Серия ежедневной практики ACI — Тонглен: размышления о практике даяния и принятия (2019, Аризона), занятие 4

[Speaker 1]
We're gonna practice the same meditation as yesterday, which is a mixture of three things. What? Dong len, exchanging self and others, and the seven steps.

Mami meditation. Mami meditation.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, here we go. Then we'll start with a small preparation. Relax your mouth.

Pull in your stomach. Small smile. Eyelids are relaxed.

Fingers are relaxed. Shoulders go back a little bit. And then we'll come to our breath.

Long exhales. And put your mind on your breath in the same way that you put your head on your pillow. And just relax into the breath.

[Speaker 1]
Then please invite one of your teachers in your life, maybe your mom, maybe your dad, or some other teacher, to come and sit with you in the meditation and give you their blessing.

[Speaker 2]
Then think of something you love about this person.

[Speaker 1]
This is like a bowing down to them, just to recognize the beauty in them, something you admire.

[Speaker 2]
Please don't make any noise. We should be sitting still. Then think of something you did in the last day or two which was not very nice.

Maybe you were irritated at someone else here. Let your teacher know. Clean it.

Then let your teacher know about something really nice you've done.

[Speaker 1]
I think coming here to Diamond Mountain, it's so difficult to get here.

[Speaker 2]
And you worked so hard to come here. And tell your teacher about it. They're very happy.

Maybe one of the most important things in your life. It will help your next life also. Then ask your teachers to keep teaching.

[Speaker 1]
Could be anyone around you. Anyone around us can give us inspiration, can teach us. People who give us trouble can also teach us.

[Speaker 2]
We become stronger, better people. Learning to be patient with them. Then ask our teacher to stay in our life.

Please don't ever leave me. I couldn't live that life without my teacher. Then we'll start the meditation.

It'll be a tonglen meditation. And we're so close to ourselves.

[Speaker 1]
We take care of ourselves before anything else. There's a tonglen meditation for that. Take care of my afternoon self.

Send help to myself this afternoon. And we've done that. That's a good meditation.

You can do it. And we've done tonglen meditations for people we care about, our loved ones, family members who might be sick or have passed away. And now we're going to do a meditation which begins with equanimity.

It means, let's try to think of someone who's not very close to us. Someone who's not a family member. Could be someone we don't really think about much.

It could even be someone we're having a little bit of trouble with them. And let's give equal time to tonglen for people we don't know so well or people even that we have a little bit of trouble with them. So please think of someone.

Not your usual close friend or family member, but rather someone that you wouldn't normally pray for. Someone not so close.

[Speaker 2]
And let's give people equal time. Choose someone who's not so close, but who needs some help today. Equanimity.

Every being around us has been our mom before in the past life.

[Speaker 1]
There's no beginning to our mind. If one moment of mine, the present moment of mine right now, flowed from the mind of an hour ago, and if only mind can create mind, then it proves we have no beginning. Our life has no beginning.

Our mind has no beginning. And that mind has created many mothers. We have been child of every being we ever met.

Every bird, every small animal here at Diamond Mountain.

[Speaker 2]
Every person in the airport. Every person we've ever met. They have been our mom.

So let's think about this, how this person has been my mom. This person I'm meditating about today. Must have been my mom many times.

Then think about all the nice things they did for us when they were our mom.

[Speaker 1]
This is step number three. First was equanimity. Choosing a person that we won't usually choose.

Second was seeing that they have been my mom. And then thirdly, let's think about all the things they did for us when they were our mom. They went through tremendous pain to give us birth, and then the long pain of many years of taking care of us, worrying about us, how to feed us, how to give us clothing, how to protect us, how to educate us.

All the countless trouble and pressure on your mom. Pressure never lets up for the first 20 years they have to take care of you. It's their responsibility.

[Speaker 2]
And this person did it for me. I just forgot about it. Then I should do something to pay her back.

