Серия ежедневной практики, курс 09 — Пустота ума (махамудра) (1999, Сокел), занятие 6

[Speaker 2]
Session four.

[Speaker 1]
Satsang with Master Jigme Phuntsok Okay, I'm going to assume you had as big a dinner as I had. The cooks are too good. They should get somebody worse.

[Speaker 2]
I could do it. No.

[Speaker 1]
So we'll do a little class first, but not too much, because then we'll get sleepy. So there's a small window of opportunity somewhere between there. So we'll talk about emptiness of flavor number six.

Custom is to go through the first five first. So, first one was permanent. We'll call it permanent.

Emptiness of permanence, right? Devoid of permanence. Absent of permanence, right?

Things are not permanent. That's all. Second one?

Yeah, ownership. Owning things. So the application of the second flavor of emptiness is in the idea of ownership.

The false idea of ownership. And the false idea of permanence. What was the third one?

Yeah, okay. Let's call it chance. Things happening by chance.

Things happening just by chance. These are all gacchas, right? Gaccha meaning self-existent object.

These are all self-existent objects. They don't exist. They're non-entities.

And they cause you all your suffering. You're responding to the influence of something that doesn't even exist. Your life is made miserable by these three things that don't even exist.

I mean, be almost more comforting if it were something substantial. You know what I mean? Like it was some demons we had to fight with.

And whoever could wrestle better would win. But we're wrestling against things that never existed anyway. That makes it ironic as well as frustrating.

All right. Number four. Just kidding.

What do you want to call it? Judgment. Uninformed judgment.

It's something like bias, I guess. It's something that doesn't exist. You know what I mean?

That your favorite song is really the best song. You know what I mean? Say again?

Well, it has a character of being a song or something like that. It has notes and they go up and down and stuff like that. But prejudice exists.

It has to be truly better songs or something like that.

[Speaker 2]
You see what I mean?

[Speaker 1]
No, value judgments are what are produced by believing in this thing. You see what I mean? But what is this thing?

There's lots of constructs that are useful. You know, democracy. You know what I mean?

It's the object of a belief in... It's the object of bias. It's the object of your belief that Neil Young is the best music.

It's a self-existently better Neil Young or something like that. Personal taste. I don't know.

We had a big dinner. Inherent betterness. I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
Self-existent.

[Speaker 1]
It's too broad.

[Speaker 2]
They said self-existent qualities.

[Speaker 1]
I don't know how to say it.

[Speaker 2]
Indisputable.

[Speaker 1]
That's okay. But isn't Buddha indisputable? Anyway.

[Speaker 2]
What's that?

[Speaker 1]
No, that's the mental affliction that comes by focusing on this object. This object is... We'll just say it's songs that are good from their own side.

How's that?

[Speaker 2]
How about judgments that aren't creations?

[Speaker 1]
How's that? Judgments that are not just made up by you. Not just your creations.

Then you can have fights with somebody. You can say, this is not... It's not me.

It's natural or it's the way of things that Neil Young is the best. It's not my opinion. I mean, anyone who knew anything about music would see that.

You see what I mean? This state of mind is denying that that's something that you've created. It's not something that I've created.

It's not kundat by me, if you know Mind Only School. It's not something that I've created. It is true in and of itself, universally, that Neil Young is the best.

Yeah. I wouldn't say that. There are no objects of judgment which are not creations.

How's that? You see what I mean? And you've got to get used to that.

Basically, what it boils down to is that it's not true that one song is better than another song from its own side. And that leads over to another state of... another truth, which is that you can't really judge the people around you.

I mean, you can judge the action and condemn their actions, but you can't condemn their motivations or... There could be bodhisattvas who've seen that this is necessary. You can't judge people.

Nga da nga da ma yin pa ra shen gyi tse summa mi jate nyam par gyur tare Very famous, opening lines of some famous sutra. If you're not me, meaning an omniscient being, this is Lord Buddha talking, or like me, meaning another omniscient being, shen gyi tse summa mi jate, don't judge other people, nyam par gyur tare, you will fall down to the hell realms. Don't do it.

So that's all. Just don't realize that what you take to be the best music or the best food or the best thing to do right now is your construct and doesn't have any reality from its own side. Something like that.

Number five? Yeah, let's just say... What's the opposite of...

What would be the opposite of that? These are gotchas. These are things that we deny.

We deny that a problem is self-existently a bad thing or something like that. You see what I mean? True problems...

It mostly refers to problems. True problems. Like this...

That if you get fired from your job, it is a real problem. That you can't interpret it in a different way. You see what I mean?

That you can't do lojong on it. You can't apply lojong to it. You can't transform it.

What would be the opposite of being able to be transformed? Fixed problems. Inherent problems?

That's tricky. That's a different point though. Problems that can't be opportunities or something like that?

Yeah, it's not just problems. But in mental affliction, in the art of dealing with your mental afflictions, we're talking about mainly problems. How about absolute problems?

Absolute problems. By the way, I'm going to go back to number five before we get to number six. Number five is a view of reality.

Lower Madhyamika school. Why are they lower? What makes the view wrong?

There's got to be some catch here. We'll talk about it. But the point of number five is like the point of transforming.

When you say transforming problems, you're already assuming the existence of a problem. You see what I mean? When you say transforming the problem into something good, then you're presupposing the presence of a problem.

And you're saying there's a problem out there, there's a pen, there's a cylinder asking to be called pen, and then I call it a pen. You see what I mean? And then you're down already in the lower Madhyamika school.

Why? Because you're saying there is some existence from its own side. 50%.

And then 50% of the existence is imputed by me. And then 50-50, we get 100 and there's a pen. There's a problem.

I approach it a certain way. And by looking at it in different ways, I can learn to cope with problems. I can learn to deal with problems.

And each one of these is a different level of Buddhist. You've heard Buddhist lectures where they said the goal in life was to not be attached to things. So if you study impermanence really well, you'll be happier.

Is that the goal of Buddhism? To deal with crap in a good way. Is that the goal?

