Серия ежедневной практики, курс 09 — Пустота ума (махамудра) (1999, Сокел), занятие 10

[Speaker 2]
Session six.

[Speaker 1]
Satsang with Master Thich Nhat Hanh Satsang with Master Thich Nhat Hanh Okay, this is a free-for-all. Somebody has to keep an eye on the time, okay? Lung is only like ten minutes, okay?

Fifteen minutes. So, it doesn't have to relate to Mahamudra. Just anything you ever wondered about, okay?

[Speaker 2]
At the end of the last meditation, you had the Ramadana illuminating light, I believe you had gold, and if I remember right, at the time before this, was it blue?

[Speaker 1]
There is some special meaning, and I can't tell you. Not yet. But generally, if you're trying to make people into Buddhists, blue is good.

Light blue, powder blue. And then, generally, for other kinds of blessings, white is good, or golden is good. Okay, but the full meaning of it, you have to learn from your tantric Lama.

Okay, yeah. I have an involved question, and I'll make it brief as I can.

[Speaker 2]
I recently returned to my hometown after being wayfared and wanted to discover a Tibetan Buddhist center in Campbell, where I grew up. It was easy to say I was relieved to find something in my hometown. There seems to be some controversy inside of me because I took refuge here under a year ago, and what I know of Buddhism primarily has come from the land of the Medicine Buddha.

This is NKT in Campbell, and they have a picture on the wall of a being I'd never seen before, and I asked who that was, and he told me his name was Dorje Shugun, which reminded me of something I heard on national public radio about a year ago, something the Dalai Lama had said about avoiding Dorje Shugun practice. I did engage in lamrim and a green taro puja between Christmas and New Year's, but there was a Dorje Shugun puja I wasn't too sure about because the Dalai Lama asked us not to do that. I didn't do that.

I've met some people there, and I've told them about this place, and two of them are here tonight, and they're baby Buddhists like myself, and we're confused about this controversy and want to know what you think about it.

[Speaker 1]
He asked about the Dorje Shugun controversy. There's a protector, His Holiness has asked people, specifically His Holiness asked, if you want to be my student, you can't do it. And I do have an official position, and it's the following.

To see two great lamas have a disagreement, to be in a position where some person or group is actually protesting against His Holiness, and then on the other hand, to see a lama who's been so helpful and so eloquent in spreading the Dharma, and then to see a disagreement between them is a sign of our bad karma. And you've got to get used to thinking like that. World View No.

6, perfect example. What's making Lama Serpa have diabetes? It's not Lama Serpa.

It's our bad karma. So I'd say be very careful not to get in the state of mind of is A right or is B right? A and B are both great lamas.

The C is wrong. And that's us, you know what I mean? And we've done some kind of bad karma to have to see two great lamas disagreeing.

And I think the important thing is not so much whether you do A or B. I mean the important thing about that controversy is to make sure you don't get your mind into that dichotomy. There's a phung sumpa.

Phung sumpa in Tibetan logic means don't fall for A and don't fall for B. Look for the third thing. And the third thing is that our practice is not good enough.

And that's why we see His Holiness getting older. That's why we see people challenging His Holiness for the first time. It breaks your heart to see it.

It's our fault. We created that situation. And so I'd say the right thing to do is to avoid any kind of conflict with other Dharma students.

You know what I mean? And that's really... And then someday, if you do it well, you personally will see a great reconciliation.

And if you don't do it well, you'll see things get worse. And if you do it sort of half and half, like we are doing now, you'll see it come up and down and like that. But that's my official position.

And then people say, you're not answering the question. But I say, I'm answering it exactly, precisely. I'm answering it according to worldview number six.

And think about it. You see, that's the way to solve that problem. It's not by taking A side or B side.

It's by cleaning up your own relationship to your own Lama, and cleaning up your own relationship specifically to other Dharma students. And I don't mean that you've murdered any fellow Dharma students recently. It's that you don't really respect them.

Even if you're able to hold your tongue, that in your mind you're constantly judging them, and thinking, this person is not a very good Dharma person. You know, I'm much better. There's this article written by John Landau that I really like, in the Mandala.

You can check it sometime. About... You know, the point is that you go to a Dharma center to...

Because you need to work on your mind. If people are concerned, they go to a Dharma center and see other people who aren't perfect. Especially in the Sangha, you know.

I've had friends go to Sara Monastery, and I get these five-page letters the first night they're there. Oh my God, I saw the monk beating up a kid, you know, with a rosary. You know, and then I...

You know, and they freak out. And I always tell them, well, why do you think we came to the Dharma center? Or why do you think we stay in a monastery?

It's because we need help. You know, it's because we're imperfect that we come to a monastery or a Dharma center. If you were perfect, you wouldn't have to come to LMB.

So anyway, I'd say it's the nature of things. Concentrate. The way to remove that problem is to improve your relationship with other Dharma students.

And not so much even verbally or physically, but mentally. To really love them and appreciate them for who they are. And then the other thing works out.

That cures it. It's that roof leak thing. It doesn't look like that has any direct bearing on it, but it has all the bearing on it.

If you want Lama Sopa to get better, that's what you have to do. If you want to see... If seeing two great Lamas having a problem with each other disturbs you, which it should, then clean up your own act.

That's the non-self-existent way to stop that. Okay? Yeah.

Could you tell me again? I forgot. How is that, again, like my karma is not transferable?

Or the Buddha can't give me enlightenment? So how can my karma be affecting my Guru? Michael is saying this.

If karma is non-transferable... By the way, we proved it, right? What's the proof?

I'm not enlightened. I don't know about you guys. I really don't know.

I honestly don't know. But I know I'm not enlightened. So that proves that it's not possible for an enlightened being to transfer their ticket to me.

Because they would if they could, because they're enlightened, and enlightened beings are compassionate. So that proves that you can't do it. The fact that I'm still suffering proves that other people can't loan me their karma.

So Michael is saying, well then how can you say that something you do is going to fix Lama Sopa's health? Don't forget that Lama Sopa, in my best judgment, is not experiencing any illness at all. You are forced to see him sick because of your problems.

And there's no base reality. Worldview number six. There is no Lama Sopa who's ill or a 16-year-old Tara.

He can be perceiving himself in the latter way. You can be perceiving him in the former way. And there's no contradiction there.

So you're not making him sick in the sense that he's experiencing sickness because of your bad deeds. You're forced to have the very unpleasant experience and frightening experience of seeing Lama Sopa be ill because of your bad deeds. But that doesn't make him ill to himself.

You see what I mean? That would be transferring karma. Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
You gave up in the latter. I understood the example you gave about relationships. So, with great interest, I got my glasses out to read this.

And I can't make any details out of the anecdote for the first three of the first page.

[Speaker 1]
I don't remember what they were, actually. Give me the one that bothers you the most. Just the first one.