I shouldn't just forget her. That's step number four. Let me pay her back.

It's a good thing to do. It's right. Let me do my best to make her happy in this life.

Then how much effort should I put into paying her back? How much time do I have to pay her back?

[Speaker 1]
Today, for example, whose happiness is more important? Whose happiness should get more hours of my time, or more minutes of my time? Should I give her one hour, or should I give her two hours, and give myself five hours, six hours?

How much is she worth? How much am I worth? Why should I give myself more time than I give to her?

Isn't her happiness as important to her as my happiness is important to me? Why should I give myself more time of attention and care than I give to her? Shouldn't it be equal?

Don't we both want happiness the same?

[Speaker 2]
Shouldn't I work for other people as much as I work for myself? This is step five, it's called equal rights. Other people and myself, we have equal right to my time.

Then step number six, it's thinking about where things really come from.

[Speaker 1]
Things come to me, even the time in my life that I have to take care of myself, even those hours, has come from taking care of others in the past. So if I just focus on myself, on what I want, and I don't give any time to this person, my mom, then actually my life will be more unhappy. So, if I don't give her my time, and I don't give her my attention, in the future my life will be even worse.

I'm hurting myself if I don't give equal time to other people and myself. I'm only hurting myself.

[Speaker 2]
I won't be happy. I don't get what I want if I only focus on myself. Step seven, if I really want more happiness in my own life, and if I want to be happy, then I don't really have a choice.

I have to give this person my attention and my time.

[Speaker 1]
It's the only way I will have a good life. It's the only way I will be happy. It seems like if I give them more time and more attention, then I'm taking time away from myself, but my time comes from giving my time to other people.

So, the smartest thing, if I want to be happy, I want to have time, and I want love of other people. I don't have a choice. I have to give my time to this person, even though they're not my favorite person, they're not my family or close friend, but if I want more time, and I want more love in my life, I don't have a choice.

[Speaker 2]
I have to take care of them. I have to give them my time.

[Speaker 1]
In step number eight, this is really how I can be happy for my whole life, and this is like DAL. This is like the way of things. This is creation.

This is what made the world, is how much I give to other people. So, it's a right thing to do, and it feels good. For the first time in my life, I can feel like I'm doing the right thing.

If I take care of these other people, and I give them my time, happily, with understanding, then some part of me understands that. Some part of me knows it's the right thing to do, and I feel relaxed, and I feel finally I'm doing the right thing. This struggle to take care of myself, this struggle to spend the hours on myself, and pretending it's okay to ignore other people, it feels wrong to me.

If I relax, and give my time to other people, give my attention to other people, finally it feels comfortable, and it makes sense, and I'm doing the right thing. So, this step, number eight, is just enjoy how good it feels to do the right thing, and stop struggling against doing the right thing.

[Speaker 2]
Give your time to other people, and this is real happiness.

[Speaker 1]
Now step nine is exchanging myself and this other person. So, I put my mind in their body, their eyes may be closed, then they open their eyes, and they look at me. How does it feel to look at Michael, when people look at Michael?

How does it feel when this person, who I'm not that close to them, I don't take care of them usually, but when they look at me, at Michael, how do they feel? They know I don't care about them that much, they know I don't want to give them my time, but how does it feel to them to look at Michael, and know that Michael doesn't really care so much about them? How lonely it feels, and how sad it feels to them that someone doesn't really care about them.

[Speaker 2]
So, put yourself in their mind, and look at you, and see how it feels to be with you, and to be ignored by you. Then let's look at those feelings in their heart, it's like a black cloud.

[Speaker 1]
This is step number ten of the thirteen steps, and all that feeling of being ignored by Michael, not being loved by Michael, or feeling that Michael doesn't want to give me his time. All those sad feelings that they have. Now we understand how they feel.

We can see the dark smoke in their heart, this sad feeling about Michael.

[Speaker 2]
So, let's decide to take it out of them, and we're going to use both nostrils.