It's just to learn to cope with crap. You see what I mean? Is that the goal of our lives?

Is it that you want to get to be 70 years old and you're just a really good crap coper? You know what I mean? No, really, they present it like that.

They present it like that. Is that your goal in life? Or do you just want to become a person who can smile while thieves are ransacking your house?

Yeah, I knew I didn't own that. You see, we're working up the ladder. Or is it comforting to know that when you get in a car accident that you and the car accident are coming from the same car?

You know, I mean, is that... That's okay. I mean, you might try to be a better person or something, you know what I mean?

I mean, there's some comfort in knowing that you've done it to yourself, I guess. Somebody, I read an interview with His Holiness and they said, you're very pessimistic. You know, your view of life is very...

Suffering, everything is suffering. And then he was giggling the whole time. And they said, why are you giggling?

Why aren't you depressed? And he said, well, you know, there's a certain... There's a certain virtue to admitting what's going on.

Then, number four would be interesting. I mean, if you truly didn't judge other people or if you didn't insist that your way was the best all the time. You know, if you could accept the idea that your favorite song...

My college roommate thought that... He called Neil Young the screaming eunuch, you know? And, you know, when I played Neil Young all night, he was, like, tortured, you know?

And so... So apparently it's not self-existent. You know what I mean?

I mean, it would lead to a lot less conflict if we truly appreciated how... that our favorite song might sound like torture to someone else, okay? I mean, that would lead to a lot of less mental afflictions in the world.

And then, last one. And now we're getting very close to the truth, okay? We're getting very close to number six.

Number five is like lojong. Number five is the kadampa. You know, it's like, okay, there's crap in the world.

Try to transform it. Try to make the best... Try to find the silver lining we used to say, right?

Like, you know, try to make the best of a bad situation. You know, learn to... When the Chinese kick you out of your country, you know, try to think of them in good terms.

You know, try to think, well, they're teaching me about my grasping and they're teaching me about ownership and they've taught me a lot of good lessons. And the idea is that there is a problem here, but try to see it in a useful light and get some mileage out of it. You know what I mean?

But the assumption is that there's problems around you, okay? And that that's the way it's going to be. That's a lower Madhyamika school approach.

You know, there's a problem out there which is the cylinder appearing to you. And then you have your choice of how you look at this problem. You know, because 50% of the reality is coming from your side.

So, like, you can adjust things. You can see things in a favorable light. You can do tricks to yourself to make yourself happy.

And Arya Nagarjuna in his letter to the friend Surleka, he says the same thing. Halfway... He goes halfway through the book explaining what he calls band-aids, you know, like...

These are band-aids, you know? They're not... They're just ways of looking at problems that make life a little easier.

You know what I mean? But it's not an ultimate solution. You're not removing those problems.

You're just learning to look at them in a fresh light and maybe it'll help you. Halfway through that book, you can feel a sudden shock. And he says, now I'll tell you the real way to get rid of your problems.

And then he goes to number six. He's the great master of number six, okay? So here's number six.

Okay, say, Mingde.

[Speaker 2]
Mingde.

[Speaker 1]
Sorry, Rich, you had a question? Yeah. Yeah.

We're going one step up from that. We're saying you've already labeled it as a problem. Okay?

We're assuming you've already labeled it as a problem. Now what do you do with that? Yeah.

We'll talk about it. It's called the onion skin theory of emptiness, you know? You're labeling a problem on a car accident, on a collision of vehicles, on a...

You see what I mean? And we'll talk about it. Say, Mingde.

Mingde. Shaktham. Shaktham.

Mayimbar. Mayimbar. Yu.

Yu. Rangi. Rangi.

Dulupsu. Dulupsu. Dhrupe.

Dhrupe. Toa. Toa.

Okay, one more time. Mingde. Mingde.

Shaktham. Shaktham. Mayimbar.

Mayimbar. Yu. Yu.

Rangi. Rangi. Dulupsu.

Dulupsu. Dhrupe. Dhrupe.

Toa. Toa. Okay.

Okay, number six. Who accepts number six? I repeat, Lord Buddha as being the highest.

No question. This is not... There's no debate about it.

I mean, he doesn't... This is not... I'm not being figurative.

This is literal. Okay? Highest position accepted by Lord Buddha, Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti, Jatakapa, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Yeshe, Lama Serpa, Khenropoche, everybody, and all tantric schools.

You must get this one to practice tantra. Okay? So, here we go.

Ming means names. De means terms. Sakpa means established as existing.

Established through names and terms. Sam means just. Just.

Only that. Just that. Just established through names and terms.

Okay? Just. And that's what they believe everything is.

Okay? We'll talk about that. Okay?

Just the result of a process of labeling. Okay? Mayimbar.

Mayimbar means we've had that before. Suppose it wasn't that way. Okay?

Mayimbar means suppose it was not that way. And suppose instead that you... That that object, meaning the pen, okay?

Suppose that the object, Ranggit Dulusu Drupa, had some existence from its own side, through its own unique way of being. You know, suppose it had some unique identity of its own. From its own side.

Okay? Suppose the pen had some unique identity of its own from its own side. Okay?

Rather than being a result of the labeling process.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, suppose the pen had some unique identity of its own from its own side, independent of me naming it or labeling it something. Okay? That would be the Gaccha.

That's what doesn't exist. There's no such thing. We'll talk about it.

And the absence of that, Toa, is the ultimate meaning of emptiness.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Toa means empty. Absence. Things are absent of that quality.

I'll give you a real brief... This is an old one. Some people in New York are tired of it.

Sorry. People around the world are tired of it. But anyway.

Okay. Very simply. Okay.

By the way, first I have to tell you that the words name and term here, Mingde, are code words for the labeling process. Meaning, verbally or mentally, you're labeling this thing a pen. Okay?

So Ming means verbally you're calling it a pen. De, so name means verbally naming it something. De means mentally imputing it to be something.

Mentally calling it something. Mentally conceptualizing it as something. Okay?

So the second one is more of a conceptualizing something in a certain way. You can call it projecting.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And it's very, very simple. Okay? What do I have in my hand?