Your body is stricken by some unbelievable sickness. Take upon yourself, in your own body, all of the sicknesses that come to you, that come to anyone at all. Yeah, that's metaphorical, okay?

The antidote for being sick, the cause was doing harm to bodies of others. And then the antidote in the text, right? It's poetry, right?

It says, take upon your own body all the sicknesses that come to anyone else at all. This is tonglen. We did a tonglen course here, I don't know, last winter, when Pat Wells tricked me.

I did? I should know better. I thank you, by the way.

But, the idea is tonglen. Now, does tonglen really work? I mean, can you directly take people's illnesses upon yourself?

No. Or else we would never get sick. Again, the proof is that the Buddha didn't take our illness away.

So, what's going on when you do tonglen? Tonglen, the exercise of truly visualizing that you're taking other people's illness on and then destroying it, right? Important point in tonglen.

You don't, like, take them on and live with them. You take them on and then destroy them within 30 seconds. In your visualization.

So, just constantly visualizing that would start to remove the problems of your body. The good karma of wanting to take on. There's a very famous quotation in Bodhisattva Charvatara that the karma of wanting to take on even another person's brief headache is more than could fill space.

Something like that. It's like that. It's the virtue of the intention and not so much of the actualization.

Otherwise, the Buddhas haven't perfected giving, right? We talked about that. Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
How can I create the karma to keep my book? I've tried two years now and explained it twice and I kept it for a little while. And I have some obstacles with it.

I can give you all the reasons why.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. She said, what's the karma? How can I collect karma to keep my book well?

And frankly, I had the same karma for a long time. I started this eight years ago or something. And then I went into these lapses where I couldn't finish it or I got bored halfway through.

You know what I mean? And I had days when I just skipped it. Nowadays, what I do with a lot of this stuff is I get one of my students to do it with me.

You know what I mean? Like, on the day that I don't feel like it, they feel like it. On the day that they don't feel like it, I feel like it.

But buddy system is very good. In New York, some people do it like this. Like, if you're not staying close with somebody, then read it to each other once a week or something.

You know, it's a buddy system. And buddy system works very well. Like, I like food too much.

I eat too much. So now I have a thing where I share my food with somebody. So I only get half a plate every meal, which turns out to be fine.

But have a buddy system. To have Dharma friends is that. Dharma friend means that.

You know, have somebody very close to you that you do your books together. Or, you know, you ask them at the end of the day, let me see your book. You know, and it works very well.

Personally, it's worked for me. And the other thing is to tie it to events. Like, don't eat until you've done your book.

Then you'll do your book. You know, before I do any major thing, I do a book. That's just a...

Before I go to a meeting with someone, I do a book. Before I open a book to study a scripture, I do a book. You know, just before any major event during the day, I do a book.

That seems to work out. Those are the two tricks I use. I had the same problem.

Yeah? To go back to some of the karma stuff, one thing is just that it's been a very challenging weekend for me. In a sense, you know, it's like I have to die, and you can't die for me.

And so... No, I'm serious. And so, you know, I want an explanation.

You know, it's like I have to make a responsible decision because I have to die. And so, you know, the things you said that at times you repeated yourself, that's been helpful. And...

But some of the ways I'm still struggling is, for one, with the, like, seafelts and airplane stuff, it's like the principles, the laws of physics do always work. Like, our ability to manipulate them isn't particularly skillful. So, like, the situation is planes do go down, but it's not because Bernoulli's principle fails.

And seafelts do what they're supposed to do. They restrain bodies. And they don't say, this will keep you from dying.

Some of these stuff, you know. And with the explanations of karma, it seems to me that, one, it's assuming causality, which sort of is, you know, most of us being Westerners, as children of the Enlightenment, I mean, David Hume and Kant have really kind of shown that causality is a problematic principle in and of itself. It just can't be taken for granted.

And so it almost seems like, is karma that self-existent? Because it does seem like everything else is empty except for karma. It's a very good question.

I mean, what he's saying is this. In a way, if what I said was right, then, you know, planes only fly when you have the karma to have them fly, and they fall down when you don't have the karma to have them fly. And one thing he's saying is that, you know, if you get a certain angle of metal up to a certain speed, it will always fly.

You know, what makes them fall down is faults in the process, you know, that there's a crack in the metal, or somebody didn't get it up to a certain speed. You see what I mean? But as long as there's a certain angle to the wing, and there's not exceed a certain weight, and you get up to a certain velocity, it must fly.

I think karma is... First of all, strictly speaking, in next-dimensional karma, then you couldn't walk on water, for example, or you couldn't fly in the sky, or something like that. I mean, but let's leave that.

Let's leave miracles, because you can't really confirm them. You haven't seen anybody walk across the Pacific lately, you know, and we'll leave those kinds of examples. But I think, typically, in explaining it, they would say, maybe that's true, but then why does the wing crack?

You see? Then you say, well, there was a stress fracture there, and nobody noticed it on the last x-ray test, you know. And then you say, well, why didn't they notice it?

You see what I mean? And rather than focusing on the how, you focus on the why. Why did someone overlook the fracture?

Why did the wing break? When this person was in the plane, and not when that person was in the plane. You see what I mean?

And then, they would say that. They'd say, even if the laws of physics are true, invariable, still planes fall down, because something happened that, within the laws of physics, made the plane fall down. And that's okay.

That's not a contradiction, I think. Why was I in the plane when the laws of physics were respected and it fell down? You know, that's the big question.

That's the big question. Then the second question is, if it's always true that a bad thing to another person creates a bad result for you, then it would seem like the laws of karma themselves are not empty. You know?

Because if they were empty, then it would seem that there should be miracles as far as the laws of karma, and then one day you kill somebody and you get an award or something, you know, from that. And why are the laws of karma themselves fixed? Why does causation itself happen?

If you had different karma, would the laws of karma themselves vary? You know, and then maybe a good deed could produce a bad result, or something like that. Apparently there's something in the way in which things are planted in the mind stream, like, how is a bad karma recorded in the mind?

A lot of it is how you see the thing as you do it. You see what I mean? Intention.

So, you give something to somebody, and the way it's recorded in the mind is like a VCR. You see visually yourself, your hand goes out, something you like is in it, you release it, the other hand comes up, takes it from you, and then in your mind you say, I have given this thing, you know. And then that creates an impression or an imprint on your consciousness.

And then that goes from moment to moment, it's destroyed moment to moment, but its energy is transferred to the next moment. It's very cool. It's like billiard balls.

So actually that karma, there's a big debate, how is karma stored for so long? And they say that it dissipates from instant to instant, and then the energy is transferred to the next instant. And then when it ripens, when it comes out, your consciousness is forcing you to organize random data, black and white colors and a rounded shape, into a pen.

And that pen is again a visual thing. So the whole process is something conceptual. And that's why karma is invariable.

