Серия ежедневной практики, курс 09 — Пустота ума (махамудра) (1999, Сокел), занятие 1

[Speaker 2]
The Asian Classics Institute presents Mahamudra, Meditation on the Emptiness of the Mind, with Geshe Michael Roach. This is the beginning of Session One. Session One, Meditation on the Emptiness of the Mind, Session Two, Meditation on the Emptiness of the Mind, Session Three, Meditation on the Emptiness of the Mind, Session Four, Meditation on the Emptiness of the Mind, Session Five, Meditation on the Emptiness of the Mind, Session Six, Meditation on the Emptiness of the Mind, Session Seven, Meditation on the Emptiness of the Mind, Session Eight, Meditation on the Emptiness of the Mind, Session Nine, Meditation on the Emptiness of the Mind, Session Ten, Meditation on the Emptiness of the Mind, Session Eleven, Meditation on the Emptiness of the Mind,

[Speaker 1]
They say before any important teaching, it's important to clean your bad deeds and collect good karma. So, we left New York yesterday.

Most of us got like one or two hours of sleep. And then, we didn't get much last night. We got here around, I don't know, one or something.

So I've been cranky all day. So first I confess, and especially all the people who were trying to give me good advice today, that I didn't pause and do everything I was supposed to do. Good karma will have a teaching, all right?

First of all, it's really nice to see everybody. This was supposed to be a vacation for me and have one or two days at Pat Wells' house quiet by myself. And she tricked me, so...

So you can blame her, all right? I don't know, where is she? Okay, and Maya tricked me too.

Where is Maya? I don't know. Anyway, she won't raise her head.

Okay. Anyway, we're going to pick up... Oh, and to thank everybody from LMB who worked very hard and everything.

And our group is a special hassle. It's not like one person coming to town. It's like one person with 50 ducks behind them.

So I thank you for that. And I know we're not very easy to take care of. Thank you for that.

Thank you for all the... People worked really hard to make sure we were comfortable and things like that. So last year...

I don't know, it was last... I don't remember when it was. Anyway, we talked about Mahamudra in San Francisco.

So people liked it and they said, would you do a Mahamudra class next winter, over Christmas maybe, at Pat Wells' house? Then it got too complicated, I think. So anyway, it's here.

We're going to try to do two things. One is explain the theory of Mahamudra, where the word comes from, what the practice means. In our tradition especially, how to do it.

And then we're actually going to try to do some Mahamudra meditations. We'll be talking about the tradition as it stands from the first Panchen Lama. The current Panchen Lama, as you know, is detained by the Chinese government.

We don't know where. He's, I don't know, five years old or something. Six.

And we don't know where he is. So maybe we could dedicate the virtue of this class to making sure he gets out and that we can see him and have teachings from him when we get to a ripe old age. So I hope that works out.

We'll be exploring that tradition. And then we'll be meditating about half the time on different kinds of Mahamudra. And we'll be going through six different kinds of emptiness.

So the class is really billed as the emptiness of the mind in six different flavors. And we've been doing that in New York for the last three months. We've been having a class called Chang'e.

Chang'e is the study of emptiness as it was taught by the Buddha through the three turnings of the wheel. The Buddha had three major periods in his life when he taught. During each of those turnings of the wheel, he taught emptiness.

And each time he taught it a slightly different way. And then two thousand years later, somebody like Je Tsongkapa is trying to figure out what did he mean when he taught it three different ways. Because two of them have to be wrong.

And what was the point? And why would the Buddha teach a kind of emptiness that's not emptiness? Did he make a mistake?

Obviously he doesn't make a mistake, so what is he trying to tell us when he teaches emptiness in at least three different ways and two of them are wrong? Two of them aren't correct. So we're going to go through six different ideas of emptiness that the Buddha himself taught during the three turnings of the wheel.

And I think what happens there, this was a very favorite technique of the first Panchen Lama. He not only examined the correct teaching on something like emptiness, he would give you about five wrong ideas about emptiness, and he would examine each one, and make sure you understood each one. And the cool thing about that approach is that you will find your present understanding of emptiness in there somewhere.

Okay? It's very effective. There's a beautiful teaching by the first Panchen Lama called Dangdzin Cang Dep, which is, you know the angel and the little devil standing in two little bubbles on two sides of someone's head and arguing?

It's that. It's a debate between ignorance and wisdom in one person's mind. And then, you know, ignorance keeps coming up with new tricks to fool wisdom, and then wisdom says no, no.

And you hear this big argument, and it's in poetry. The first Panchen Lama was a great poet. So we're going to be doing something like that.

What we're going to be doing in the meditations is going through six levels of the explanation of emptiness. And I warn you now, only the last one is real emptiness. Okay?

And the first five were taught by Lord Buddha as being emptiness. But they're not. And then later on he clarified it and he said, when I had certain audiences, I had to present it that way.

Because they couldn't get it the higher way. Okay? The higher way that you're going to hear is the highest way.

It's accepted by Lord Buddha, Arya Nagarjuna, Jetsun Kappa, Chandrakirti, and by the current Dalai Lama and all our great Lamas. So it really is the real emptiness. It is the one that people who see emptiness directly see.

It is the one that's necessary for tantric practice. So number six is going to be the one. You should be here for number six.

I don't know, it'll be sometime on Sunday. But we'll be going through about two kinds of emptiness each time. And each time we'll be moving up the ladder of explanations about emptiness.

It's the meditation on emptiness, which is the real meaning of Mahamudra. So first I'm going to go through that point, what is the meaning of the word Mahamudra. And then we'll take a break.

And then we'll come back and do some meditations on emptiness. Moving up the ladder, okay? And somewhere in there you should find yours.

