Базовый курс ACI 1: Основные учения буддизма (2019, Аризона), занятие 3

[Speaker 1]
Let's do some structure stuff okay? You were thinking to go home early, but when's the last time that happened with Geshe-la? Let's do some structure stuff, but I will still try to finish early okay?

Just try, no promise. We supposed to be talking about the foundation 18 courses. We're trying to do a couple things, we're trying to identify which topic, and which school, and what's the famous book that's used, and then of course we want to know the topic, and the last thing, we want to know the flow.

Why did it come from the last one, and why is it going into the next one? Geshe-la told you the secret secret teaching, like, I don't know, somebody did a bad translation of ... what's it called ...

Tibetan Book of the Dead, or something like that, you see? Like, or my Lama was sick, and I had extra time, so I did the Diamond Cutter Sutra, but you're not gonna say that okay? You're gonna say logically, emptiness teaching should come course six, Geshe-la said okay?

There's open teaching, there's secret teaching okay? Okay. Course 13, I lost half my students, because it was so hard, so I did course 14 is how to ...

how to love, like touchy ... it's the touchy-feely course, you know, they all came back by the way, so that's the flow, but don't tell anybody. We'll say Buddhist logic is necessary and compassion is necessary.

Okay, so what course were we on? Don't remember. We finished bodhisattva vows, we finished eight, we finished death and ...

well, then what's nine? Oh yeah, another popular class. You're a bad person, stop doing it.

Yeah, so I met the highest Lama in the world by the way, and they asked me ... I offered them the courses in person, and then they said well how did you handle Vinaya? Because I'm not supposed to teach monk vows to people who don't have monk vows, so they said oh that must have been a short course, because you can only do the one-day vows and the lifetime vows, and I said well, I used Tsongkapa okay, which is a famous summary of the vows without mentioning the vows, okay?

So, I'm still legal, okay? If you want to know the vows, 253 monks vows, 364 nuns vows, the nuns vows in Tibet have been lost for, I don't know, a thousand years or 800 years okay? Some king, evil king, killed all the nuns, and there weren't enough survivors to hold the ceremony to make a new nun.

So, there has to be more than ... I think there has to be 21 or so? I don't know, 20?

There has to be a certain number of nuns there, and he killed so many that there wasn't enough nuns to make a new full nun. So, for the last, I don't know, 800 years I'm guessing, you couldn't take full nuns vows in Tibet, and guess who revived them? Diamond Mountain, okay?

We did it here, we found the 364 vows, and we worked hard on them, and we found the ancient ceremonies for making nuns, and we recovered them, John Brady, and we've translated them, and we made full nuns here. And it was very controversial, we got criticized by big people, and now they're doing it themselves, heehee, okay? So, anyway, I want to brag about course number nine, and it's an amazing summary of the book is so short that you need an explanation, okay?

And I decided to use one by, say, Lama Quicksilver, okay? His name is NGUL CHU. NGUL CHU, Quicksilver, silver water, NGUL CHU.

Quicksilver, mercury, which is used in Tantra by the way, in the ancient times. Don't use it, it's a poison. Don't try it, okay?

But his name is Lama Quicksilver, and he's amazing Lama from about 300 years ago, and he's famous for very good commentaries. So, we used his explanation of Tsongkapa's summary of the eight kinds of Pratimoksha vows, say Pratimoksha?

[Speaker 2]
For ten cents, what's it mean?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah okay, haso ten ... five cents each, okay? Haso gets five cents, word gets five cents.

Finally, what they're worth, okay? Just kidding, don't get eight worldly thoughts about it, okay? Yeah, the subject of Vinaya is Pratimoksha vows, which means the vows you have to keep to reach Nirvana, okay?

Not Buddhahood, but to stop your suffering personally. The vows of monks, nuns, lifetime layman vow, one-day vows, which Allison also did a great job translating, and Stanley, okay? And you can ask them for the translation someday.

They did the Mahayana one-day vow, which is not in this course. Say again? Yeah, we translated it and we did it in Thailand, so if you want a copy talk to them.

