Серия ежедневной практики ACI — Тонглен: размышления о практике даяния и принятия (2019, Аризона), занятие 3

[Speaker 1]
Okay, we're going to try a new meditation this morning, since you're already expert about helping yourself in the afternoon. By the way, use that afternoon tonglen. Use it.

It helps a lot. Everybody has hard days, right? In the morning you have to meet your ex-boyfriend or something.

It's stressful. So, you can prepare in the morning. Alright, so there's two classic ways to get bodhichitta, right?

One is exchanging yourself and others, and one is the mother meditation. Then there's a famous text which is in your reading. Who did that?

I found the text. When I used to debate in the monastery, then once a year we have a competition with the other monasteries. That competition rotates to the six major Tsongkapa monasteries.

Serame, Seraje, Drebong, Komang, Losaling, Ganden, Jangtse, Shartse. These are the six great colleges. So each big monastery has two colleges.

So we rotate the debates. When I would go to Ganden Monastery, which is about a 12 hour drive, if you go on an American road it would take an hour. I'm not kidding.

But it's about a 12 hour drive. You have to drive around all the cows and the pigs. I would stay at Je Tsongkapa Rinpoche's home, which is the person who made the poster, the teacher of the last time.

So I would stay at his home. He was reborn as a young boy. But all of his old assistants were still there.

He was a great book collector. So I used to dig around in his books. I found this book in his books.

I found many great books there. I found a nice picture of him with the Pope, which I'll show you sometime. It's very cool.

He had a long meeting with the Pope. Then this is a text. I actually don't know who's the author, but it's kind of amazing.

I found it in his personal paper thread. They let me dig around. This is combined meditation, of the mother meditation and the exchanging yourself and other meditation.

So let's test drive it. Let's see how it goes. I'm not sure how it's going to go, but if he had it in his personal papers, it's probably pretty cool.

So let's try it out. So you are the first guinea pig. You are the first...

We are investigating this meditation.

[Speaker 2]
Let's try. So relax your fingers, and relax your eyelids. It's kind of hard to relax your eyelids.

You have to try. Smile. Pull in your stomach slightly.

Shoulders go back. Shoulders go together. Don't forget you have an option to look up over the horizon with your eyes.

And then please come to your breath. Long exhales, extra exhale. John Brady talked about it yesterday in his yoga class.

I think it was count of ten out, count of sixteen. But extra exhale.

[Speaker 1]
Then I'd like you to choose someone that you know of or heard of who is having some problems right now. And that's actually, we're going to go through 13 different steps in this meditation. And the first one is to be fair in your choice of people who are having a problem.

So we tend to worry more about the people who are close to us. And we tend to ignore people who are farther away from us and we don't know them so much. So first job in a tonglen meditation is to choose a person who's having a problem.

So you might think about the people you usually choose. It's often someone you like or someone who's close to you. And here in the first step, today let's try tonglen on somebody we don't know that well or maybe someone we don't even like that much.

[Speaker 2]
But everybody has problems.

[Speaker 1]
So maybe we can do tonglen for someone in Syria who's being bombed right now. Could be someone in this class. We're not so close to them but we know they have some problem.

Could be someone who had some grief. A relative passed away. One student in this class flew here from China to Los Angeles and one of their parents passed away and they got to Los Angeles and they bought a ticket and went home.

So people we don't know or we don't know very well. Choose someone. But maybe today for the tonglen choose someone who's not that close or even someone we don't like very much.

Let's do tonglen on them. Let's take away their problem.

[Speaker 2]
Here we go. Choose a person without prejudice.

[Speaker 1]
The second step of this combined bodhichitta meditation is to think about how this person that we're meditating about has been our mother in one of our past lives, countless past lives. Think about this person that we may not know very well. Maybe they don't even have a name for us.

[Speaker 2]
But let's understand that they have been your mother. As close as your mother in this life. Everyone around you has been your mother.

As close as your mother in this life.

[Speaker 1]
Third step is to try to think about all the nice things they did for us in our past life as our mom.