And you've got to get used to that. It's not self-existently a law. It's a law because your perception, it's a projected law also.

It's easy to see how pen is a projection. It's harder to see how a feeling is a projection. And it's really hard to see how karma itself is a projection.

But it is. It works within the laws of karma. It also has its own emptiness.

And it also is your projection. And then you've got to get used to that. It's not self-existent.

But that doesn't mean it has to change. Yeah. I hope I phrased this well.

[Speaker 2]
Last spring I was having a conversation with Dhamma Lakshmi.

[Speaker 1]
And I was in a position basically seeing that everything we saw, heard, saw, tasted, touched, thought about, was a result of karma and how we experienced it. And he said something to the effect that that wasn't true, that every touch of my head was not old karma. And he mentioned, he said, there's new karma.

I could walk out of here and slip on the floor and fall.

[Speaker 2]
And he gave that as an example of new karma. And it stuck in my mind because it completely didn't compute with everything that we've been learning from you. So, I just wanted to know if you had some comment about what he might have meant when he said that.

[Speaker 1]
Hmm, I don't know. As I repeat, in the Abhidharma schools, nāmiṅgī-deva, which means a karmic maturation, is inconsistent with new karma. Meaning, when you have a thought to hurt someone, that cannot be a karmic maturation.

That's a new karma that's going to have its own karmic result. But you cannot say that it itself is the result of a past karma. That's the Abhidharma school's presentation.

Then you go to Lama Mipham Chenmo, which is Madhyamika Prasangika, and it says, karmas have four results. When you kill somebody, there are four different results. One is you're going to go to a hell realm.

We just call it a rebirth result. One is that you will be killed. Even if you're born as a human, you will be killed, many times.

Then the third one is like an environmental result. The place where you live is a dangerous place. You have to live in East New York or something like that.

You know what I mean? And then the fourth result is the habit of doing it more. You see what I mean?

It's the tendency to enjoy killing, or to be attracted towards killing, or to think killing is not so bad. And so that overthrows the Abhidharma idea of fresh karma. You see what I mean?

Like you could have an idea to hurt somebody that was not dependent on your past ideas to hurt people. You see what I mean? So maybe he was referring to Abhidharma system or something.

But the system of Madhyamika Prasangika is that even the tendency to want to kill, the idea to kill, the intention to kill, is a result, is the fourth kind of karmic result of your past killing. So for that story to work, by the way, the second one, you'd be forced into saying that your lifetimes have been beginningless. Because any particular lifetime would have had, your bad habits in lifetime Z should have come from your bad habits of the lifetime before.

So what do Buddhists say about that? They say, right, your lifetimes are beginningless. That's all.

Yeah, you've been in this soup with no beginning. Because at any particular lifetime in which you started doing bad karma, the attraction to doing bad karma came from the previous life's bad karma. Okay?

Yeah. So I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
No, every single...

[Speaker 1]
Then you'd be in real trouble, because then you'd be saying that... That's why I put that percentage question on your homework. Because then you're forced into the corner of saying, okay, 63% of things are karmic projections, and the rest are not.

And it doesn't work. In essence, what you'd be saying then is that some things are self-existent and some things aren't. And it can't be defended.

Now, is it useful to teach somebody that... Of course. There's five other flavors of emptiness.

I mean, in five of the presentations on emptiness, they would say that. But Buddha gave those presentations. But I don't think logically, if you think about it logically, you can defend it.

I don't think you can defend it.

[Speaker 2]
But if that's true, and you can never create new karma, and it's all just a billion...

[Speaker 1]
Oh, no, you can create new karma. But the tendency to do so has carried over from your past tendencies to do so.

[Speaker 2]
But then how do you ever, like, change a trend?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, no, it's...

[Speaker 2]
Like, how do you ever... And isn't it... Then how do you ever, like, get enlightened and change...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Like it would seem... What she said was that...

And it's a very, very good question, you know. If your current attraction to killing, or to adultery, or to anything else is a karmic result of your past attraction to it, then there's no free will. And there's also no hope.

You can never change the pattern, you know. And I don't know, somebody was telling me, well, then the odds of, like, getting born as a human would be something like a blind turtle at the bottom of the ocean, you know. You know, if this were true, then the odds of being born a human are almost, like, infinitely bad.

And that's exactly what Scripture says, only from one point of view, okay? But your other question is more serious. Like, what...

And by the way, that's true, okay? That's why the odds are so bad. But the other answer to the question is...

And it's a big debate in the monastery. Does samsara have an end? You know, ta me be e che.

Korola ta me be e che. A very famous debate. Because it's one of the 14 unanswered questions of the Buddha.

Somebody asked him, you know, does samsara have an end? And he said... By the way, the word end in Tibetan and Sanskrit, anta, is...

ta, is... It can mean front-end or back-end. You see what I mean?

It's end. You know? Like, does samsara have a front-end or does samsara have a back-end?

So, the debate in the monastery goes, okay, you're talking front-end or back-end? And they say, well, how about front-end? Let's start with front-end.

Then they say, no, there's no beginning. Why? Because you can't point to a moment of consciousness that didn't grow from a previous point of consciousness.

Impossible. Consciousness has to come from consciousness. So there was no beginning.

So you say, duh. And you say, yeah, there is no front-end. What about the back-end?

And they say, duh, there is a back-end. Then they say, why? And they say, Because there's a...

very powerful antidote to samsara. And then you say, And then you say, the perception of emptiness. You know?

So, what it means is that, given infinite time, given infinite probabilities, sooner or later, ignorance will encounter the understanding of emptiness. And the nature of the two is that one always defeats the other. They can't stay in one mind-stream at the same moment.

So therefore, logically, eventually, all living beings become enlightened. Because sooner or later, wisdom bumps into ignorance and there's a shoot-out and wisdom always wins. Because it's more powerful than ignorance.

So that's the argument in the monastery. And I think if you think about it carefully, you see it. But the odds of making major progress in this lifetime, if all that I said is true, are very difficult.

And that's exactly right. It is. And there's no self-existent blessing outside of the laws of karma that is exempt from the laws of karma for three hours while you get an initiation or something.

It doesn't work like that. You get the initiation because you were good enough to get the initiation. And never any other way.

You see what I mean? You'd be positing then a self-existent, you know, like, the God who created the universe has made a break for us. Like, okay, on Tuesdays at three o'clock, initiations are self-existently...

It doesn't work like that. Either it's a law of karma or it's not. Nothing is not empty.

Yeah. So, if everything is connected together the way you're talking about an endless stream... Beginningless.

Beginningless. Front-endless stream. And the future course of what happens to a person depends on what kind of karmic seeds they're sowing now and how they're gardening.

But our thoughts are under the control of our past karma. Where does free will enter into the procedure such that at a certain point we can say, aha, here I go left or here I go right and one takes me to hell and the other meets me with seeing emptiness directly? Yeah, yeah.