Whoa. Anyone who says nothing gets a Hitler mustache.

[Speaker 2]
All right. No.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Okay. No.

It's a pen. Okay? It's a pen.

You've seen me use it. You know it's a pen. All right?

Now what do they mean in Prasangika? Haya Smajmika. What do they mean when they say it's just a projection or something like that?

What do they mean? It's very simple. You see it as a pen.

Okay? Is it a pen from its own side? Let's investigate that.

Is there 50% pen from its own side, like the, who says? Independent group. Like the lower Majamika say.

Is it like 50% from its own side? Or is it like 100% from its own side, like everybody else says? Okay?

Mine only on down. Or is it nothing from its own side? Let's check.

Suppose a dog comes in here. What's his name? Wolf.

Nice dog. And I cover this with beef grease or something. And I say, Here Wolf, what's this?

And then he'll just grab it and start chewing on it. To a dog, this thing is like a perfect shape to chew on. It's like something, a chewable object.

It's a very, very nice thing to chew on. When they see this cylinder, they automatically conceptualize it as something to chew on. Okay?

Do they conceptualize it as a pen? Does it appear to them as a pen? You see, that's the emptiness of this pen.

It doesn't get any more mystical than that. Sorry. That's all it is.

That's the emptiness of the pen. There is no pen that comes from its own side. Because if it did come from its own side, a dog would see it as a pen.

So it's not really fair to say, I showed the pen to the dog and he chewed it. If you believe in animal rights, you have to say, I showed the cylinder to the dog and he chewed it. So really you have to say it that way.

And that's all. The emptiness of this pen is that to a... There's nothing pen about it.

Get it? Okay? There's nothing pen coming from its side.

If there was, a dog would be torn between chewing it or writing a dog love letter or something. You know what I mean? They'd look confused for a while and they'd try to decide.

There's nothing penny coming from its side. Okay? There's nothing...

There's no pen coming from this cylinder. Okay? You have to get used to that.

That's its emptiness. If you see it as a pen, that's your trip. And if you see it as a chewable object, you're on a different trip.

But there's no pen... There's no pen coming from its side. And you have to get...

That's the emptiness of the pen. Okay? By the way, in Madhyamika, in the Madhyamika Avatar of Chandrakirti, this is taught in a subject called chumbap.

Say chumbap. Chumbap. Chumbap.

Chumbap means water... water flow or waterfall. And it's a section...

I always think of our old Dharma Center in Hell's Kitchen, in the basement. You know? And it was dark and it was wet and there was one light coming down.

And I imagine like three... It's like this. It's three beings sitting around a poker table.

Okay? And all you can see is this light, this triangle of light. And you're standing back in the dark.

You know? And somebody comes in, like a waitress. I always imagine this waitress coming in and setting a glass of liquid in the middle of the table.

And around the table playing poker is a preta, a ha, a deva, a worldly deva, meaning a worldly pleasure being, and a human being. So they're like playing cards. And then the waitress comes in and sets a glass of...

oh, sorry, a glass of liquid down in the middle. And then you're going to see in the reading, the last part of your reading tonight, which you get tomorrow. It's done.

It's not Xerox. You can go to Kinko's around 3 a.m. You can get it. But they discuss water, the idea of water.

It's called water, you know, the river of water. And what it means is that sitting around the same table, looking at the same glass, the preta sees... might see something refreshing, but when they hold it up to their mouth and get it close, it changes into pus and blood, like some disgusting, rotten stuff.

And they can't drink it. They're repulsed by it. The human picks up the glass and sees water and drinks water.

And then the deva picks up the glass and drinks amrita, nectar, holy nectar, of immortality. To them it's just like some unbelievable elixir. So that's a teaching on...

And then they go into a huge debate about are they all having a tema, for example? Are they all having a pramana? Are they all having a valid cognition?

A valid perception? Is their perceptions valid? Yeah.

What does valid mean? Valid means, OK, given their condition. Given their set of circumstances, they're seeing what they're supposed to see.

So they're all having a valid perception. So does that mean that that one object is three objects at once? Three contradictory objects at once?

Can blue and red... That's the question. You have to say yes.

Maybe, I don't know. OK? I mean, if you have the karma to see blue as red, which some people do, right?

OK, long story. Anyway, huge debate. But what it boils down to is the pen and the chewable object.

Same thing, same principle. Now there's a couple of interesting side things there. And it's not the point tonight, but if you hold this thing up and suddenly your mouth starts to water, OK?

It means... Get this. That's what an animal rebirth is.

OK? You gotta... Animal rebirths are not self-existent.

There's no dog factory and dog body factory out in Kansas. I always imagine it in the Midwest. I don't know why.

But there's a factory cranking out dog bodies. And then they cut the top open and then they catch spirits, souls, and they stuff them in there. I mean, that's what your idea of rebirth is.

Somebody says, do you believe in rebirth? I say, yeah. You really believe your soul can get stuffed into an animal?

I mean, you imagine rebirth like that. You think of rebirth like that. Now change that.

Think of rebirth as a shift in your perceptions.

[Speaker 2]
OK?

[Speaker 1]
You start to see this not as a pen, but as something to... When you start to... When your mouth starts to water, when you see cylinders, you know you's a dog.

OK? That's the point. And that's how easy it is to get born in an animal realm.

It's a simple shift in your perceptions. You see what I mean? It's not like you have to grow hair or something like that.

When you look down at your hand, you will see... Sorry, five cylinders, you will see a paw. OK?

And that's what it is to be a dog. And there's nothing other that's a dog. You see, you've got to get used to that.

It's not like there's dogs sitting there already and they stuff you into it. You start seeing the world as a dog, which makes you a dog. Because there is no world.

There's no standard world that you are reinterpreting. See, that's a lower Madhyamika idea. You see, there's a world and everyone's interpreting it their own way.

It's not like that. There's no standard world. You can't say water is more reasonable than pus.

You can't say somebody's the standard and everybody else is interpreting it. That's lower Madhyamika. What highest Madhyamika says is that there is no standard reality.