And then you have to try to push it up a little bit. Okay? All right, so here we go.

The word Mahamudra is very sexy. You see it, you hear it all the time. I used to get really confused by it.

I'd say, I'd ask my Lama, they're teaching all this Mahamudra, you never taught us Mahamudra. We must be missing out on something. And then one day he started teaching it.

And he taught, there's a root text on Mahamudra by the First Pension Lama. You will get a reading. We couldn't finish it fast enough.

And it'll be handed out. I think there's 60 copies ready. So if someone is planning to come back tomorrow, don't take one.

Okay? And if you're planning not to come back for later sessions, then please take one as you leave. We have about 60 ready.

Okay? What's that?

[Speaker 2]
I think it's less than 60.

[Speaker 1]
Less than 60. Okay. There's also, you know, I like to give a homework.

And what I did was, I compromised. You know, I used to give a full homework, which is what somebody in New York would have to do in two weeks or something like that. And what I did was, I just chopped it down to three questions.

But I think it's very good for you to have to, when you get home, to have to write out something, what you remember from the class. My personal experience is that if I don't give any kind of homework, nobody remembers the class before. So, you're going to get a homework.

You have to fill it out. Okay? There'll be someone at the door tomorrow.

The ticket to get in is the homework. Okay? And I'm not kidding.

You have to do it. Okay? And it's for your own benefit.

If you go home, and when you get home, if you review it enough to write it down, again, you won't forget what I said tonight. And then it will stick with you. And then when you do emptiness meditation, you'll know what you're doing.

Okay? So don't resist. Okay?

Just go for it. All right? And you'll get better and better at understanding things.

If you just listen to lectures and go home, nothing sticks. Okay? It's very simple.

I cut ten questions down to three. But you have to know those three. All right?

Don't leave home without it tomorrow. Okay. You don't have to put the Tibetan on your homework.

But you can do the homework Tibetan style, if you wish. Okay? So if you know any Tibetan, I would expect you to do it in Tibetan also.

Say, chakya, chenpo. chakya, chenpo. Okay.

Chakya means mudra or seal. Okay? A seal like a seal that you put on a letter.

Okay? Like you put wax on the letter and then you put the seal on it. All right?

And then chenpo means big or great. It stands for maha.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
There's a lot of meanings of the word seal in Buddhism. And there's a lot of meanings of the word maha mudra. The chakya part has a lot of meanings.

First of all, it means like a seal, a stamp that you put on something. Secondly, in Tantra, or in Tanka's painting, in imaging, it refers to the akutramo that the image has, like a sword or a book or a bell or a vajra, or whatever they're holding is called a chakya. Okay?

On a deeper level, in Dzogchen practice, second level tantric practice, chakya has another meaning. There's a le kyi chakya and a ye shi kyi chakya. Ye shi kyi chakya and a le kyi chakya.

And I can't tell you that meaning. But that's a different kind of seal. Okay?

And in that case, the meaning is something like a king in India. In India, when a king sent a message to somebody, they would always put their seal on it. That means that this is real message from the king.

Like when Genghis Khan was sending messages out to the front lines in Austria, it took three years to carry the message out to the front lines. So if it's not stamped with his personal seal, which everybody knows what it looks like, you don't believe it. Like it might say, you know, attack Germany and take over Germany.

So, if it's not stamped properly, you don't do it. You know what I mean? So seals were very, very important in ancient times.

It was the only way to confirm that this was really the command of the emperor or the king. And no one, this king should never be separated from their seal. Okay?

That was the idea. So the word chakya, in its deepest sense, which I can't describe to you, is that you should never be separated from that chakya. You know?

A king is never separated from their seal. And a person should never be separated from their chakya. Okay?

So that's the deepest meaning of chakya. There are two ways... Well, maybe I'd better teach Chenpo, okay?

So chakya means seal. Chenpo means great. Why do we say great seal?

We're talking now about a different kind of seal. There's a certain seal which marks all things as being empty, all things as being a thing. A thing is not a thing unless it's empty.

Okay? You hear about emptiness, you're going to learn six different flavors of emptiness, which are really how many? Yeah, one, five non-emptinesses and one real one.

Six different kinds of emptiness, you're going to learn. Only one of them is real. It's like a police line where you identify the real criminal, right?

And you should get really good at it. So chakya means, a seal means, if a thing has this quality, it's an object. It's a real dharma.

Dharma meaning an existing thing. What? What marks a thing as a dharma?

It's emptiness. Okay? If a thing has emptiness, it's real.

If a thing has emptiness, it's real. And we'll talk more about the meaning of emptiness as we go on. Okay?

So just be, don't worry about it. Seal means emptiness. Okay?

The mudra, in Mahamudra, means emptiness. Because this is a mark that marks something as a real thing. Okay?

How do you know this pen is real? Because it has its emptiness. You see what I mean?

So its emptiness marks it as real. This is a stamp of approval. As what?

As an existing thing. So, this has a mudra. The mudra has been put on this pen.

It's empty. Therefore it's real. Okay?

And illusory. Okay? We'll get to it.

Alright? But it's not real until it's got the stamp of approval from the emptiness department. Okay?

Okay? And that's the meaning of mudra. Okay?

Mudra is like stamp, or seal, mark. Okay? It marks this thing.

Why is it called big seal, like Mahamudra? Maha came into the western languages as mega. Okay?

Big, really. It's big because it's big deal. Okay?

It's a big deal. What? If you see it, if you see that emptiness directly, if you see the emptiness of this pen directly, you are out of here.