It's very interesting. There does exist free will within the laws of karma. Okay?

Like, you can decide to turn left or right. And that is your own decision. And it's totally conditioned by karma.

And you've got to get used to that. So, both are true and are contradicted? No.

You are empowered to make decisions. Which decision you make will depend on your past karma. Yeah.

And it's extremely hard to change the course of your life. Yeah. Extremely difficult.

In the karmic determination of what you're going to do you do have an ability to impact it and deflect it or change it a little bit. Constantly within the laws of karma. You know?

Within the limitations imposed on you by your past deeds. And that's the way it is. Yeah.

You can and will become enlightened within the laws of karma. And there's no contradiction. Well, what that sounds like to me then is you have complete free will.

It's just that you're a very heavy aircraft and you're traveling with your karmic past on this dreadful course.

[Speaker 2]
You can only adjust it very slightly. Just a little bit. And ultimately put it in your pocket.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, normally. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, how many people are here?

And how many people are there in the United States? I mean, you are... Pabongka Rinpoche says if you get depressed about your spiritual progress reflect on the fact that you're in a Dharma class and you are literally one in a million.

You know, literally, of all the people in the United States. If this stuff is true, I always say if, okay? If what I said this weekend is true, if worldview number six works, then you are one crazy person in a million, literally, who thinks it.

And to hold that worldview... I wanted to teach you the idea of sin-sam. Say sin-sam.

Sin-sam. Sin-sam. Sin-sam means to hold the line.

You know what I mean? To come out of this class and hold the line, to do an act of truth the next time you get yelled at, is extremely difficult. And you're only one person in a million who thinks they should even try.

And the odds are extremely low that you... In this realm, the number of people who hear worldview number six are one in a million. And that's you.

Pabongka Rinpoche says, reflect on that, and you won't feel like such a schmuck all the time. And I'm not kidding. It's almost exactly that wording in Tibetan.

When you're feeling kind of depressed, just think, well, at least I made it this far. Yeah. Given all this, and given how titanically difficult it is to do this, and given how seemingly rare it is for us to have this human birth, it occurs to me that why would any of us here want to go one more minute to our nine-to-five jobs?

[Speaker 2]
I'm serious, right?

[Speaker 1]
I've been trying, literally, for months, for years, I've been trying to reconcile ever since I met the Dharma. I'm like, I can't do this anymore. Tell me I can't do this anymore.

[Speaker 2]
No, I can't.

[Speaker 1]
Pabongka Rinpoche says, I've got to go. I really need to be in a valley with deer. And, you know, and then, sort of, between, there's like, this isn't balanced.

I know, I've lost my mind, but I've got to try to get up here in the rain right now. But I'm trying to, like, it just seems like my life is just like... Yeah, he's trying to deal...

The question is, like, you know, how can you... Given that you're so lucky, and so, by the way, I have to repeat the question because it doesn't get on the tape. People hear the answer and they never hear the question.

You know, given that life is so rare, and this opportunity is so precious, and I'm the one in a million who heard number six, then, why do I still go to a nine-to-five job? It must be crazy. I mean, my views were forged in the crucible of an office in Manhattan.

And I tell you that. My Lama forced me to go to work. We had a big fight in the car on the way back from Rutgers University in 1977 or something.

And, you know, he's like, you've got to go to work. And I said, I don't need the money. You know, my mother died, my grandmother died, I had money.

And he said, no, that's not why. You have to go to work. And I resisted for, I don't know, years.

And then finally, you know, I tried it. I didn't need the money. you know, sometimes I think that people who get to practice Dharma all day long are deprived.

You know, you need a laboratory. You need a crucible to forge your worldview. You need it.

It's very useful. It's very, very useful. It's, I would say, almost essential.

Extremely useful to be thrown into a situation where you're challenged all day long, you know, to keep your worldview. I think it's very important. On the other hand, in this country, you don't need to work 40 hours, 50 weeks to support yourself.

So I'd say, you know, my general advice is find something that's 25 hours, 30 hours, that doesn't exhaust your body and your mind. And, but something which is challenging to you. And my Lama was very big on this bodhisattva-carvatara thing of good bodhisattvas go out and learn some kind of career or skill that they can use to help other people.

So, you know, I did learn gemology and I did learn the diamond business. I did learn how to negotiate. And these are all useful for Dharma, you know.

They're very useful. You know, learn something worldly career which is useful and that you can put it to use. And, but don't exhaust your body and your mind.

You know, don't make it, I never worked more than four days. And most of the time it was three days a week. You know, I say I was in corporate life, but I wasn't really.

You know what I mean? And I never worked so much that it would exhaust my body or my mind. And I think you, in this country, you can find another arrangement.

You don't have, you don't have to work the 40-hour, 50-week thing. That's, by the way, that's bizarre. You know, to tell somebody you have to work 50 weeks to get two weeks to yourself, is, if you state it that way, if you made a diamond deal out of it, you say, hey, Joe, you say, what?

Or Moisha, you know, got a deal for you, you know, what's that? It's great. You work 50 weeks, I give you two weeks off, you know.

Wow, thanks, you know. It's crazy. I mean, the whole, you know, 200 million people are falling for this deal.

It's amazing, you know. Especially because you don't need it, you know. You don't in any way need that much money.

it's so funny. In New York City, these guys are getting paid $80,000, $90,000, $100,000 a year, and they commute. I did it.

It's a two-hour commute each way to your house out in Jersey that you never see. So you can pay for it. You know, and it doesn't make sense.

It's crazy. It's something weird, you know. You know, so yeah, find a compromise.

But I swear that my Lama was totally brilliant to make me work. And that's where I learned my Dharma. Really, that's where it was all, that's where it all came down.

That's where my worldview was sharpened and forged, you know. Everybody looking so nice. Stick in there.

They'll come around.

[Speaker 2]
Could you say a little bit more about what one of your students has called the, I thought it was a pretty good way to put it, the underlying data that is our perception of shapes and colors and that sort of thing. I was listening to the text of the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

[Speaker 1]
And I was, I've been thinking about this for a long time. And I enjoyed very much that presentation you gave about, I think, in response to a question like, you mean, you know, we all see supposedly the same sun and we all see these things recurring.

[Speaker 2]
We all are familiar with the laws of physics and this and that and the other. Would you like to say something else about that underlying data Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
It's the raw data, okay. So it's the, by the way, now you know it's one of the, I mean, technically, it's one of the big difference between worldview number five and worldview number six, is how you treat the raw data. What's the raw data?

The cylinder, black and white cylinder. Okay. Is it there or isn't it there?

What does worldview number five say? It's there. What does worldview number six say?

And be careful. Yeah, it's there. It is there.