[Speaker 2]
They risked their life to give you life. They carried you for nine months. They got sick.

They got tired. They had to think for nine months about the birth and if it's a former life, it's possible that birth was very dangerous. Even nowadays it can be very dangerous.

So that person that you're meditating about, they were willing to die for you before they met you. And then they taught you everything, how to talk, how to eat, how to walk, how to make a living, how to go to school, how to read, how to speak. And think about all the things that this person did for you.

You're going to have to keep the person in mind and then you're going to have to think logically what they did for you in the past life. The fourth step of the thirteen is to decide, oh, I should pay them back.

[Speaker 1]
I would be a strange person if I don't pay my mother back for all the things she did for me.

[Speaker 2]
So this person that you're meditating about, think about paying them back for all the kindness they gave us when they were a mom.

[Speaker 1]
Now we switch to the other system and we think this person that I'm meditating on and me, we have equal right to be happy and I should work equally for their happiness. Whatever effort I make to make money for myself or feed myself or make sure I'm happy, I should also be making the same effort for them. We have equal right to happiness.

All the people around me have equal right to be happy.

[Speaker 2]
It's not fair. If I work harder on my own happiness then I work on their happiness. Step number six.

[Speaker 1]
I could go on the way I've been doing it. I could go on taking more care of myself and not taking so much care of this person who I don't really know that well. But if I do that then something is wrong in the world.

If I treat myself better than I treat this other person then something is going to be wrong. All my happiness comes from taking care of other people. So if I take care of myself more it's going to do something to my happiness.

Over many years time, over the length of my life, if I take care of myself more and I don't worry about this person that much then something will be wrong. My happiness in my life, over my life, comes from taking care of other people. So if I don't worry about this person very much, if I don't try to take care of them, if I'm prejudiced, if I take care of myself more then something is going to happen in my life.

My life will get worse and worse. My life will be more and more unhappy. So it's even in my own interest to take care of them more and more.

[Speaker 2]
And don't worry so much about myself. Okay, here we go. Step number seven.

[Speaker 1]
There's a logic to helping other people. If I help this person who I wasn't so interested in before, but if I put some effort into helping this person, if karma is true, then actually I will get more and more things that I want.

[Speaker 2]
So it's a win-win.

[Speaker 1]
Instead of ignoring them and taking care of myself, which is a lose-lose situation, if I relax and happily spend some time taking care of them, then if karma is true, things will come to me. Happiness will come to me. So I made them happy and I made me happy.

So it's a win-win. If I focus more on these other people and a little bit less think about what I want, I will get more and more of things I never dreamed of.

[Speaker 2]
Because karma grows. Just think about that.

[Speaker 1]
Step eight in this meditation is to think about what would happen in this world if everybody thought like this.

[Speaker 2]
If everyone took care of other people equally. And if karma is true, then this world could be a truly happy place.

[Speaker 1]
So it's the most beautiful thing we can do to create happiness in this world is to take care of other people, maybe especially the ones we don't know very well or we don't like them so much.

[Speaker 2]
Think about how right it is to follow these laws of karma and take care of everyone equally. We'd have such a beautiful result in our world if we all did it. Then in step nine we're going to start exchanging myself and others.

[Speaker 1]
I try to imagine how people see me. How does this person see me? So I put myself in their body.

I put my mind in their body. And I look at me. How do I feel to them?

How do they see me? I see them as someone I don't know very well or someone I don't, maybe I don't like them that much.

[Speaker 2]
Let's put our mind in their body and let's look at me and see how it feels.

[Speaker 1]
Especially how does it feel that Michael doesn't treat me equally and Michael seems to be more worried about his own happiness than about my happiness. How does that feel to other people?

[Speaker 2]
Put yourself in their body and look at you. Now let's think about what's hurting them or what problems they have.

[Speaker 1]
And I want to take away their pain. Maybe one of their main sufferings is thinking about how we don't love them or we're ignoring them. Maybe that's one of their most painful things in their life.