You see what I mean? On the day that you see the emptiness of this pen directly, you are on some kind of like an unstoppable conveyor belt to nirvana and Buddhahood. You know, we call it gyun-shupa.

Say, gyun gyun shupa gyun gyun shupa gyun-shupa means stream-enterer. And the reason they say stream-enterer is because they didn't have conveyor belts at that time. Okay?

But it's just the idea of a conveyor belt. Okay? Once you see an emptiness directly, you're on your way out.

You know, it's just a question of six lifetimes, seven lifetimes, whatever. One lifetime. But it's certain.

It's definite. You're on your way out. So, for that reason, it's big.

This is big news. Okay? This mudra, this emptiness, is a big deal.

Maha. Okay? And the maha means it's a big deal because if you see it directly, you don't have to go through all this stuff anymore.

What stuff? Samsara. What does samsara mean?

Is samsara... You know, I get people saying, I'm tired of samsara. What's samsara?

California. I'm moving to New York. You know?

They say, that's bad samsara. They say, what's samsara? Samsara is just that there's a certain nature of the things in your life.

And this is really it. The good things... The bad things in your life are samsara, obviously.

We don't have to debate them. You know? Getting sick, losing your job, worrying about money, having credit cards that are way overloaded.

This is suffering. We don't have to talk about it. The problem is, all the good things are driven by karma.

Okay? You did something nice to somebody before. It's ripening now.

You're healthy. You have a nice place to live. You have a decent job.

You have decent friends. And those all being driven by karma, what we call dirty karma, dirty karma. The nature of dirty karma is that it wears out.

Constantly. Okay? By...

By... By experiencing a pleasure, you are using it up. Okay?

That's the nature of the karma that is running our lives. Okay? Meaning, what's the implication?

There's not a single good thing in your life that won't get ruined by Mr. Karma. You know? Karma created them and that karma that created them is wearing out.

Every time you step in the door of your house, you're using up a certain amount of karma. Every time you get into your car, you're using up a certain amount of car karma. Every time you get a paycheck, you're closer to dying and to not having any money.

You see what I mean? Every time anything good happens, every time you spend one day with someone you love, you are using up a certain amount of karma. And you're not replacing it very well.

So what happens? You lose people. You get laid off.

Your house gets sold. Your clothes wear out. If these clothes were created by pure karma, they wouldn't get old.

Because they're created by dirty karma, they wear out. You see what I mean? So nothing you do is created that way.

And everything you have that's... Forget the bad stuff. Samsara is...

What I'm saying is samsara is the good stuff that's wearing out. Okay? Every moment...

The very experience of a nice thing means you're spending karmic credit card money. And it's a debit card, really. I mean, you enter with a certain amount of debit, stuff on the card, and then every time you experience something nice, you're actually using it up.

I had a friend who took this to an extreme. In East Village, to find a parking space is like unbelievable. And so he has this theory.

He'll drive around for like an hour looking for a parking space. And then when he sees one, he has a crisis. Because he says, if I take it, I'm going to wear out all that karma.

You know? So he like drives down the street sometimes looking for a different one. You know?

That's not correct. Okay? That's not the way it works.

All right? But I mean, he's got basically the right idea. The problem with samsara is that the bad things are bad, and the good things, although they're...

By the way, nobody can debate that they're not nice. Okay? That's a Dharma rumor.

Okay? Is ice cream nice? Of course it's nice.

Is it nice to have a wife or a husband or a friend like that? Of course it's nice. You know?

Is it nice to own a house? Of course a house is nice. You know?

Is it nice to go to the beach and surf? Of course it's nice. You know what I mean?

Is it nice to listen to good music or see a good movie? Of course it's nice. You can't say it's not nice.

The only thing wrong with it is that to get it you have to use up your karma and it wears out and the movie ends or the music ends and then eventually on one day all the leftover karma wears out at once. It's very weird. You know?

Like you're moving along at a certain rate and then suddenly the debit card runs out. And then suddenly you're dead. Okay?

That's the only thing you have to look forward to is that. If you don't get how to collect good karma, clean good karma, pure good karma, then you're stuck. Then you're at the mercy of your old karma.

And all you have to look forward to according to this theory is that you will lose whatever you have. You know? And you don't want to do that.

You want to figure out how to create pure good karma and then, what do you call it? Make it, what's that word? Perpetuate it.

You want to learn to perpetuate it. Buddhas are perpetuating good karma. They've learned a way to put in a certain amount of energy and get more good karma out of it than what they use up.

It's like fusion or something like that where you put in a teaspoon of water and you have enough energy to run a city or something like that. Less in, more out, rather than more in and less out. And the idea is to create an atomic, some kind of a reaction that perpetuates itself and that's called a Buddha paradise.

How do you do that? You have to perceive Mahamudra. You have to be able to see emptiness directly.

And there are different tricks for perceiving emptiness. So, how many types of Mahamudra practice are there? Which one are we going to do?

Say ngak lu. Ngak lu. Ngak.

Ngak means ngak means tantra. Sangak means secret mantra, tantra. And lug means system.

So there's a tantric system of doing Mahamudra. There's a secret method of doing Mahamudra. Traditionally, that should be passed down from your tantric lama privately to you.

Okay? When you are ready and when you have a close enough relationship with that lama, then they would pass it on to you privately. Okay?

And to do the ngak lu properly, you have to do doluk first. Okay? So here's doluk.

Say doluk. Doluk. Doluk means sutra.

Okay? Sutra has a lot of different meanings. In this case, sutra means a Buddhist teaching which is not secret.

We can call them open teachings, okay? So ngak luk is the secret system of teaching Mahamudra. And doluk is the open system of teaching Mahamudra.