And everyone's seeing it their own way. Everyone's seeing something their own way. But there isn't like any base reality that...

Oh, human reality is the basis and then animals are dumb and devas are smarter. It's something like that. It doesn't work like that.

There is no base reality. There is no existence of the cylinder from its own side either. I was in Australia doing this shtick up in front of 250 people in Melbourne.

And they all got it. It was really cool. It was like this really weird night.

And they were just all strangers and they got the thing about the pen. Next morning I get a phone call. This is Nicky Rebusch's mummy.

I must meet you. And I say, OK, I'm over at this Tara place. And they say, OK, I'll be there for breakfast.

I have to see you immediately. So I said, Nick Rebusch is really cool. So I've got to meet his mother.

Then I can make fun of him later. So I meet his mom and she comes in. She's very old.

And she sits down and she says, I just have one question to ask you. And I said, what's that? And she says, You said that I see the cylinder as a pen and the dog sees the cylinder as a chewable thing.

And I said, that's right. But the cylinder. What about the cylinder?

She got it. She really got it. And usually you don't bring this up.

Usually you don't go that far. When you're doing a public lecture in the music hall in Melbourne, you don't go down to the pen. And by the way, this is the big difference between higher Madhyamika and lower Madhyamika.

Here it is right here. It's coming right now. This is Rebusch's question.

Yeah, the cylinder is your projection onto two pieces of cylinder. There's no cylinder either. And that's the big difference.

When you go looking for the thing that you're calling a pen, which is a cylinder, and then you go looking for the cylinder, you won't find that either. And you can keep going down. You can break this thing in half.

Say, now the bottom of the cylinder is just my projection onto two pieces of the bottom. And then the bottom of the cylinder is just my projection on the upper part of the bottom of the cylinder and the bottom part of the bottom of the cylinder. And you can go on and on and on like that.

That's the big difference. There is no base reality. And you've got to get used to that.

Does that mean that pens don't work? Anybody thinks that, come up and get your mustache. You've got to teach it that way.

By the way, that's when you break a bodhisattva vow about teaching emptiness. If you give somebody what I just said, and then leave them, say, go home and think about it, there's nothing. Then you broke your bodhisattva vows.

Then you might freak somebody out. This is not to freak you out. This is the truth and it works.

It works. It really does work. How does it work?

Let me finish this point. So why do I see it as a pen? And why does the dog see it as a chewable thing?

Absolutely one thing. Karma. I'm seeing it as a pen because my mind is forcing me to see it as a pen.

By the way, it has to be coming from my mind because it ain't coming from the other choice. What was the other choice? It's not coming from its own side.

We already established that. By the way, if you ever teach emptiness to plain old non-Buddhist brainwashed people, and they don't know anything about it, they have to accept this point. No reasonable person can deny this point.

Given what the dog sees, given what I see, the pen-ness cannot be coming from the side of the object. It must be coming from somewhere else. It's got to be coming from somewhere else.

From where? From my mind. Mingde shaktam.

My mind is labeling it. Pen. Verbally you're hearing pen.

If you speak English. But the more important thing is mentally. Mentally you are organizing its parts into a mental picture called pen.

That's the day part. That's the most important part. In your mind, these parts, this black and white and cylinder-ness, is being organized into a perfect pen by your mind.

And that's the main, what they call imputation or labeling or anything like that. The main process is that your mind is taking all those indicators and fashioning a nice pretty pen, a perfect pen in your mind. And that's how you see it.

The next thing you have to say to people when you're teaching emptiness is, do you think that's a voluntary thing? In other words, given the fact that this pen is a construct of my mind, that I'm creating it in my head, that I'm making this cylinder into a pen from my side, given that process, do you think it's possible to just decide that this is going to be a hundred dollar bill? Obviously not.

That idea went out when you were, and I'm not criticizing, but when you were six or seven years old and they told you to go to the church or Aunt Joan was sick and they told you to go to the church and pray for her. She has cancer. Pray that she doesn't die.

And you go to the church and you say, please God, make her live. And you believe it. You go and you say, please, please, please.

I'll do anything. I'll make my bed every night and just make sure Auntie Joan doesn't die. And then you get home and a couple of weeks later you find out that Auntie Joan died.

And you went through that a few times. And then you started to doubt that whole system. That's a concept that you could just wish it to be whatever you want.

It's a tempting thought, right? This is a construct of my mind. It's just a cylinder.

Let's make it a cylinder of platinum or gold or something like that. And then you close your eyes real hard and you wish. And then you look at it and it's still a pen.

That's because you can't make a change by wishing it. You are at the mercy of your past deeds. Absolutely at the mercy.

They call it infallible, right? Infallible means you can't... There's no exemptions or anything like that.

It's going to... This cylinder is going to be exactly what you deserve. Karma is ultimate justice.

It never wavers a micrometer. It always gives you exactly what you deserve. If you see it as a pen, that's because your mind is being forced to see it as a pen by certain impressions that you planted there in the past.

And it's going to be a pen for you as long as you lead that kind of life. As long as you continue to collect karma and have lousy good karma, right? Why?

Why is it dirty good karma? It wears out. The fact that it runs out of ink...

Does it run out of ink from its own side? Does anything happen from its own side? Come on.

No. Your karma to have a working pen is wearing out as we speak. Okay?

You're probably glad.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Alright? That's what the Buddha meant in the Heart Sutra. He says, He said, nothing exists.

Meaning, from its own side. Okay? You're creating all of it.

And anything good in your life by definition is wearing out.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Always. Because you're projecting it. And the projection will wear out.

As the imprint on your mind gets less by expressing itself, then things wear out. Then what happens? People die.

It causes death itself. Okay? It's very interesting.

It's what causes death. That... That continual using up of that karma.

If you don't... Is death another object that doesn't exist from its own side? Yeah.

Sure, you know. If something exists, it always works that way. According to the highest teachings of Buddhism, everything is that way.

Your death is that way. Now we get into some very interesting territory. Extremely interesting territory.