[Speaker 1]
First, we look at this beautiful lotus in our heart, beautiful pink lotus. Make it super beautiful, get the color, very beautiful.

[Speaker 2]
The lotus is very delicate. It's very wide. It looks very beautiful inside your heart.

[Speaker 1]
It has a very subtle and fragrant smell, very attractive.

[Speaker 2]
Spend some time, make the lotus beautiful. In the middle of the lotus is this beautiful diamond.

[Speaker 1]
I like to use the diamond ring, meditation ring, with the raw diamond, big piece of raw diamond, sparkling, and pure.

[Speaker 2]
These are the two valuable things I have in my heart.

[Speaker 1]
These are the two most precious things I own in my life. It's not money, it's not houses, it's not even my body. It's my love, which is the lotus, and my understanding of where things are coming from, the pen, which is the diamond.

These are the two most precious things I have. These two things I can take with me after I die.

[Speaker 2]
These are things that I really own, and they are the basis of all the happiness I have.

[Speaker 1]
Then we will take in breath, slowly we will pump the black smoke out of our friend, and bring it to the front of your nose, and then together we'll breathe it in.

[Speaker 2]
Take a few breaths, pump the darkness out of their heart, up their throat, out of their nose, and it drifts over to me. And bravely I will decide to take it in.

[Speaker 1]
On the count of three, I will breathe in this blackness. Immediately it will go to the diamond in the heart, and there will be a bright flash of light, like lightning, and all that sadness that they have will be destroyed. All their sadness about knowing that I don't really want to give them my time, will be destroyed.

[Speaker 2]
On the count of three, one, two, and three. The black smoke comes to the diamond, they touch, there's a flash like lightning, and then all that sadness is gone. Disappears in a gray smoke and then the smoke disappears.

And there's a sense of relief from the other person.

[Speaker 1]
They don't have this darkness anymore. They don't know what happened. They don't know you did anything.

[Speaker 2]
But wherever they are right now, they feel a sense of relief and some kind of comfort. Then let's give them our happiness, let's give them our time, let's give them our attention. And I take some deep breaths out.

Golden light. I like to add the smell of the lotus and the beauty is leaving from my heart, out my nostrils, and coming to their heart, coming down their throat. Take your time.

[Speaker 1]
You're not in any rush. We're meditating right now. The world can wait.

All the things we have to do can wait. Don't let subtle, busy mind knock on the door of your meditation.

[Speaker 2]
This is my time. This is my meditation time. The things I have to do today, they will wait until my meditation is done.

[Speaker 1]
Then by doing this meditation, I become a different kind of person. Slowly, every day, if I do this meditation, my personality will change. I will become a more loving person.

I'll become some kind of very unusual person who enjoys giving their time to others and never complains.

[Speaker 2]
Happy to sacrifice their own desires to help other people.

[Speaker 1]
And quietly, I will become a different kind of person and people around me will sense it. They will feel how happy I am to give my time to others, how much joy I take in my life, how much happier I have become since I started doing this meditation. Then I become like a virus, like a meditation virus, like a virus of caring for others.

When we're selfish, when we don't want to give our time to others, we don't want to give them our attention. When we're selfish, that selfishness tends to spread around us. People feel our hesitation to share our time and our love, and then they become more selfish.

But we become a bad example, and like cancer it starts to spread to our friends and other people we meet. So today, because I'm doing this meditation, and I'm taking pleasure in giving my time and my love to someone I don't really know that well, or maybe I don't really care about them, I don't like them. But this example, new way to become happy, it will start to spread.

People will sense it. People around me will be affected by it. They will be changed.

I will become a virus, and this is meaning of bodhisattva.

[Speaker 2]
This is what a bodhisattva is, a virus of a new way to treat people. So the final step is to enjoy being a bodhisattva virus, some kind of light for other people. Good example.

So enjoy being a good example, a light for others. And you can open your eyes. Take a stitch.