So there are two kinds of Mahamudra. Okay? It's important to know, and later we'll talk more about, one of them leads into the other.

Okay? You need to do doluk first, and then you can do ngak luk. Okay?

So, you have to become a master of the open way of doing Mahamudra, and then that will lead you into being able to do the secret way. The doluk depends greatly on an intellectual understanding of Mahamudra. It's like studying it, hearing about it, getting it in a classroom situation, thinking about it at home, learning six different kinds of emptiness, learning why five of them are not emptiness, okay?

And getting that very, very firm in your mind, and getting pretty good at it. And then you move on to the personal practice of it. You meditate on it a long time.

You get good at it, very, very good at it. And only then your mind is ready to go to ngak luk, okay? It's to go up to the tantric method of doing it.

Even within Tantra, those of you who are doing Vajrayogini sadhana, for example, in the Tsa Chö, at the very end, okay, it says ngur dang gyu ne tön means two ways to perceive emptiness, okay? And there are two different methods within Tantra of perceiving emptiness. One is called the direct, and one is called the, you could say one is like direct, and one is roundabout or something like that, okay?

It's not indirect. It's not direct, indirect. It's direct and some kind of method where you undertake one kind of practice and then that creates another result and then that creates certain results within your mind, okay?

So, even within Tantra, there's two ways of teaching Mahamudra. One that's called direct, which relies greatly on a Lama explaining the emptiness of some object, and then the indirect method or the, I don't know how to say, you have to go through certain steps that trigger it, okay? They trigger the direct perception of emptiness, and that's called the indirect method or the, I don't know how to say, you do this and then this happens, that creates that, that triggers that, and then, which is it?

I don't know how to say it. It's like you purposely do something over there that makes you see emptiness over here, rather than, they call it, by the way, in the tantric scriptures, it's the difference between sitting and explaining to somebody what the ocean looks like. I mean, in Tibet, they knew about the ocean, but they were a thousand miles from the nearest ocean.

So if you want to explain the ocean, one is to stand there and say, well, you know it's this big piece of water, it's got all this salt in it, you know, it's not like the water in the rivers here, in Khasa, and you go through this long explanation, and then you hope that they can perceive the ocean. You see what I mean? In an indirect way.

They don't see it, or they don't see the real ocean, but they understand ocean. Okay? Then the second way, in the tantric scriptures, it's stated in the Vajrayogini commentaries, you say, okay, go down to Shigatse, take the road down to Nepal, take a left, when you hit this big piece of water, you know, don't cross it, keep following it down to Calcutta, and then, you know, work your way down to Bangladesh, then you're going to come across this big thing, and that's the ocean.

So that's called the indirect method. You know, like you see, I don't know how to, but you trigger something in Khasa, you give them certain instructions, and then later they perceive something down in the Bay of Bengal, I don't know what it is. Okay?

They see the ocean like that. So there's two ways of seeing emptiness. So first you have to do the sutra system.

When you graduate from that, or you get to sophisticated enough in that, and sophisticated means, you know, I can count off the six kinds of emptiness like that, and I know why the first five are wrong, and I'm not doing them. You see what I mean? And I'm not, by the way, this class is not just some spacey meditation that you're going to do.

This is going to have repercussions in your personal life. If you get what Mahamudra means, then on Monday you're going to be doing something different at work. Okay?

Like, I'm not just teaching some kind of spaced out meditation about emptiness or something like that. Emptiness has profound repercussions on your personal life at work, in your family, with your friends. It's supposed to have.

Okay? So we're going to teach Mahamudra in a sense that you should be able to practice it at work. Okay?

And that requires an understanding of all the different kinds of emptiness. You won't get the repercussions until Sunday. Okay?

That's a trick to make you stay tuned in. Okay? We're going to tie it down to your personal life.

It has very profound repercussions on what you do with your life. Okay? And how you go through the day, if you really understand Mahamudra.

Okay? So, you can study Mahamudra in a sutra way, understand it intellectually, be able to say, oh, emptiness number four, emptiness number five. You say, you go up to somebody on the street, right, in Santa Cruz.

Do you understand what emptiness is? They say, yeah. And you say, what is it?

And they say, oh, it means everything changes. And you say, oh, that's emptiness number one. Boy, you've got a long way to go.

You know what I mean? And you'll be able to know exactly where your own viewpoint of emptiness is. Okay?

Don't forget the meaning of this view. Okay? We're going to get on to the meaning of the word view.

But that's a, what is your view of emptiness means. Also, what is your view of your reality? And how do you act during the day based on that?

Okay? We're going to talk about that. After you get good at that, doluk, then you move up to the tantric systems.

Okay? And much faster ways of seeing emptiness directly. Okay?

Doluk is great. It's wonderful. It can take seventy-five countless eons.

Countless is a code word in Buddhism for ten to the sixtieth power. Okay? So, that's a long time.

You want to get pretty good at it in the sutra system. And then, as quickly as possible, you want to graduate up to the tantric system and try to use it that way. But you have to go through one to get to the other.

And as you're going to see, one of the main qualities of the sutra system is that it's called minje kyepa chen. It prepares your mind to do the tantric system. Okay?

You can't jump to tantra and try to do it without emptiness. If you try to do tantra without emptiness, not at the end and at the best, nothing will happen. At the worst, you'll collect a lot of bad deeds.

Okay? So, you have to understand emptiness first. Okay?

And that's the goal of this meditation and this weekend. Okay? So, we'll start out with Doluk.

Now, interesting thing about Doluk. There's a great lama in the Vajrayogini lineage called Nguchu Dharmabhadra. Okay?

Previous life of Pabongka Rinpoche. And those of you who know Pabongka Rinpoche is not his real name. He was really Changkyin Rinpoche.

