do that, and then we'll meditate a little bit.

Makiapa Magapa means things don't start and things don't stop, okay? Things in your life don't have any beginning and things in your life have no ending and I think you could talk about the sun rising in the morning Okay, like what I can understand that Whether or not my boss is pleasant to me might depend on some kind of seed in my mind But what about the Sun coming up itself? I mean are you trying to tell me that three billion people are having a collective hallucination?

You know are you trying to tell me that three billion people have somehow collected a similar karma and have and are somehow Collectively Perceiving the same projection, and yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying, okay? The fact that the Sun comes up in the morning itself is a collective projection Due to the fact that that group of people together did something good or bad Okay, three billion people and and whole countries can do virtues together and non-virtues together if a whole country supports a war Everybody in that country whether or not they're on the front lines will suffer later from that if a whole country accepts the principle of killing fetuses then that whole country will suffer together later, and that's I'll tell you something very profound see if you get it. That's what creates international boundaries Okay, they're not made by people they're made by karma You see It's the fact that that group of people together Did something similar together has created what we call the border between Mexico and the United States That that's all it is The difference between a human and a dog that border is created by the collective perceptions of the dogs and the humans It's there is no other border. There is no ever the difference between a dog and a human Except of the perceptions which one is having in their perceptions which the others are having there is no other difference between a dog and a human and there is no other difference between Mexico and the United States and that line between the two was Is the expression of the karma of those two nations of people It's very weird There are no lines between countries except for the collective Hallucination perceptions of the people living in each country and Those are real by the way when I say hallucination or perception or projection.

I don't in Buddhism we say You go to it today. I was talking about go chip at the toothpick And I was good enough to serve and some we didn't we didn't have a toothpick we needed to make the Tormas But we had something else and it was good enough to do the same thing. That's called go chippa Because projections are so good.

They can go chip before reality Okay but the fact that Things don't exist naturally is not enough to go chippa for not existing at all That's a that's a pros and geek a distinction that we make it's true that things don't exist from their own side That does not make them unreal It's true that things have an unreal nature and that is good enough to say there exists, okay Little bit delicate you have to think about it. Okay So that's my kipa magapa things don't start from their side things don't stop from their side Even the Sun coming up and the Sun going down much less your relationships and your body They don't come from their own side they don't start from their own side and they don't stop from their own side So he's getting very He's going deeper.

Okay, there have been Buddhist schools that could accept that static objects didn't come from their own side But who couldn't break through and see that the very reason why things start and stop the reason why time itself goes on Is also your projection they it was too much for them They stopped they wanted to stop at colors and shapes Thinking that that could be true about the Sun coming up and going down. They got they're like, ooh, that's too much, you know And that is a distinction between some of them But if you ever get weirded out if you ever get scared if you ever start thinking everything's in my head Nothing's real.

I'm gonna jump off a building Please don't okay. I I'm not supposed to teach this subject unless you've been properly prepped You know, you have to be properly prepared and the whole Foundation of this teaching is before you do this emptiness meditation every time do some tongue-in You know always it'll prevent you from From flipping out about it. Okay, I mean you have to ground yourself in the fact that you are Undertaking this exercise for others and that your your hope is to become truly perfect and truly Reach a state of in light Perfection personal ecstasy so that you can help other people and then you won't flip out about it.

So don't do catered J's meditation without a little dose of tongue land before just a In Boy Scouts, they call the tricks of the train, you know, this is a word of the wise, you know Don't don't do it, you know before you meditate on emptiness meditate on compassion. Why are you doing this? okay, and Then you won't have a problem.

I think the other thing that can ground you is There is no teaching on Emptiness, which doesn't immediately Lead into a teaching on morality and compassion. Okay If You understand emptiness, well, you'll be very interested in keeping your book if you keep your book you'll never flip out about emptiness Okay, you have Most of you have dozens of holy sacred vows to keep If you understand emptiness at all, you'll get very interested in keeping them and and if your Understanding of emptiness or your meditation about emptiness becomes some kind of weird thing and Some kind of black holes in your head or something Then you didn't get it. You know if it starts to get scary or weird or something like that Then you you didn't get it If you start to get very very interested in being pure with your life Then you got it You know and then you're not gonna flip out.