If number six is correct, it's not... What's number five? Transformation.

Forget transformation. Let's talk about Buddha Paradise. You see what I mean?

Big difference. Huge leap. One big step for mankind.

Okay? I mean, really. To go from number five to number six is mind-boggling.

Okay? What's number five? Coping with crap.

Okay? Really. Bad things are happening, but I'm a Buddhist.

You know? Stoic Buddhist. You know?

I'll try to see it in the best light. You know? Even though they stole all my money.

You know? They're trying to... They're my teacher.

You know what I mean? I mean, that's okay. You can do that.

That's useful. That's important. That's called transformation.

Now we're talking about creation. Different thing.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Creating your own Buddha Paradise. You see what I mean? Totally...

You go from number five to number six, everything is possible. Very, very interesting. You see?

The assertion of Arya Nagarjuna is, as long as a single scrap of reality is coming from its own side, you're stuck. You can't become a Buddha. Okay?

If anything about my arm is armed from its own side, I'm stuck with blood and guts and bones. Okay? But, if Mrs. Rebusch's cylinder is also empty, you see, only the Prasangika says that, then everything is possible. Then, then I can turn this arm into a Manjushri's arm. Very cool. You know, if there's not a scrap of self-existence, if nothing is coming from its own side, then there's hope.

You know, then everything can happen. So, so now you go from transformation to creation of Buddha Paradise. It's very cool.

Okay? You can... It makes all things possible.

Number six is the only one that really makes all things possible. Okay? Very, very, very profound.

You go from coping with crap to no more crap. Ever. You see?

Much preferable. You see what I mean? Much better way to be.

Okay? So, so then you look down and you can see Manjushri's arm. Then it's all over.

You're finishing it. Last question. And then I'll take some questions.

Okay? How do you make it happen? And by the way, I'll teach you the concept.

It's the difference between robo-claws and gardening. Say robo-claws. Gardening.

Okay. What's robo-claws mean? These are robo-claws.

Okay? You know, like, this is trying to manipulate your reality that has self-existence. You know, like...

And now I get very serious. Lama Sopha is ill. Okay?

So, how are we going to deal with it? Okay, robo-claws theory. See, robo-claws deal with self-existent objects.

Okay? That come from their own side. So, he's ill from his own side.

So, how do we fix that? Get him some better medicines. You know?

Make sure he has the right doctor. You know? See that his diet is correct.

You know what I mean? These are all, like, self-existent methods of fixing Lama Sopha. Okay?

And then you go... Those are... That's not really what cures him or doesn't cure him.

Why? Prove it. Stop!

Prove it. Huh? Because it doesn't always work.

I hate to be so obvious. Okay? I mean, after all these years of the AMA, you know, it's so obvious.

If something doesn't always work, you don't do that anymore. Find something that always works. You see, I mean, it's very, very interesting.

I spoke about it in San Francisco. Those of you who weren't there, we're talking about a new airline opens up. You buy a ticket, because it's the cheapest, because they're trying to get people on their airline.

And you go to the door of the plane, and there's a stewardess, and she says, What kind of drink would you like when we take off? I'll take an orange juice, you know? No ice.

And then she says, What kind of magazine would you like? I said, Time. I'm like, Please don't give me Golf Digest, okay?

And then they say, Could you sign this waiver, sir, before you get on the plane? And you say, Well, why? And they say, Well, we kind of figured out how to fly this thing.

But sometimes it goes, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it falls down. Like a certain percentage of the time it falls down.

We just haven't figured out how it works yet. You know? Like, almost perfect we got it down, but, you know, one out of ten.

So, could you just sign here? I mean, would you get in the plane? You know, even if it was cheaper.

I mean, Tower Air is similar, okay? But anyway, it's not like, it's not, that's a, you see, that's what you're dealing with when you try to solve problems self-existently. Robo, I call it Robo, they crush the things that they're trying to fix, you see?

Like, like you're trying to fix this, and fix this, and, and it doesn't work. And your whole life is the story of Robocloth. You've been doing it your whole life.

If I just had a little more exercise, if I just moved to Florida, you know, if I just took these vitamins, if I could just get a different job with a different boss, and you keep trying to fix things this way, okay? And what it means is, you're dealing with self-existent objects. Lama Zopa's illness is self-existent, okay?

It has some reality from its own side. A certain percentage of it hasn't come from karma. You know, in your mind you say, Petra's right, I'll let some lobsters go next week.

But in the meantime, let's make sure he has the right medicine. Because karma is only what? 20%?

40%? 60% of the problem? You see what I mean?

You either got to be Prasangika or not. You see what I mean? You either got to buy it as a package or not.

You see what I mean? You can't say, oh, 50% is karma, and 50% is what kind of doctor we find for Lama Zopa. It's not like that.

You have to figure out what karma is causing this illness, and change the karma. And then the perception must change. You see what I mean?

The perception must get better. And the reason you're not happy now, and the reason you're getting old now, is that you didn't figure this out. It's very cruel.

Stop working with robo-claws. Stop trying to affect your reality that way. It doesn't work.

Why? Because it's not consistent. The results aren't consistent.

That's not what makes it fly. If it was the right thing to do, it would work every time. And it doesn't work every time, so that's not what's causing Lama Zopa's illness.

And that's not how you're going to fix it. So what do you have to do? You find the real causes.

I visualize the real causes coming up like this, like gardening. Why do I say gardening? I have a thing about gardens.

You have to find the real causes for any... Let's talk about your own illness. Say that you yourself were ill.

Jimbei Longzhu, Chim Gyi De, very famous. Jimbei Longzhu means... Buddha said, want to get rich?

Give stuff away. Chim Gyi De, want to be healthy and be in a good state of mind? I mean happy.

You want to stop depression permanently? Keep your vows. And nothing else does it.

It's very interesting. Tomorrow morning we'll start real Mahamudra meditation. Up to now we had a dharti.

What's the difference? Yeah, we're not focusing on the mind yet. We've still been dealing with pens and money and stuff like that.