And Changkyin Rinpoche was a Chinese lama who had a lot to do with the emperor of China. And when Pabongka Rinpoche, the one who wrote Liberation of the Palm of Your Hand, when he was born, there was a lot of friction with China. So, the lamas who recognized him said, we better not call him Changkyin Rinpoche.

We'll call him Pabongka Rinpoche. Because the Pabongka Rinpoche had just passed away. So, they said, let's call him Pabongka Rinpoche and then he'll be safe.

So, he's really a Changya who has a deep connection with Muju Dharma Bhadra. And Muju Dharma Bhadra is in the 1700s. And we have a very beautiful book which is unusual.

We have a whole volume. It's like a couple of hundred pages of questions, tough questions that his students threw at him. Like, he would sit down and say, okay, open for questions and answers.

And then his students would ask him tough questions. So, it's a very beautiful book to go to to find out details about stuff that you don't understand. So, one of his students came up with this thing.

He said, what's the difference, you know, what is the Mahamudra? What is the practice of Mahamudra? And he says, you want me to tell you Tantric way or Sutra way?

In this case, Sutra means open, right? So, he says, tell me Sutra way. Tell me what Mahamudra is.

So, he says, I'll ask you a question. Okay? Forget Mahamudra the way it was taught in Tibet up to now.

Okay? I mean, there were some systems of Mahamudra which were which didn't have a how should I say? Certain system certain things presented as Mahamudra that maybe weren't the highest presentation of Mahamudra.

Okay? Maybe they are useful for students to help them at a certain point. But they are not the highest presentation of Mahamudra.

He says, forget those. We're not talking about those. Okay?

He says, the difference between those presentations in Tibet up to our time and the presentation of Jetsun Kappa of Mahamudra is obvious. We're not talking about that. But he says, within the Jetsun Kappa system, within Jetsun Kappa's presentation of Mahamudra, you know, there's a thing called tatthi.

Okay? And by the way, I took this whole discussion and translated it this afternoon and stuck it in your reading and that's why you didn't get a reading because it was late. Okay?

But it's just so cool. It's so interesting. So, somebody asked this lama, you know, Ngozdrang Bardo, what's Mahamudra mean?

And he says, you're asking me sutra way or tantra way? He says, sutra, just okay, just sutra way. And he says, I'll ask you a question.

We got this thing called tatthi. Okay? Say, tatthi.

tatthi. tatthi. tat means worldview and we're going to talk about the way you view your world.

Okay? Thi means instructions. Okay?

Teaching. So tatthi is a special form of teaching where you sit down and you teach somebody about emptiness, which is what we're doing. This weekend, we're having a tatthi.

So the lama says, I'll ask you a question. And this student is called Nomohan Rinpoche. He was a high lama already.

Nomohan is a big, a big shot. That's a Mongolian title like Dalai. Okay?

And, so this is a very important student asking the question. And Ngozdrang Bardo says, I'll ask you a question. What's the difference between a teaching on emptiness and Mahamudra?

Okay? What's the difference? What does Mahamudra mean by the way?

Big emptiness, right? Okay? Big seal, meaning big emptiness.

Meaning, big because it gets you out of this problem of dying and stuff like that. So he says, you tell me, I'll ask you, you tell me the difference between a teaching on emptiness and a teaching on Mahamudra. Because if you can't tell me the difference, then why should we have Mahamudra?

You know? Why don't we just keep to our old tatthis? Because we have tons of tatthis around.

We have tons of teachings on emptiness. So why do we have to go into Mahamudra? What's the whole point?

And you'll see in the reading, what do you guys think? I mean, any difference knowing now what Mahamudra means, which is basically the direct perception of emptiness, a method for the direct perception of emptiness. Then, is there any difference between, you know, the last part of the Lamrim Chammo, which teaches emptiness, or a Mahamudra teaching?

Are we just going to go through the six kinds of emptinesses in here this weekend? Is that all we're going to do? What's the difference?

He says, inferential understanding, meaning, you mean, logically or something like that? Like, Tatthi is logical and Mahamudra is not or something like that? So, intellectual as opposed to direct.

No, I mean, intellectual, they're both intellectual. They're both intellectual. And they start, they both start intellectual, and they're both supposed to lead to direct.

By the way, there's a difference between Jorlong and Tonglam, right? There's a difference between second path, which is preparation, where you're doing intellectual study of emptiness, and then Tonglam, which is the direct perception of emptiness. So, of course, you're trying to go, whether you're doing Tantra or Sutra, you still got to go through those five paths, okay?

[Speaker 2]
To do Mahamudra, do you have to do some level of calm-abiding before you do it?

[Speaker 1]
She says, to do Mahamudra, do you have to have shamatha first to do it? You know, no. No, I mean, if you never did Tantra, if you never did Mahamudra, even in the Sutra system, you would still perceive emptiness directly.

You could still do it. To do that, you'd still have to reach shamatha. You'd still have to reach perfect concentration.

[Speaker 2]
Is it because Mahamudra teaches directly on the nature of mind?

[Speaker 1]
On the what?

[Speaker 2]
Directly on the nature of mind?

[Speaker 1]
That's a good answer. He said, directly on the nature of mind. Is Mahamudra related directly to the nature of mind?

By the way, that's a better answer than Namoham Rinpoche gave. Namoham Rinpoche said, I think the difference is that in Mahamudra, you perceive the clear light combination of bliss and voidness. You know.

And Rinpoche says, it's a cool conversation. It's very rare in carved books that are a couple hundred years old to hear them kind of, you know, taunting each other. And he says, he says, well, so I guess clear light of bliss and wisdom is not tantra, right?