[Speaker 2]
Now we're going to start the actual tonglen. Imagine that darkness in their heart.

[Speaker 1]
And maybe that darkness is how bad it feels to them when they realize we don't really care about them very much. Let's imagine that pain, small pain in their heart, as a small black cloud. Oh, Geshe Michael doesn't really care about me as much as he cares about himself.

[Speaker 2]
And that hurts to realize that. Let's collect that black smoke in their heart. Now let's imagine a beautiful pink lotus in our own heart.

Fragrant, soft, lovely. And in the center of the lotus, a beautiful diamond. You can imagine that diamond ring with that diamond, raw diamond, sparkling, powerful.

[Speaker 1]
And let's take the black smoke out of our friend and bring it to this diamond and explode it. So start breathing.

[Speaker 2]
We're going to breathe through both nostrils today. Your in-breath is like a pump and it's bringing the darkness out of their heart.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, I don't want you to feel that sadness of being ignored by Geshe Michael. I want to take it away from you. Even if it means I will have that sadness, I don't want you to keep it.

So each breath you take in, more and more darkness comes out of their nose, out of their body. As soon as it leaves their nose, they start to feel happier and they don't really know why. Secret, I'm doing secret.

[Speaker 2]
Taking away their trouble, taking away their heartache. I bring this darkness to the front of my own nose and I get ready to take it away. And I'll count to three.

One, two, three, and three, breathe in.

[Speaker 1]
The darkness comes down my throat, touches the diamond in the lotus.

[Speaker 2]
There's a bright flash of light, destroys it completely. At that moment they feel so happy.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, all that trouble, all that pain in their heart, that people are ignoring me.

[Speaker 2]
People don't really care about my happiness. It's gone. Then immediately let's start sending golden light from my two nostrils.

This is, we're up to 11. We're up to step 11.

[Speaker 1]
I will send into your heart the knowledge that Michael loves you and Michael cares about you. Michael admits his old mistake and now he's going to treat you equally to other people and equal to himself. He's going to give you the same kind of love he gives to other people and even the kind of love he gives to himself.

[Speaker 2]
Lots of golden light.

[Speaker 1]
Step 12 of the 13 steps, we think about, if I have to take care of everyone the same that I take care of myself, that's a lot of work. That's a lot of trouble. That's going to take a lot of time, a lot of attention.

I'm just one person and the world is a big place. Many, many people need my help.

[Speaker 2]
I can say I will treat them equally, but it seems so difficult. Step 12 is to make a decision in your own heart.

[Speaker 1]
I'll figure it out. I will take care of it. It's like a mom who has a bunch of kids and they all need things and she doesn't have much money, but she doesn't give up and she doesn't say, I can't do it.

She says, I'll find a way. I will find a way. I will take care of it.

It's hard. I'm tired. I have a lot to do.

There's a lot of people who need me. I will find a way to take care of all of them. I will work really hard.

I will not give up that responsibility. I will take care of everyone. Somehow, I will take care of it.

I will try.

[Speaker 2]
I don't give up and I don't avoid this responsibility. I will take care of everyone who needs me. And the last step, which is 13, which is actually bodhichitta.

[Speaker 1]
One of the best ways to take care of other people is to be a good example. If I'm a joyful person, happy person, even when I have problems, I'm tired, I have too much to do, but if I stay cheerful, big smile on my face and always have time for other people, then that virus will spread.

[Speaker 2]
Smiles spread in a group.

[Speaker 1]
Grumpy feeling, unhappy feeling spreads in a group. I will be a good example. This is how I can help a lot of people.

I will work hard with my meditation, my yoga, my study, and I will be an example of a person in this short, deadly life. I will be a shining light for other people. I'll be hope for other people.

I will be a good person who treats other people equally as well as I can.

[Speaker 2]
And that's bodhichitta. I will be a good example. Wish your friend good luck.

I'll see you again soon. I'll take care of you, don't worry. And then you can open your eyes.

Take a stretch.