But, and, by the way, Madhyamika Prasangika makes this big distinction. If you leave it unexamined, just let it alone, it says, matabh macepar means, without going in, don't open a can of worms, matabh macepar. Then you can say it's there, and you're interpreting or you're imputing onto it, pen.

Okay. The raw data though is there. Now you get to Mrs. Rebusch's question. You know, which is, what about the cylinder? And Madhyamika Prasangika says, very simply, when you go down to the level of the cylinder now, and you're examining, before you were examining pen, right? Now you've brought cylinder up to the foreground.

And you're examining whether the raw data exists from its own side. When you bring it up to the foreground, it no longer exists from its own side. Then it is the, it is an imputation or a label on its two parts.

And, and, and the big difference between No. 5 and No. 6 is, which means, when you look for the thing that you gave the label, if you don't leave it alone, and you keep going down levels, you'll never find it.

And it's one way to do an emptiness meditation, but it's not a preferred way for new people, because it disorients them. They can get into the extreme of saying, well, then there's nothing there, there's no sense data, there's no raw data, which is not correct. There's raw data there, it just doesn't exist from its own side.

You've got to get used to that. That's all I have to say about raw data. So even colors and shapes are projections.

And some schools of Buddhism will say, no, that's not the case. Colors and shapes are ultimate. And Abhidharma and Sutra schools say that not only that, but the colors and shapes are composed of atomic particles that have no sides.

And those are the building blocks of reality. Those have their own reality. They exist from their own side.

Then the higher schools, middle-weight, mind-only school says, that's not true. We reject an external object that could exist of partless atoms. And that's why they got called mind-only.

That's why they reject external objects. They never said, this pen is my mind, or something like that. Okay, get used to that.

That's a Western misunderstanding of the term Chidamatra. Yeah. We demand equal rights on this side of the room.

All right, sorry. Go ahead, go ahead. Thank you.

Desha, I just had a question regarding putting the why and how framework on the idea of the doctor. You said, does it make sense to go to a good doctor? And you said, of course it doesn't, of course it makes sense.

But is that why you're going to heal? No. So, I'm just trying to understand why then it's to go to a good doctor, if that's not why, if that's not the reason of my healing.

He said, well, why go to a good doctor if you're going to distinguish between why and how? And the how is the good doctor, but the why is your own good karma. Then supposedly, you can go to a witch doctor and get the same results.

You know what I mean? And again, I repeat that the karma, it's interesting, the karma to have the money to go to a good doctor is consistent with the karma to get better. More frequently, okay, statistically, on the average, a person who has the good karma to have enough money to afford a good specialist is more likely to get cured only because they're a person who's on a roll of good karma.

You see what I mean? And they're, and karmically they're more likely to go to a good doctor, to want to go to a good doctor. And so that explains why a good doctor is better than a bad doctor.

And they are. That's all. But keep dividing between the...

But ultimately speaking, you could sit in your meditation room and work on your channels and your winds and get the same result, or better, without a doctor. And that just depends on your karma. yeah, you have to divide between why and how.

The Garjuna didn't deny that you should work within the framework of those causes. He just denied that they are ultimately effective. You see what I mean?

Or I'll put it a different way. What makes the good doctor effective is your karma. You gotta get used to thinking like that.

And that's why it makes sense to go to a good doctor, because if you can go to a good doctor, then you're just kind of acting on the karma you already have. Yeah, yeah. If he exists for you, then he's more likely to cure you.

But ultimately speaking, I mean, you'd want to get out of the whole problem of having to go to a doctor. You see what I mean? The whole...

Worldview No. 6 says get to a point where your body is made of light, and you don't have to go to doctors. You don't need a doctor.

You see? Worldview No. 5 says try to make the best of a bad body.

Worldview No. 6 says turn it into a tantric angel's body and get done with it. You see what I mean?

And that's a difference. It's a big difference. Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
With an understanding of emptiness, because you have faith and devotion to your guru, if with that understanding happening in the background, you decided, once you have some intellectual understanding of emptiness, not to see a doctor, will that create the causes for you to experience that reality that you aspire to, to see emptiness? Is it more virtuous not to go to a doctor with an understanding of emptiness than it would be to go to a doctor? Because in a sense, going to the doctor is buying into this other reality.

So, if you're able to do it with extreme faith and devotion, should you make those brave moves?

[Speaker 1]
I think Shantideva gave a very clear answer. He says, tse ne go dzok che da. You know, begin the practice of generosity with vegetables.

You know? Like, there's a principle in Dharma that you stick with what you're capable of. You know?

If your devotion is sufficient, and Marpa says, jump off the roof, and you jump, it's a great good deed. But if you're not ready for that, you're committing a very bad karma, extremely bad karma. I think when you can do it with joy, and the big litmus test is whether you're going to regret it later.

You know, when you're on the ground and he's laughing at you, and you know, if you can still maintain your worldview, you know what I mean? By the way, if you had the spiritual strength to jump, then he would come down to the bottom and test you more. You know, like, ha ha ha ha, I was just kidding, you know?

And make fun of you for having your arms broken and stuff. And, you know. But, but I think we have similar tests all day long, which are much more practical and more difficult, which is to get into an argument with somebody at work.

and the question is, do you have enough emptiness knowledge to know that it's going to eliminate them if you practice patience? I mean, does your, is your sin-sam, is your line strong enough to maintain during the whole argument? You know, like, or do you suddenly crumble after three minutes?

You know what I mean? And those are much more difficult tests than jumping off a roof. You know?

Like, the opening lines of the Patience chapter, you know, su-pa-ta-pa-ka-che-me, there's no, there's no spiritual practice more difficult than maintaining your patience with an irritating person at the moment, at the flashpoint. You know, there's nothing, going in a cave is easy, compared to being in an office in Manhattan and getting fired by your boss on a bad day, you know. Really.

Shantideva was adamant about it. So I'd say, test your sin-sam out on, in those situations. And then, can you really look in this person's face as they're accusing you of something you never did, and, and understand clearly that you can eliminate them permanently if you just shut your mouth, you know, or keep your patience, you know.

That's a very difficult practice and requires great perfection of wisdom. And if you do it with the knowledge of what you're doing, then the karma ripens very fast. Like they're out of there in six months or something, you know, they get transferred.

It happens all, students come up to me and report all these supervisor transfers, you know, and, you can do it, just work on it. Yeah. A lady in the back, lady in the back, she never got one yet.

[Speaker 2]
Is there, are there, is there an infinite number of sentient beings?

[Speaker 1]
There's a big debate in, she said, is there an infinite number of sentient beings? And there's a big debate in the scriptures, you know, they say, first of all, there's an infinite number of sentient beings. Secondly, they will all get enlightened.

One by one. Which seems to be contradictory, you know what I mean? That's, that's all.

They debate it in the monastery. They say infinite. And then they say there will be a last day in samsara.