And Namoham says, oh, I'm sorry, we're not talking tantra, right? He says, of course we're not talking tantra, we're talking sutra right now. He says, bad answer.

You know, he's like giving him a hard time. He says, that's an interesting answer, and it's wrong. And so then, then Mridulabhadra says, okay, since you couldn't figure it out, I'll tell you.

You know, it has to do with the object that you're meditating on. And in Mahamudra, the difference is you're concentrating on the emptiness of the mind. Okay?

Like you could pick a pen, you could pick your ear, you could pick your nose, you could pick New York City, but, that's a different thing. Okay, but, but the point is, when you use your mind as the object of an emptiness meditation, then that's the main quality of Mahamudra. Okay?

That's the main difference. When you're talking about sutra, that differentiates it from a dhakti. That differentiates it from other presentations of emptiness.

The point, the fact that you're taking your mind as the object. You're investigating the emptiness of your mind. Okay?

Does that mean you just sit and watch your thoughts go by, and that's going to help you see emptiness? Okay? You've been doing that your whole life, and nothing happened yet.

Okay? So that's a fallacy. That's a Dharma rumor.

Okay? Just watching your thoughts fade or something, like sitting very quietly, and watching your thoughts fade or something like that, that's a Dharma rumor. Okay?

There's a joke in the scripture. They say rabbits do that a lot, and they don't see emptiness. Okay?

Then is it some kind of light that you see in your mind or something like that? You know, clear light or something like that? Clear light is a, is just a synonym for emptiness.

Okay? It doesn't have anything to do with some kind of light that is colorless, or... You know what I mean?

When somebody says clear light, you kind of see some color. You know, I don't know. I see like Sprite instead of Coke, you know?

And it's all clear, and you can see through it or something like that. It's not like that. Okay?

Clear light is just another word for emptiness. Okay? So it doesn't mean becoming aware of some weird quality of your mind or something like that.

It doesn't mean that. And it's not a Mahamudra... By the time you get done with the six kinds of emptiness, you won't make the mistake of thinking that it's just sitting down and watching your mind or something like that, and not judging, they say.

You know what I mean? You know, oh, don't judge yourself. Just let the thoughts come by.

I'd like to kill the person sitting next to me. Oh, just watch it, you know? Let it...

Let it fade, you know? There's no point to that. Okay?

There's really no point to it. That's not a meditation on emptiness. Okay?

Is it useful? It could be. Okay?

I mean, if someone starts doing it, they could start being very aware of the state of their mind. Okay? So we would say that the people who teach Mahamudra that way could very well be Buddhas.

Okay? No problem. Okay?

There's no problem. Is it useful? Yes.

Is it the ultimate way to explain it? No. Okay?

And that's very common. Okay? Who taught the five wrong ideas of emptiness?

Lord Buddha. Okay? No dummy.

Okay? Alright? So you can say this is not the ultimate method.

But you can't say that this person is stupid or this tradition is dumb or people shouldn't do that or something like that. I'm not saying that. It could be very, very useful for certain people.

It obviously is. Okay? And the people who teach that could be fully enlightened Buddhas.

So we have to say that. Okay? But when you get in a debate, then you have to say, well, here's our take on Mahamudra and this is why it's beneficial.

And then you can actually help that person come up a little higher. And the sixth presentation of emptiness is indisputably Nagarjuna's and Lord Buddha's. And you can see it.

You can smell it. When you get to it, you'll know. It'll have a different feeling.

And you'll see. And logically, it is unassailable. You can't disprove it.

Much less after you see it directly. Okay? But even logically, you can't...

Logically, it's airtight and there's no problem. You'll see it when you get to it. So Mahamudra differs from other presentations of emptiness in that you are using the mind as the object which you investigate whether it's empty or not.

And how is it empty or not. Okay? And we'll get into that especially on Sunday.

But you're... The main difference is that you're taking your own mind as the object. Okay?

Last thing to say before we take a short break. And Nityadharabhadra says... And by the way, there's four other differences between just standing up and teaching somebody emptiness and standing up and teaching them Mahamudra.

There are four other benefits. Okay? So I'm going to write those benefits for you.

This is why Mahamudra is perhaps a very beneficial way of teaching Tala or worldview. Okay? So you can even think of Mahamudra as being a subcategory of Tatti.

Okay? Meaning, all the... All the explanations of emptiness are a big category.

And then under there, there's a certain amount of teachings on Mahamudra. Which ones? The ones that take the mind as the object.

So taking the mind as the object which you investigate when you're examining emptiness has the following advantages. And this is... This is how Luchadharabhadra leaves it.

He says, Hey, by the way, there's four advantages of doing it with your mind. Okay? Rather than staring at a pen or something like that.

And he... Here's what he says. Say, Mikten?

[Speaker 2]
Mikten.

[Speaker 1]
Chala?

[Speaker 2]
Chala.

[Speaker 1]
Mikten? Mikten. Chala?

Chala. Mikten means the object of your meditation. Like, are you trying to visualize some tantric deity?

Are you trying to visualize your Lama's face? You know? Are you trying to visualize all the steps of some Lama in meditation?

Okay? Chala means... Chala means to see it in your mind, for it to come up in your mind.

Okay? Lama is easy. So, Chala means, what's your favorite ice cream?

You know? Chala. You know, it's not like a big trouble to visualize it.

I mean, you see Ben and Jerry's face, it says Cherry Garcia on it, it's kind of a dark brown packing, you know? That's Chala. I mean, or the person at work who gives you the most trouble, Chala.

You see what I mean? It means, it's not a big problem to visualize them. Okay?