There's a one-day vow you can take with fasting, you can fast for the day, and it's a very sweet vow, it's a one-day Mahayana vow, but there is a one-day vow, Hinayana vow, which we will study in this course, and they're very similar, most of it is similar, okay? Now, so we have the commentary by Quicksilver, listen, going backwards, Geshe Michael, Ken Rinpoche, Chizang Rinpoche, Pabongka Rinpoche, Pabongka Rinpoche's Lama, you can go back like that, you will hit Lama Quicksilver. I'm talking Tantric lineage, okay?

I'm talking Diamond Way lineage. Quicksilver's explanation of how to meet the Jingang Yudamu, Angel of Diamond, how to find her, how to meet her, and how to become her student, which is one of the biggest subjects of Tantra. He wrote the best books, he wrote two of the best books, okay?

So he's ... if you ask about flow, what's the answer? Geshe-la was setting you up for Tantra, in the lowest school, okay?

And the lesson there is, why we have a book by Lama Quicksilver about the lowest school, what's the flow answer? He wrote a lot of the books you're going to study in Tantra course. I translated the whole book, okay?

You're going to get the whole Lama Quicksilver's Jingang Yudamu, okay? So, that's part of the flow. Part of the flow of DCI Foundation course number nine, is to set you up for Tantra before you know, okay?

People say, oh Geshe-la, it's not very interesting. Yeah, but you cannot enter Tantra without it, okay? Okay?

Without a good ethical life, you will fail if you try to do Tantra, okay? It's the foundation of Tantra. Treating other people kindly, treating other people respectfully, is the basis of secret practice, okay?

And if you don't know Vinaya, you can't touch Tantra, okay? There's a direct connection, okay? Why?

You want to see angels come to you and teach you in person, you better have some good seeds. How do you make good seeds? You be nice to other people.

Well, how do I make those seeds? There's a book called Vinaya Sutra, it tells you the coolest seeds to make, okay? Got it?

No killing, no stealing, no stealing other people's wives, etc etc, okay? It doesn't sound very sexy, but it's the ultimate sexy, okay? Keep your vows.

Treat other people nice, treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself. Okay, good. Yeah, so the main book is called The Essence of the Ocean, Dua Gyatso Nyumbul, and the commentary is by Master Dharmabandhu, Master Quicksilver.

By the way, I think I asked you this question already, in this course, towards the end, I threw in another letter by Tsongkapa to his disciple that he banished to East Tibet to make 108 monasteries, okay? There's a second letter in the 18 courses, and it comes in course 9. There's a second letter that Tsongkapa wrote to him, and it's a response to a letter that he got from Ngawang Dagpa, who said, I not only built these monasteries, but I created a bunch of monks and nuns.

I made the first monks and nuns in the East part of Tibet. He's bragging to his teacher, and Tsongkapa wrote him back a long letter which I translated and put into this course. Why?

Yeah, in the letter Tsongkapa draws the connection between Vinaya and successful meditation, okay? Because people are always asking me, Geshe-la, do we put the left foot up first or do we put the right foot up first? You know, do we use a soft cushion or a hard cushion?

Do we put the left hand down first or the right hand, you know, do we connect the palms or we don't? Do we do chin mudra or we hold it up or we hold it down? People are always asking me stuff like this, and as an ACI teacher, give them a serious answer.

Oh, always hold the mom. Always left foot first, then right foot. Always left hand down first, right hand down first.

Many prana reasons you have to do that. Then when they get to course nine, tell them it doesn't matter at all, okay? What makes good meditation?

It's not how you sit, it's how you treat other people, and that was Tsongkapa's greatest contribution to the practice of meditation in his life, okay? And he wrote thousands of pages about meditation, but that little letter that he wrote to his beloved disciple, that he kicked out to go do organizing work, right Jasnu? In other countries, like Bali or Thailand, you know, he loved the student so much that he gave the student the most important job, and they'd had a beautiful relationship okay, and then he wrote the letter and he said, listen, I'm so happy you made some monks, and I'm so happy they are learning the old, old monks rules, because they will have good meditation.

He didn't say they will be nice people, or everyone will like them, he said only those people will have good meditation, because what you hear in your mind as you try to meditate is coming out of the seed you planted last week, okay? If your mind keeps talking about lunch, it's because you bothered someone else's concentration last week. Your husband was trying to focus on something for work, and you came in and, honey, you know, I want to tell you about what's going on, you know, and so, interrupting people, bothering other people is a special cause to have your own mind talking about lunch during meditation, okay?