Your favorite thing, you know... I don't know, Mary Pop... What was your favorite thing?

I don't know. Okay, but... Tomorrow morning we'll stop dealing with that.

We'll start dealing with the mind. Then we shift from a dharti to a Mahamudra meditation. You see what I mean?

Up till now, it's been a meditation on emptiness. And tomorrow it becomes a... We'll take the object of the mind as an object.

We'll stop fooling around with my laptop and whatever it was for you. So what's the difference? The difference is if that's how reality works, you have to now change your behavior.

You don't get what you want by robo-claw behavior. It obviously doesn't work because it hasn't worked up to now. I doubt that things are going to change in the second half of your life.

Suddenly this approach is going to work. You've got nothing to lose. I always think like that.

I undertake some risky tantric thinking. And then I do. And I'm always a little hesitant to go the next leap.

And then I say, Well, what the hell? What have I got to lose? It didn't work so far.

That whole approach before of curing illness with different medicines and stuff like that, it doesn't work. What's really causing the illness? You didn't keep your vows.

You didn't keep your... You've got pratyamoksha vows, bodhisattva vows, and tantric vows. Those three things.

You didn't keep... And if you don't have vows, it's the ten non-virtues. You want to fix your health?

Keep your vows. It's very weird. It's a whole new approach.

Should I still take medicine? Yeah, you take medicine. It's okay.

But it's not... There's no inherent quality in the medicine that will cure you. Nothing exists from its own side.

If the medicine works, it's only because you kept your vows. If the medicine doesn't work, it's only because you didn't keep your vows. It's very cool.

So should you stop taking medicine? It's not the point. Take whatever you want.

Whether it works or not is totally dependent on something else. I was thinking this morning of... We had a leak in the roof in my lama's house.

I've been fixing that leak since I was 23 years old. First I fix this part of the roof, and then I wait, and then it keeps leaking. Then I fix this part of the roof at least.

And then when I was about 30-something, we figured out it was leaking in the northwest corner and migrating down a long piece of wood to his room. You know what I mean? The leak was appearing in one side of the house, but it was leaking in the roof from another side of the house.

Karma is just the same. I mean, it's not obvious, so it takes you a long time to figure it out. If you're getting sick, it has nothing to do with the roof right over your head.

Everything to do with something, whether you kept your vows at work six months ago, is why you caught a cold. You've got to get used to that. You've got to start thinking that way.

That's prasangika. Sickness doesn't exist from its own side. It just doesn't exist from its own side.

Forget that. Change your worldview. Change your worldview.

You've got nothing to lose. The old one doesn't work. You're getting older.

Try something else. My mom was dying of breast cancer. I was in Dharamsala studying.

I wrote her a letter. I said, Come to Dharamsala. What have you got to lose?

There's nothing to lose. She came. It's totally logical.

The doctor said, forget it. You're hopeless. So she got on a plane and came to India.

And it was great. You've got nothing to lose but your chains. You know what I mean?

It's not working. The worldview you've had fits somewhere in the first five or worse. You've got nothing.

Try it. The idea is that karma is making everything. Now you don't have to think of karma as a self-existent thing.

It's coming out of your mind. What I explained about the pen is true of everything around you. Which means everything can become a tantric paradise.

It's really cool. You keep your vows. You don't even have to say you could see everything as a tantric paradise.

You'll be forced to see everything as a tantric paradise. People ask me, Should I take this initiation or that initiation? I say, Keep your vows.

You want to see a tantric paradise? Keep your vows. Keep your ten vows.

You'll be forced to see tantric paradises. Go ahead, have initiation. Whether it works or not is totally a different question.

Initiations only work if you keep your tantric vows. They have no effect on people who don't keep their tantric vows. Can you keep your tantric vows just dimly knowing them and never checking them?

No. Every tantric initiation, Anuttara says, you have to keep tundra. You have to check them six times a day.

You have to look at them. You can't just dimly try to think, maybe I'm keeping them. You know what I mean?

You must keep them very, very carefully. And then, if everything I said is correct, then the aging process itself would start to stop. You would get younger.

It's very interesting. I mean, there's no problem with that idea. And that's not attachment or some kind of wrong thing or we're supposed to put up with crap and die like that.

It's not true. You would start to get younger. And then eventually, the whole substance of your arm would change.

That's Dzogrim. Highest tantric practice. Channels, drops, winds, the change in your worldview physically changes your body.

And when you get to Dzogrim, you can study how. But it's very cool. Changing the way you think changes your spiritual body, which changes, transforms your physical body.

It's very cool. You know, just to think that you could get younger by thinking certain ways, by changing the way you look at things, is very powerful. So, I like number six.

I don't know about you. Okay? Okay.

By the way, does this sound like a Minje Khyapachen? What's a Minje Khyapachen? It was the fourth selling point for doing Mahamudra.

Karma. What was the fourth selling point? It sets you up perfect for Tantra.

Do you feel it? You get it? It's right.

You know? It's a perfect setup for Tantra. Now you can just slide into Tantra.

You see what I mean? If you do Mahamudra, and if you study emptiness this way, then you can sense that it's, now, oh boy, now I can just slide into that. You know?

Khyarim and Dzogrim. Now I can see it'd be very easy. Because it's true.

It could work. You see what I mean? It's very cool.

The sixth world view. It's very cool. We'll call it creation.

Okay? That you could create your own Buddha paradise. Okay.

Take a, I'll take a few questions. Then we'll take a break. And then we'll do a, we'll start on Mahamudra meditation.

We'll do a little taste. And then tomorrow morning we'll continue. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Would you have some kind of karma when you were, when you were in a wheelchair, and then you could vows, and as far as you knew, you were keeping your vows, like a meditator. Could the fact that the person is paralyzed still be the karma that you did something previous to their vows?

[Speaker 1]
Right. So she's asking this. Suppose a person already has polio, already in a wheelchair, and then they work very hard and they keep their vows.