Easy to think of them. What is the object of meditation in... What is the...

What is the object you're examining to see if it's empty or not in a Mahamudra meditation? Your mind. So if you can't imagine your mind, you're having trouble.

Okay? If you can't think of your mind, it is what you're thinking. You see what I mean?

Okay? So it's not like you got to visualize a deity with twelve arms and a different thing in each arm, or different color eyes and different color hairs, and, you know, all you have to do is think. Okay?

Okay? So, mikten chala. It means, come on.

The easiest thing to get out to come in your mind is your mind. Now sometimes, really distancing yourself from your mind and looking at your mind is a little harder. I mean, I don't think it's exactly that easy.

But his point is that, you know, you don't have to take a picture around with you. You know, you don't need a statue or anything. You just sit down, close your eyes and think.

And then you've already got the object of examination is before you. Because it's your own mind. And very convenient to carry it around with you.

Okay? I mean, it's there all the time. You know, just think.

And then you have your object of meditation. Okay? Then we're going to examine that object to see is it empty or not.

And by the way, the results of that are profound. You know, by the end of this weekend, when you learn how to do an emptiness meditation on your own mind, it's really cool. I mean, a really good meditation on that is very, very profound.

Okay? And you'll be able to do that by the end of the thing. And you'll also know the five common errors that people have made through the last two and a half thousand years with the same meditation.

Okay? Okay, that's the first advantage. Second advantage.

By the way, even if you don't know Tibetan, write the English. There's this, we were in Australia at one of the FPMT centers, and we had a really nice time, and there was this couple that has a small Dharma center where eight people came, and they went home, and now they have their courses in the English letters. You know, like they taught a whole course themselves.

They don't know Tibetan, but they did the whole course with these letters, and it was beautiful. And they did the whole diamond cutter, and like eight people came, and it was really beautiful. So, you know, it helps to explain the concepts if you have the original sources.

Okay? Say, ching wa ching wa tramo tramo chö la chö la ching wa ching wa tramo tramo chö la chö la Okay. Ching wa tramo, we talked about the last class here, I think.

What was the last course we had here? Yeah, meditation. Do you guys remember ching wa and gupa?

What's ching wa? Dullness. Yeah.

Ching wa tramo, but ching wa is a kind of dullness during meditation. Okay? Heavy ching wa or what we call gross ching wa, ching wa rak pa, which is not what we're talking about here.

Ching wa rak pa is what you get if you meditate after eating three bowls of ice cream. Okay? And I can attest.

We had this Tibetan doctor over at our place in New York like two weeks ago, and I downed three bowls of ice cream, and she's sitting there watching me, you know. And then she said, you're going to get flammed. Anyway, if you try to meditate right after that, you get ching wa rak pa.

I mean, obvious dullness. If you don't get enough sleep, and then in the next afternoon in a warm room you try to meditate, that's obvious ching wa. Okay?

We're not talking about that. We're talking about ching wa tramo. Do you remember ching wa tramo?

Subtle dullness. The biggest enemy of meditation, according to Je Tsongkhapa and all the great masters. Okay?

I mean, no one's going to not notice if you fall asleep and hit your head on the closet, which I've done. Okay? During a ching wa rak pa attack.

But ching wa tramo, ching wa tramo is more dangerous. Ching wa tramo is, you're meditating really good, and you're not moving, and the object is fairly clear, but you're just spaced out on it. And if you try to meditate for more than 45 minutes, I'd say, you have to really watch this one.

If you think you're doing two or three hours well, because your body's not moving, and you have the object loosely, you could have ching wa tramo. Ching wa tramo is like, you're just spacing out on it. You have some dull awareness of the object, your body's in perfect meditation posture, and your breath is real slow and nice, and nothing's happening.

There's no ngar, right? What's ngar? Ngar is intensity, okay?

The vividness of the object. You're not working towards some vivid quality of the object. It's just dull.

And you can do that for years, and nothing will progress. And I've had Western people say to me, I can meditate pretty good, I can sit pretty good, but I don't feel like I progressed in my meditation. That's ching wa tramo, okay?

Which is the biggest enemy of meditation. Ching wa tramo. Why?

Because it feels good, and you're not aware of it. You're aware of it if you hit your head on the closet. But you can have ching wa tramo for years and think you're doing pretty good.

That's dangerous. Chö. Chö, you know the word, and it's a very mysterious chö.

This is the chö in Dorje Chöpa, diamond cutter. It means to cut. Chö, or the practice of chö, termination, is to cut, okay?

So chö means to cut. La is the same as up here. La means easy, okay?

So what's it say? What's it saying? It's easy to eliminate subtle dullness.

Why? I mean, you do other kinds of emptiness meditation, there's a chance you could get into subtle dullness. In this one, it's unlikely.

Why?

[Speaker 2]
Because you're watching your own mind.

[Speaker 1]
You're watching your own mind. I mean, you can't be watching your own mind and having ching wa tramo. You see what I mean?

To really be aware of your own mind and investigating your own mind, it has to be bright. You see what I mean? It has to be clear.

It has to be moving. This is going to be an analytical meditation. You're going to be looking at it from different angles.

And if you're in an analytical meditation on your mind, then by definition the mind is not stalled. So Mahamudra has that second advantage. That approach of choosing the mind as the object has the advantage of, it's very hard to space out and still be doing Mahamudra.

Because you're watching your own mind. Your own mind is the object of the meditation. Number three.

Say, Gopa Rangshuki Gat Gopa Rangshuki Gat Gopa is what? The opposite of ching wa. Gopa is thinking about what you have to do later in the day while you're meditating in the morning.