You're not gonna get weird or something like that You if you'll change you'll get the opposite you'll get much more caring much more considerate much more compassionate you know, that's a test of whether you're understanding emptiness correctly or not if it starts to seem weird or disconcerting or What they call it disorienting then you're you're on the wrong track. Okay We'll stop there and we'll do a little meditation, okay Watch your breath Mm-hmm take refuge in the ideas we talked about especially the idea that Logically if you stopped reacting Negatively to anything you could pretty quickly use up your bad karma and and your whole reality would change Then we'll do K to J's first part pretend Pretend you're a child who came into this room like Kieran and in your mind Scan the room from left to right very slowly This time trying to pick out four or five objects that we're going to work with So as you look across the room in your mind's eye Decide you're going to use a few specific objects like a few specific people or a wall or a tree or Something that appeals to you Now look at those same objects scan across the room stop on those objects Stop on those four or five objects and try to get in touch with your Automatic feeling that they exist out there from their side and whether or not they look good What colors they have is from their side out there?

Now the third step of K to J's meditation go through those three objects or those however many objects you've chosen and imagine That they were coming from from your mind that there are Colors and shapes there there is something green There is something square There is something round but that it's your mind which is Which is giving it content. It's your mind, which is organizing it in a certain way and various particularly it's your mind, which is saying I like this or I don't like this, but Try to see it in a way, which is not the way that you just looked at it Compare your feeling of it as Something that exists out there To the idea that maybe it's coming from your side and that the reason something is pretty or not The reason that someone else is good or not is all coming from your side Try to experiment with with those same objects those same three or four things and And try to get used to the idea that it might be coming from your side. Let's get back now. We'll do Thelma Gomba, Thelma Gomba, skip around get good at it.

They call it meditative gymnastics Okay, go to the first one look at the room like a child Don't worry about where it's coming from Look at the room and get in touch with that connect with that special feeling that you've always had that everything around you is Coming from its side. They're all looking at you everything's Facing inwards. It's not like you're projecting it out.

It's all facing you Jump back to number one see it Just as things and don't worry about where it came from Jump to number three, maybe This stuff is coming from your mind, by the way, it doesn't make it unreal. It doesn't make it an illusion per se you if you go out to one of those trees, which you are projecting and you cut it with a Chainsaw and you stand under it. It'll still squash you You'll have a nice projection of being squashed And don't think it's not real.

It's very real But it is coming from your side let's get back to number one See it like a child. Don't worry about where it comes from That's the mode we're in almost all day long Skip back to number two get in touch with your old feeling that it was all coming from its side Now with your new understanding, we'll go to step number four very briefly and then we'll take a break. Okay scan the room Stop on those three or four things that you chose Every time you reach one stop and think about where does it come from and let your mind think of it as coming from its own side and then Reject that state of mind and see what's left Okay, so let your mind stop on a tree Let your mind get its same old feeling that that tree is coming from its own side Decide that there can't be a tree coming from its own side See what's left Scan the room Be aware of all those objects like a child Stop on one try to Try to find a tree that comes from its own side Real really from its own side. And if you find that that tree doesn't come from its own side cancel it Go to another object in the room like a person Try to find a person that you like or you don't like Because they themselves are good or bad from their side And you'll never find one Because almost well every person you can find somebody likes them.

It means they're not good or bad from their side It's your mind and so cancel that person and if you keep doing that with all the things that you can see in this room Pretty soon you're sitting in a big room of cancelled stuff. And that's very good for Practice for perceiving emptiness One last one then we'll take a break pick one specific thing that you can see in this room Get in your mind. I'm working on this flower over here.

It's a lily or something like that I'm working on the flower and in my mind I'm going to try to picture a flower that comes from its own side and did not get to God's door because I was good in the past and when I look for a flower like that I I Can't find one all the flowers there are there. I enjoy them. I'm having the pleasure of looking at them Because they are created by something good.

I did in the past the other flowers that used to be there that were here when I walked in and then I read God stopped by some random thing or because some divine being put them there or because of The Big Bang Theory or something like that all of those flowers Never were there. The only flowers on the shelf anymore are the ones that I am seeing because I was kind to people in the past and all the flowers that number two My mental state number two thought were there all the flowers that were existing there from their own side. Those are gone and And they're gone in the sense that they never were there And go back to first state of mind just Enjoy the room.

Enjoy the flowers in the day very heavy virtue. We're doing this is the exercises which Rip reality into two and revealed the truth and very very powerful karma. So we'll dedicate it I'd like to dedicate it to To Ken Rinpoche's health.

Okay, and then take like a 5-10 minute break and we'll come back and do a little more sutra. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
Session 5 continues on the next CD