There will be a last person. And they say that's not contradictory. So, and it won't take infinite time.

Okay, so, that's, I don't know, that's what they say. Did you have a question?

[Speaker 2]
How do you prove that consciousness has to be preceded by a moment of consciousness? Like how would you debate that?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, she asked, how can you prove that consciousness has to be preceded by a moment of consciousness? This is in the proof of future lives, ACI course number, what is it? Four, you can take it.

But to put it briefly, I mean, the debate about whether or not you have past lives and future lives did not occur much in ancient Indian Tibet. Why?

[Speaker 2]
They took it for granted.

[Speaker 1]
They took it for granted. Why? Because Mrs. Melvin said so. Okay? Because their first grade teacher said so. And Ketub Jey, in some of his writings, violently attacks the other Tibetans.

He says, you guys say there's a past life and a future life. I've never met a Tibetan who can explain to me why. You see what I mean?

You just say that because your mom told you that. Which is as bad as those people who say there isn't a past and future life because my mom told me that. Okay, and he attacks them violently, you know, and he says, I haven't met a Tibetan who can explain it to me.

Dharmakirti, Master Dharmakirti, around 650 AD, bumped into some Hindus who believed that there was not a future life or past life. And then he took the trouble in the second chapter of the Pramanavarttika to disprove that. And in there he has very compelling arguments for why consciousness has to create consciousness.

He argues against the idea that you could make consciousness out of a bunch of chemicals that got hit by lightning just right. You see what I mean? He says that's not possible.

And then he goes into describing the contradictory characteristics of mind and matter, you know, and quite effectively. So you have to study those arguments. So you study that course.

But basically the idea is that you need a similar substance to create a similar substance. It's called the gyu tun gyu der bu. Gyu tun gyu der bu means the same sort of stuff has to be there to create, that mind can only come from mental matter, and physical matter can only come from physical matter, and they never mix, something like that.

And then he goes into long descriptions about, look, mind doesn't have any weight. Mind cannot be separated. Mind cannot be destroyed.

You know, mind is not overly influenced by the physical condition of the body. And then there's a big debate, you know, the other school says, yeah, but when you get drunk you get crazy, so there must be some connection. When you put a physical thing in your body, your mind gets nutty.

So there must be some connection. And then he says, well, then, when you get caught, your mind should hurt, right? You should black out.

They say, right. You do. And then he says, oh, then when boxers are into a big fight, and the other guy draws blood, and they see their own blood, and they get pissed off, and they really punch the guy, that shouldn't happen.

You see what I mean? Because the cut should have hurt their mind, and they should be sadder and lose the fight. But he says, you find these warriors, when they see their own blood they go wild, then they really beat the other guy up.

You see what I mean? So he says, it's not a necessary relationship between physical and mental. There doesn't seem to be a necessary relationship.

It's not true that people who get an arm amputated are 25% less intelligent or something like that. You see what I mean? I mean, it's something like, the same physical occurrence of a cut on your arm will make one person faint, like a needle punch can make one person faint, and the other person that gets their arm ripped off, and then suddenly they're even a better warrior, a better fighter.

They're inspired to fight more, you know, so what's happening there? And there are a bunch of nice arguments like that, but the basic one is that, I think in the West we equate the mind too much with the brain. You know, the mind is clear, the mind has no weight, the mind cannot be divided, the mind cannot be located.

You know, what's in your refrigerator at home that you can have after the stupid class dance? I mean, your mind went home and saw that cookie or whatever it was, you know? And, you know, you say, no, I mean, that's a cute example, but really it's in my head I'm going home.

That's not strictly true, okay? I mean, the mind is not limited to the edge of the skin. That's a Western idea, you know?

Your visual consciousness extends to the end of the room, and your mental consciousness extends to stars and planets, and it's not... The idea that the mind is physical like the brain is a Western misconception. And you've got to get...

You could blow up an atomic bomb next to a person, the body would vaporize like that, and according to Buddhism the mind wouldn't be touched at all, no effect on the mind. And you've got to get used to that, okay? Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
To me it seems that, like, the sun, the moon, the earth, water, and the elements of emanations of Buddhas, and that our own body is constructed with the same elements, and that realizing our Buddha mind, our Buddha body, doesn't have to do with transforming any of the fundamental material that already exists, but just realizing it as it really does exist, like the sky behind the clouds. Can you comment on that?

[Speaker 1]
He said... This is actually a question about the nature of Buddha nature, okay? Sugata Garbha.

Sangyiki Rik in Tibetan. And there's two theories about it. One is that your Buddha...

You have a little Buddha inside of you, like the sky behind the clouds, and if you could just remove those obscurations, you would reveal your true nature, which is enlightened, okay? And... And that's how Buddha nature is often presented, you know?

That's not what the scriptures say. There's no... There's no authoritative scripture which says that.

What Buddha nature means is that your body and your mind, your five skandhas, your five heaps, are empty, which makes them eligible for enlightenment. You see what I mean? If my arm wasn't empty, I could never see it as Manjushri's arm.

How? By collecting very good... By keeping my vows very, very well.

Okay? As a projection on this thing, okay? So the emptiness of my arm is what makes me eligible to achieve a nirmanakaya, a rupakaya, okay?

A physical body of a Buddha. And the emptiness of my mind is what means, someday I'll be projecting omniscience onto that mind. And I will be omniscient.

You see what I mean? So, the only part of you... What's the only part of you that's going to be the same when you become a Buddha?

Your emptiness. Okay? Very interesting.

The emptiness of your mind and the emptiness of your body, as they stand now, will be exactly the same when you become a Buddha. Everything else will be totally different. You won't have bone, you won't have blood, you won't have cancer cells, and you won't have any mental afflictions or any impurities of your mind at all.

Okay? So the only thing about you right now, which is enlightened, the only thing which you can take to the bank with you, is your emptiness. And that's your Buddha nature.

That's the real meaning of Sūgata Garbha. That's the only meaning of Sūgata Garbha. Now, so that's the truth.

Prajñāpāramitā is taught in the Guṇḍa-jñāna, Abhisamālaṅkāra, very clearly. So, but then you go back to... Okay, so it's not technically correct to tell people they have a little Buddha inside them, they just have to wipe off some bad deeds and they'll see it.

That's not technically correct. Is it useful? Of course.

It's very useful. It's like the first five flavors of emptiness. Are they correct?

No. Are they useful? Yes.

Apparently Lord Buddha felt so. You know that thing, I said it's a useful idea. It's a helpful concept.

Technically speaking, you know, the other one is more logical.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah?

[Speaker 1]
What's it like to find clarity in the mind? Clarity in the mind can mean a lot of things, okay? Originally, the meaning of clarity is the emptiness of the mind.

That's all. Okay? And in meditation, interestingly, clarity of the mind, or clarity of the object, how clear is the object?