That's perfect gopa. To me, that's the most common obstacle in my meditation. It's like, what do I have to do with project number three today?

What kind of breakfast am I going to have when I get out of this stupid meditation? You know what I mean? So that's gopa.

It's the mind going out. Rangshuki means automatically. Rangshuki means automatically.

Gat means it'll stop. It'll stop. And again, the point is that you're watching your own mind.

So your awareness of where your thoughts are is very strong. So if they start to wander, you're going to notice it. Your sheshin, your ability to awareness sheshin means your watchdog mind.

Your watchdog state of mind. The mental alarm that goes off when you start to wander. That'll be at a very high intensity.

You see what I mean? Since you're meditating on your own mind, the minute the mind starts to go off to another object, you're going to catch it. Okay?

So, so gopa rangshuki gat. Okay, those are those are two sides of the meditation. Two advantages of meditating on your own mind.

Okay? You're not likely to go wandering off to some other object if your mind is what you're focusing on. Okay?

Okay, number four. Say, min je min je kye pa chen kye pa chen min je min je kye pa chen kye pa chen Min is an important word in Tantra. Okay?

Min means to ripen somebody. Ripen or mature something. Like, ming du re.

Ming du re means, in colloquial Tibetan, it means, is this fruit ripe or not? You know, you poke it and you say, ming du re. You know, it means, is it ripe or not?

Kye rim is a min je for dzog rim. Okay? Kye rim means you to practice dzog rim.

Okay? For example, in Tantra, the stage of what they call creation ripens you for the stage of completion. Okay?

So, the concept, an awang, an initiation, is for the practice, is for the purposes of minning you, prepare you for actually getting the instructions and learning your vows. So, the idea of minba is very important in Tantra. Ripening, or doing some cooking process on your mind stream.

Like some quick ripening process on your mind stream. Okay? Gardening.

Okay? Super fertilizer. Okay?

Min je is a very specific word in Tantra that means some kind of action or practice which will which will bring you along very quickly. Which will ripen you very quickly. You know, like you start out a schmuck and then you get some min je.

And then suddenly you're ready to practice Tantra. You see what I mean? Like, the idea of planning min je's in students' mind streams, and then suddenly a year later there's some kind of amazing person who's ready to practice Tantra properly.

That's a big concept in Tantra. Min je. Okay?

So, min je means some kind of practice or teaching that accelerates the growth of your mind stream. Okay? Which makes it ready for Tantra.

Khyepa chen means very, very powerful. Very, very special. Okay?

In his last remarks, Moojibaba Bhadra says, he uses words that mean you know, supercharged, or something like that. It's like, he says min je khyepa chen. Okay?

Meaning what? If you practice Mahamudra properly, meaning watching the emptiness of your own mind, learning what emptiness is, and then taking your own mind as the object, then you'll get... then when you go on to the Tantric practice of Mahamudra, it'll be a blowout.

You see what I mean? You'll be totally ready, and you'll just slide into it very easily. Like, you know you're ready for Tantra when you learn and practice, or you get an initiation and it feels like coming home.

You see what I mean? Like, you're totally ready for it. It's not like some kind of headache or something like that.

It's like, very, very natural to slide into that way of seeing things, or something like that. Okay? So that means you've had good min jes.

Okay? So, the fourth advantage of Mahamudra, over what? Normal tatti.

Normal teachings on emptiness. General teachings on emptiness. You see what I mean?

We're not talking Tantra as opposed to Sutra. We're talking... We're already talking about the Sutra form of Mahamudra, right?

Don't make the mistake that Namoham Rinpoche made. He said, Oh, Mahamudra is special because you see clear light. No, no, no.

We're talking Sutra. Why is it special in Sutra? Because you pick your own mind as the object, and then all of these four advantages come.

You know? It's got all these four cool things about this kind of emptiness teaching, as opposed to emptiness teachings in general. Okay?

Taking your mind as the object is what differentiates Mahamudra from emptiness teachings in general. Okay? And then, what's the advantage of that?

Those four advantages. What's the first one? Yeah, yeah.

If you can't visualize your mind, you have a problem. If you can't think of your mind, okay, while you're there, in it, okay, that's like saying, you know, I look in the mirror, I just can't see anything, you know, then you have a problem. Okay?

The second one? Yeah, you're not going to be, like, spacing out on it and examining it at the same time, because it is the examiner and the examinee. At the same moment?

No. One microsecond apart, by the way. Okay?

Don't become a mind only. Okay. Third one?

Yeah, your mind is not going to wander if you're, like, standing over it, watching it, to see about its emptiness, you know? I mean, theoretically, it would be a lot easier to avoid thinking about breakfast. Okay?

Theoretically. Number four. If, if, you know, as opposed to general emptiness teachings, if you meditate on the emptiness of your mind, it prepares you for Tantra very effectively.

Then when you get to Tantra, you'll be totally, totally ready. It sets you up for Tantra in a very nice way. Okay?

Very, very, very strong way. Okay? We're going to take a break and then we're going to come back to the emptiness.

I'm going to work with a, with a visible object. This is the tradition, especially in the Vajrayogini. Okay?

You take a visible object, like, this is the ancient Sakya tradition. In those days, it was a conch shell. We happen to use a pen.

So we're going to take a, going to take an object, and tonight we're going to cover the first two types of emptiness about it that aren't real, what? Emptiness. Okay?

And, but I want to get you used to it. Okay? And, and, and you're going to, we're going to talk about the emptiness of the pen on two levels.

And then we're going to do Mahamudra meditation on that. And then we'll move to the mind later, okay? So, so take a break now, maybe five, ten minutes, all right?

Okay? Thank you.

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