And, you know, just the Dapadatsum Giripa means, in theory, suppose there was a person who could keep their vows perfectly. And then after that they were keeping their vows perfectly. Then why would they still be in the wheelchair in five months or something like that?

You know, why is that? Why I call it gardening is there's a maturing process. There's a ripening process.

It takes time. The mental seed is put in your mind by keeping your vows, and then it ripens. The point of Tantra is that by committing especially powerful karma, you accelerate the ripening process.

So you can make it happen in one lifetime. And that's called the Tongyurki Le, accepted by all schools of Buddhism, that especially powerful karma can have its results in the same lifetime, later in the same lifetime. So, and it's not...

The process goes like this. If you keep... And I'm...

This is really cool. You've got to get this. If you keep your vows sort of half-heartedly or pretty good, you will start to get good results, like your life straightens out, your financial situation straightens out, your marriage straightens out.

Things get better. Things are getting pretty good. Then if you keep them more strictly, if you do your book and you keep it sort of pretty good intentions and like that, then you reach a stage called something like surprising.

First one you can call improving. Second one you can call surprising. Surprising means, you know, the husband comes home and gives you candies and roses for the first time in ten years.

You know, like, wow, I didn't expect that. Or, you know, the boss calls you in and says, you got a 60-cent raise instead of a 50-cent raise. And you're like, wow, this cheapskate's really gone somewhere.

You know. Of course, by that time you wouldn't say that kind of stuff. But it's like...

What I call surprising. Then you get into the realm of what I call amazing. Like amazing is somebody calls up and says, I have a $3 million property and I want to give it to you for $1.

Is that okay? You know what I mean? And...

Okay. You know what I mean? Like that.

And then you get into what I would call the impossible or miracles. Okay? Like totally miraculous stuff happening.

Okay? Totally amazing stuff happening. Like you have a rosary on your neck and then you do some heavy practices and your friend calls you up and says, I don't know, I got this rosary around my neck and I don't remember where I got it.

And you're like, you know, and your rosary's gone. And you say, what were you doing last night? And he says, I was practicing this special Vajrayogini thing.

And you're like, wow. You know? I mean, things like, things that aren't supposed to happen.

You see, things that are clearly impossible by normal rules of things, you go through those stages. So I'd say that if a person kept their vows well, there's no problem that after a while they could walk. Or that even the effects of polio could be reversed.

No problem. The idea of a man walking on water is accepted. It's a serpa-kantinjan.

It's a special kind of concentration. It's the karma of a special kind of concentration. And you can do it.

There's no big deal. On the level of miracles, yeah, people could walk. That's not a problem at all.

Physically, what's happening, it's explained in Tantra. The improvement in your mental view, your world view, if you hold the six long enough, it straightens the certain special channels in your body. And then certain energies work that weren't working before.

If you keep it up long enough, that begins to affect your physical body. And eventually it transforms your physical body completely. And you become a tantric angel.

It's a very cool process. So this whole idea of going to heaven, becoming a deity, is totally true. And everything you ever hoped for when you were a kid, when you heard about heaven, and Jesus, and religion, and all that stuff, it's all possible.

All those stories are true. And they just didn't give you the data that you needed. That's all.

A few more. We'll go to 8.30, and then we'll take a break. Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
Can you address the reverse of that situation of someone keeping their vows? Because I would think it's better for me, and I just don't get to find something that...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, he's talking about the theoretical... Suppose someone's really keeping their vows well, and then a disaster happens to them. What's happening?

This is a principle of... I mean, Jesus said this thing... I found it in the...

Somebody showed me in the New Testament a Christian guy that I knew in Thailand. And he showed me... It's this thing where Jesus says, you don't get...

I don't remember, lemons from orange seeds or something? And you don't get... What he's trying to say, gyu tun, we call gyu tun, gyu debu means whatever the content of the action is, you must get similar content out.

Crap in, crap out. Good stuff in, good stuff out. Impossible to happen any other way.

It's impossible, ethically, to have a bad result from a good action. Totally impossible. Conversely, it's impossible to get a good result from a bad action.

So then we take the example of the diamond business. Dear to my heart, I was in the diamond business for 15 years. And the boss tells you, this diamond's worth $500.

Go out and tell this guy that it's worth $1000. If they buy it, I'll split it with you or something like that. And you're like, OK, I'll go out and lie for you.

And you go out and here's this $500 diamond. And you say, I've got to have $1000 for this. I won't take less than $1000.

And the person looks in your face and you're Michael Roach, you can hold your face really well. And they say, Michael Roach wouldn't lie to me. OK, $1000, deal, mazal.

And then they give you the $1000. Then you run back inside, you split the money with the boss. Has a lie produced money?

This is, by the way, the RoboClaus thing. RoboClaus says, lie and you get money. Why?

Because it worked yesterday. I lied and I got money. Let's try it again today.

Does it work? According to Buddhism, according to the laws of karma, it cannot be working. That's impossible.

And there's actually, I draw it like this. And this has big significance in your life. Here's a $500 profit, right?

Here's the lie. And what they call illusion in Buddhism or deceptive reality is this, that the lie seems to be producing the $500. And you take it that way.

You believe that. Based on that, you suffer. What's really causing the $500?

Generosity before giving produces $500, okay? So what's the lie really producing? This is very interesting.

Nobody believes me, okay? And this is a lie. That doesn't exist.

You know, that's false. There's no such thing going on. Oh, but they happened right after the other.

So, you see what I mean? By the way, there's an extremely simple proof that this doesn't cause this. What is it?

It doesn't always work, okay? It's so simple that humanity never got it, you know? I mean, it's so simple that every day in your life, you overlook it, okay?

This does not cause that. There's no relationship between this. You know, people say again, again, again.

Lamas teach again. Oh, but this acts as a factor of the $500. Bullshit, okay?

No such thing. A lie cannot produce a good result. Impossible.

It cannot contribute to a good result. Forget it. That's a Dharma rumor, okay?

A lie can only give you trouble. And giving can never give you anything but money. And start to live like that and watch the fireworks, you know?