I mean, the word clarity of the object in meditation refers to the sharpness of the mind, not whether the object is fuzzy or not. Okay? You got to get used to that.

Clarity of the selva, of the mind, in the practice of meditation, refers to how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed is your mind, and not whether the object is fuzzy or not. You got to get used to that. Clarity in meditation means, do you have that deep state of concentration you have when you're reading a good book or watching a good TV show or listening to your favorite song or watching a good movie?

Are you on the edge of your seat? Or are you buzzed out? And that's what clarity means in meditation.

But generally when they say clear light or clarity of the mind, they're only referring to the emptiness of the mind. Is that dharmakaya interchangeably? When...

One half of the dharmakaya is the svabhavakaya, which is the emptiness of a Buddhist. It's the emptiness of the other three bodies of the Buddha. Okay?

The nature body of a Buddha is the emptiness of their other three bodies. What are their other three bodies? The body that's staying up in the Buddha paradise, the bodies that they emanate in the world, and then their knowledge.

And the emptiness of those three is their fourth body. Okay? You got to get...

Generally called dharmakaya, but more specifically called svabhavakaya. Okay? Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
When you were teaching us Mahamudra meditation, you had us use feelings as a way of accessing the object. Can you describe other ways to go about doing that?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I used feelings because they're so easy to tune into, and I suggest strongly that you continue to use your feelings. Because it's a lot easier to access that. There's fifty-something other mental functions you could have used.

You could focus on your jealousy. You could focus on your discrimination. You could focus on your attention.

Or you could focus on the main consciousness of the mind. But I suggest you stick with feelings. Feelings is very powerful.

It's very easy. It's the easiest mental function to access. So I'd stick with that for a while.

Although you could use anything. You could use your raw attention, your awareness, but it's a little more difficult, I think. I'd stick with feelings.

And by the way, do this meditation for a while. Don't leave it here at LMB. Okay?

Take it home and start... If you don't start tomorrow, you probably won't do it. Start tomorrow morning, in your practice, use it.

Use it for a while. Otherwise, it doesn't matter much. It's fine to go to a class.

I enjoy it, you enjoy it. If no one actually goes home and uses it, it's a waste. People ask me, should I stop my tonglen and do this?

Who learned tonglen last December? I say, yeah, why not? You should have a toolkit of six or seven meditation modules.

You should have a guru yoga meditation. You should have a death meditation. You should have a lamrim meditation.

You should have a tonglen meditation. You should have a ma mudra meditation. And you should take them out and use them.

And mix it up a little bit. You know, do one until you get good at it, until it's clear. And then do another one for a while.

And this is just a way to keep your daily meditations fresh. Because otherwise they get stale after a while. And that fact is recognized by many lamas.

Like Mooji Dhamma Bhadra used to teach that. He'd say, okay, now let's move, month and a half on this one, got pretty good at it, started to get a little stale on it, move on to another one. Okay?

You can take out another tool from your toolkit. Okay? Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
The object being feelings. I felt pretty good about that the first time I did it. I was like, okay, I have a feeling in my mind.

Then, then you mentioned emotions. That seemed different from just feeling it as just seeing your mind.

[Speaker 1]
That was a mistake. I shouldn't have mentioned them. I caught myself.

All I meant to say was feelings.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Then later I started having feelings in my body.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I'm sorry. I should have specified mental feelings. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
it seems pretty subtle.

[Speaker 1]
You mean difficult to perceive?

[Speaker 2]
Well, no, but like, you can say you were feeling emotional. You might have a hard time noticing what the mental feeling was.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, you're right. But it was interesting to me. It's the first time I've ever done this in a large group.

And I think, I think it worked. I think Mojito Dharbhada was correct when he said, you know, the advantage of focusing on your a mental thing is that your attention span is much better. And people were totally silent.

When we were in the middle of the feeling thing, people were totally silent. I think people were really watching their feelings pretty well. And I, yeah, technically you can divide feelings into three or five.

Three means good, bad, neutral. Five means good physical, good mental, neutral, good, bad physical, bad mental. And stick to the mental.

Yeah, explore the mental.

[Speaker 2]
When you say feelings, are you talking cognition and not volition, where volition will be more emotional? I mean, which skanda are you particularly...

[Speaker 1]
Second. Second, which is feeling. Sensation is a bad translation.

Because number three is a sensation, number four is a sensation, and number five is a sensation.

[Speaker 2]
So that feeling, like...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. No, it's not that. It's not that.

That's number five. Yeah, that's tangible consciousness. You see what I mean?

Feeling in the five skandhas means feeling good, bad, or indifferent. That's... That's the tsorwa-nyongwa du-she-ne, tsu-mo-se-me-lu-yin-no.

That's Abhidharmakosha, first chapter. The definition of the second skanda is feeling good, bad, or indifferent. It doesn't mean the touch.

That feeling is number five. The tangible... The awareness of touch on your body is number five.

It's skanda number five.

[Speaker 2]
That's...

[Speaker 1]
Which is consciousness. Consciousness. Yeah.

Six flavors. Number... You know, in the Heart Sutra, mikme nama me nama chenme lume, luki rek cha, means bodily consciousness.

Consciousness of heat, cold, roughness, like that.

[Speaker 2]
Now, wouldn't that be in the Padmasambhava's five different wisdom buddhas, number two, though?

[Speaker 1]
Ratnasambhava? Who would that be? Feelings.

That's the purification of the heap of feelings, which is good feeling, bad feeling, and neutral feeling. That's all.

[Speaker 2]
But does that apply anywhere in Padmasambhava's scheme of the five wisdom buddhas?

[Speaker 1]
It goes in number five, as being one of the six consciousnesses. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I've got a scenario, and then a question about it. The scenario is a Westerner is very happy in his worldview, and suddenly comes into contact with Tibetan Buddhism, and is presented with a different worldview, which has one aspect of it which is very troubling. One thing, that everything is empty.

This is kind of the opposite of what this Westerner was taught from the beginning. But the Westerner is attracted to it, and spends time meditating, and spends time learning scripture, and spends time looking at all the pictures, and speaking to great lamas, and practices very, very strongly and severely, and the mind raises doubts. No, it can't be true.

It's ridiculous. It's not so. And the mind is putting up a big wall because all the teaching is saying, mind, you don't exist.

And the mind is saying, but I do exist. Here I am. I'm proving it because I'm putting up this wall.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
So this goes on for twenty years. Finally, at a certain point, with various special circumstances surrounding the individual who's been doing this, the weight is overwhelmed. And the mind says, okay, I give up.

It just, you know, splits. It takes off. It disappears.

It gives up. And when it gives up, this huge reservoir of experiences, which have been stored in some other part of the brain and have been held back, comes flooding down.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
And what the brain sees is spirits and deities from other realms. It really sees them. And then it comes out the other side after twenty minutes.

And then twenty-four hours later it goes off into life as someone who has seen emptiness directly.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
The question is, how do we know we didn't just replace one wrong worldview with a different wrong worldview? I think in the end... Well, two answers, okay?

Part of the experience, the direct experience of emptiness, part of that experience, it has three parts. The first one is nyamsak yeshe. Nyamsak yeshe means during the state of meditation.

That's a raw communion with pure emptiness. And there is no other thinking and nothing else. Twenty minutes long, say.

And then you come out of that and for the next twenty-four hours you have a series of spiritual realizations which far surpass any one you've ever had before. You know what I mean? Like any one of them would surpass all the realizations you've ever had in your life.

And those can be grouped into four groups and they're called the four Arya Truths, mistranslated as Noble. Okay? Nothing to do with Noble.

Arya meaning a person who has just seen emptiness. So, those four experiences, all the heavy spiritual realizations you have in the next twenty-four hours can be grouped into four categories and those are the four Arya Truths. And one of them is a Pramana, or a Tsema, or a direct, valid perception, indisputable perception that you are not crazy.

You know, that what you saw was for real. So you have the vision of direct perception of emptiness and when you come out you have a secondary realization that what you saw was totally real and indisputable. And on that moment you lose one mental affliction forever.

There's 84,000 flavors of mental afflictions. When you see emptiness directly there's only three that you get rid of, you know, permanently. And one of them is doubt about this path.

Like you can never again doubt that what you saw was real and that you still are. So there's a... that's a confirmation state of mind.

So that person never has doubt again and cannot doubt it. I mean, they know directly that they saw their future lives, they saw the day of their enlightenment. There's no question in their mind, ever again.

But what about normal people before that? It has to come down to experience. You have to confirm it with your experience.

It has to confirm... It has to coincide with your own experiences. Any person's explanation of the Dharma must be confirmable by you.

And Buddhists are not allowed to use... The people who learned logic last year were not allowed to use a reason which the other person has not already accepted. The process of Buddhist logic is to present a person with three elements of a logical reason which they already accept.

But they never tied it together in that way. And that's... Buddhist logicians are restricted to that methodology.

You can only use as an argument to someone something that they already accept. You're just showing it to them in a new light. It's very interesting.

So you have to do that with yourself. You shouldn't accept anything in Buddhism, and Lord Buddha said it over and over again, until it's directly confirmed by you. Period.

If not directly, sensually, with your consciousnesses, then with your logic. Indisputably with your logic. And then you should accept it.

And then Maitreya says, Well, what are we supposed to do with all the other stuff that we can't confirm right now? He says, Well, you got two choices. You can reject it outright, in which is a very bad karma, or you can shelve it.

And you can say, I'm going to leave that one for now. I agree with 90% of what that guy said this weekend. 10% I have a problem with it.

Maitreya says, Just to cover your rear end, karmically, don't reject it violently. Just put it on the shelf and say, I'll get back to you when I'm ready. You know what I mean?

And he clearly states that in the Gyalama. So, that's all. Like that.

The ultimate confirmation, Jetsun Kappa gets into it when he discusses emptiness. This whole presentation comes from Jetsun Kappa's Chang'e Leksha Nimbo. His discussion of the of the mind-only school and the Madhyamika schools, their differences.

This whole presentation on emptiness, the six kinds of emptiness, comes from there. And in there he says, we're faced with a very difficult question. How do you know when the Buddha was speaking literally, and how do you know when he was speaking figuratively?

How do you know? You see, in the first turn of the wheel, he said, maybe some things are self-existent. In the second turn of the wheel, he said, nothing is self-existent.

In the third turn of the wheel, he said, during the second turn of the wheel, I was waffling. Actually, some things are, and some things aren't. I mean, basically, it's like that.

So, you would think that in the third turn of the wheel, he'd be coming clean. Right? So, we should take that one to be the truth.

But in that one, he said, when he said everything was empty, he wasn't being literal. So, Jetsun Kappa says, before we get into this subject, let's decide, how do we know when the Buddha was pulling our leg or not? And then they say, well, obvious.

And he says, what's obvious? And they say, well, when Lord Buddha comes up and says, you know I was pulling your leg back then, now I'll tell you the truth. That's when we should believe what he said.

And he says, but you can't do it that way, because in the third turn of the wheel, he said he was pulling your leg when he gave the Heart Sutra. When he said everything was empty. He says in the third turn of the wheel, which was later, I was just kidding.

Okay? It's not true that everything, everything is empty. That means nothing exists.

I wouldn't say that. So, if you can't even believe the Buddha when he says, that's when I was meant what I said, how are you supposed to decide what's real? How are you supposed to decide what's right?

And Jetsun Kappa comes down to, you got to use your own reasoning. You must figure it out, what's logical to you. And in the end, that's the only way.

You can't even believe the Buddha, because the Buddha is being figurative, even when he tells you when he was being figurative. Okay? Okay?

So in the end, it has to come down to reason. It has to be logical. And if you carefully think about worldview number six, I call it the greased pig worldview.

It's hard to hold on to that. I mean, you lose it. Try to explain it to somebody tomorrow.

You know? I'm having real trouble with my credit cards. They're real overloaded, you know?

I got like $200 left on the fifth one, you know? And I'm getting nervous. This really happens to me all the time.

I'm getting nervous. I don't know what to do, you know? And then the person says, you know, Lama Tsopa, what did he say?

He would say, take that $200, cash it in, give it to LMB. He'd say, Lama Tsopa, you know, let's be reasonable. I got to, you know...

And to really explain that worldview to somebody, that when you're facing financial difficulties, the most intelligent thing to do is to give away as much as you can. I mean, go explain that to somebody tomorrow. You know?

It's like a grease pig. It's hard to think. It's hard to conceive that this could be true.

But you have to... It is true. But it's very hard, I tell you, it's hard to live by.

And it's hard to hold that line. That line will crumble the minute you need something. You know?

And you got to work hard on it. The more you hold it, everything you ever dreamed of will come true. I swear to God.

Or whatever. It's really... It's really everything you ever dreamed of.

You can't dream of some of the stuff that happens. It's beautiful. It's wonderful.

Total happiness. And substantial. I'm talking bucks, you know?

You know, I'm not saying some, you know, good feeling or something like that. No. Just total success in every form of your life.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah?

[Speaker 1]
And this is your experience.

[Speaker 2]
Absolutely.

[Speaker 1]
But your karma is certainly different from mine. How do I know that would be mine? Try it.

And I always say, no, I always say, you got nothing to lose. I mean, the choice is, read the obituaries, you know? The choice is that, you know?

You got nothing to lose by experimenting at this point, you know?

[Speaker 2]
Could you just speak, maybe just very briefly, on good devotion and the role that that plays? Because I don't know, the question that I heard from Michael was, how valuable is that? And why?

And how does that work?