You go move up through surprising, amazing, and into miraculous. And it's like, wow, this stuff really... This guy told me, J.C. Michael, this stuff really works, you know? That's the whole point, you know? It's amazing, you know? It's really cool.

And it's because things are empty. It only works because things are empty. If the independent school was right, if the pen had anything coming from its own side, then we's in trouble.

Then this whole stick doesn't work, you know? But the fact is that everything's empty. Therefore, you must be moral, ethical.

It's very cool. Why did Lord Buddha spend 50 years, 25 years teaching ethics and 25 years teaching emptiness? Is there some connection here?

No, people don't get it. People don't teach it. It's weird, you know?

Of course there's a connection. That's the whole point, yeah. Oh, we're going to get into that, okay?

What's the best thing to do for Lama Tsong Khapa? We'll do that after the break because it's very important to do it. It's a very good question.

We talked about it in San Francisco. If you weren't there, here's the answer. He says, if your shtick is correct, if what you said is right, if people can practice Dzogchen and suddenly get younger and then turn into deities, how come we didn't see any?

You know what I mean? Like, not even the National Enquirer has reported it. You know, much less than New York Times, okay?

You know, really, there's been no credible report in my personal experience of anyone doing it, not even among the Tibetan Lamas in India or anything like that. You know, I've personally been in Sarov many years. I've never bumped into a Lama who was like golden light and like that and said, gee, you know, it works.

You know, try it. You know, so what's going on? You have to understand how miracles work.

You know, I count that as a miracle, right? I mean, walking on water and seeing your body change into a deity's body is a very similar thing, okay? How come this is not a pen?

How come this has never been seen as a pen? How come nobody can see this as a pen? I'm a dog, okay?

Those are no pens. I don't believe in pens. I've never heard anybody.

None of my dog friends have told me about pens. You know?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah, okay.

[Speaker 1]
It's very simple. It's very simple. It's profound, you know.

The point is this. How many worlds are going on in this room right now? I mean, even according to anybody.

Forget Buddhism. There's two separate realms going on right now. It's very interesting.

There's an animal realm running parallel to a human realm. Why? Because, what's his name again?

Wolf was at the door, you know. Wolf saw this room. Wolf looked into this room.

I gave him a cookie. He was staring at me. Simultaneously, an animal realm and a human realm were operating parallel universes in this very Gombak.

You know, it sounds like Carlos Castaneda and all that, you know. No, parallel universes. Like there was a dog realm, an animal realm and a human realm were coexisting, were running parallel at the same time.

Were you in the animal realm? No. You were in the human realm.

But were they in the same place? Yeah, and he's oblivious of your realm and you're pretty oblivious of his realm. You see what I mean?

I mean, he's not experiencing this realm at all as a human realm. But it's in the same place. The principle about becoming a deity is the same thing.

The trick is that karma is always personally collected and personally experienced. This is the principle of karma. I can't collect karma for you and you can't collect karma for me.

Prove it. The proof is very simple. Buddha is the ultimate compassion being.

If anybody's got bodhicitta, he better have it. He's not willing to loan you some good karma. Why are you still here?

You see, if karma could be transferred, you wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here in this crappy realm. This realm is a mistake.

I'm not kidding. This realm, desire realm, is a mistake. It's due to mistakes that you and I made that this realm exists at all.

This is a temporary screw-up. I almost said something else. My Lama told me to stop using four-letter words in the classes.

But this realm is a temporary mess-up. But it will be emptied. People will learn wisdom and there won't be this realm anymore.

But in the meantime, a deity realm can run parallel to a human realm in the same way that a dog realm runs parallel to a human realm. And the fact that you're not aware of the deity realm doesn't prove that it doesn't exist. Can I prove to you it does exist?

Only logically. But at some point you can see it. Okay.

So the thing about a miracle is you have to be really good to do a miracle. Your vows have to be really, really clean for you to walk on water. And you can.

Sometimes I get tempted. I say, I'm not going to check to see if my vows are that good yet. I've actually done that.

I just go down, you know. At our level, your vows are... But it's possible to walk on water.

To walk on water, your vows have to be really, really clean. That's one level of morality. What does clean mean?

I mean, do you have to be saving thousands of beings and stuff like that? No. You have to be washing the dishes with joy when it's nice for other people.

You have to be opening the door for people. You have to be picking pens off the floor that somebody might slip on. You have to be trying not to lie about using the phone at work.

You have to be... All sentient beings for you is the people you live with. And your morality can be perfected in your kitchen.

You see what I mean? Because that's where it's going to happen. And that's going to be the first room in your Buddha paradise.

Very cool. So anyway, the virtue to walk on water is one thing. The virtue to see someone walk on water is very close to that.

So what I'm saying is that to see the person next to you that they turned into a Tantric deity three years ago, to suddenly become aware of it, it requires almost as much virtue as having it happen to yourself. And it does happen. Rome wasn't built in a day.

And Tantric paradises there aren't built in a day. You start to have flashes. Things start to happen.

You go through those stages of surprising, amazing miracles. You see what I mean? So, okay, somebody says something to you.

You just were thinking about your lama. You know, my lama was really irritating today. I can't believe he asked me to do that thing, you know, take out the garbage or something.

Then you're like walking down the street and somebody says, do you have a problem with taking out the garbage or something? And then you keep walking and about half a mile later you realize what happened. And you're like, wow, that's a weird coincidence.

And then coincidences like that start happening more and more. And it means that you're starting to purify your world. And then it goes from surprising to amazing to miraculous.

Then people start coming up and saying things like, you know, I really appreciate the offering you made to me last night at Vajra Gini talk. It was really tasty, you know. Then they just walk on and you're like, you know what I mean?

Somebody you never met, some old woman, you know, walking down 2nd Avenue and you're like, did I hear that or what? I don't know, you know what I mean? And then stuff like that.

And then your world's starting to... What I'm saying is that you don't just suddenly wake up somewhere and you pop into Buddha Paradise. It's a purification process.

Alright, take a break. And then come back in like 5-10 minutes. And then we'll do a short Mahamudra.