So, respect other people's peace of mind, okay? By the way, respecting other people's concentration, okay? They're focusing on a project, they're learning some music, they're enjoying some music, you know, not bother ...

checking people before you talk to them, okay? Checking if it's a good time for them is a very important skill for a meditator, because those are the seeds you need to meditate, okay? If you respect other people's peace of mind, and you don't irritate them, you don't bother them, if you have to tell them bad news, pick the time.

Morning is a good time, and never criticize someone in the evening, okay? If you've got to tell your student bad news, tell them in the morning, okay? Because otherwise they won't sleep, and they'll be a wreck the next day, and the next day, okay?

Give people bad news in the morning, okay? Give them good news in the evening, okay? General 66 rule for you, okay?

If you have to criticize your student, do it in the morning, okay? That gives them time to recover, okay? Alright?

Respect other people's peace of mind. The Ten Good Deeds is a good list of respect. The Ten Good Deeds list is a great way to have good meditation, and that's an important teaching by Tsongkapa that he wrote to his disciple, and we added it to this course, cool?

Okay, I had something else to say about that, what was that? Yeah, anyway that's enough. Yeah, if you want your mind to be quiet, that's seeds opening in your mind at 65 per second of silence.

Silence seeds are opening 65 per second in your mind, and that's what you call good meditation, okay? You got a string of good seeds going off 65 per second, silence seeds, balance seeds, satisfactions, contentment seeds, all these beautiful meditations, focus seeds, you have to plant them, okay? You have to plant them, on purpose, don't expect to have watermelons if you didn't plant them, it rarely happens, okay?

Plant your meditation for next week, this week, by not bothering other people. I know what I wanted to add, ZE ZHI, no sorry, ZE is part of the word, ZE ZHI, okay Mr. know-it-all, ZE ZHI, ZE who's got that? ZHI is ZOS, same, four, right ZOS?

ZOS, same, I think it came from the same root, ZOS means food, sustenance, yeah, four kinds of sustenance, four things you need to eat every day or two, or you will get sick, or you won't live, okay? First one is easy, GAM GYI ZAS, yeah, physical food, okay, physical food. Second one is sleep, okay, you want to have fun with an employee in your company?

Take the nicest person in the company and don't let them sleep for three, four days, and they become the meanest person in the company, it's kind of amazing, I mean sometimes do it just for fun, okay? Lack of sleep makes anybody, it doesn't matter how good person you are, if you don't sleep for three, four days, you will be terrible, you'll be a terrible person, I'm sorry, okay, second kind of food. Third kind of food, hope, okay, hope, and what's the famous example?

Yeah, a horse in the, I don't know, Syrian desert, who's dying of thirst, okay, and then they see an oasis, they will ... no horse ever died two meters from the water, it never happened in history, okay, what keeps them going the last two meters? Hope, okay, they can see the water, no horse ever died two meters from the water, okay, hope can sustain a human body, and Buddhas don't eat, okay, they have the fourth kind of food, focus, focus, they don't have to eat.

By the way, if your meditation gets really good, you will have this experience, I predict okay, you get prediction today, you will be sitting in a quiet place, like a library, and you will notice that you didn't breathe for ten minutes, and you feel fine, you feel normal okay, you'll say oh my god, I didn't breathe for ten minutes, why? Breath is food, breath is kam kye tse, okay, you don't need it to survive, you need focus, okay, if your focus is strong enough, you don't need to eat, okay, and you don't need breath, okay, it's very interesting. Then I'll tell you a funny thing about yoga, I had a yoga teacher, they said hold your breath for as long as you can, and I'm like why?

And they said you're gonna reach ... what is it? Kumbhaka, which it has another name?

Kevala Kumbhaka, the spontaneous stopping of your breath, it has a name in yoga, Kevala Kumbhaka. Kumbhaka means a vase, or a Chinese vase with a top, here, and Kevala means automatic, you didn't try to do it, it just happened, spontaneous, so Kevala Kumbhaka means your breath stop. So, there's all these yoga schools, they say hold your breath for you know, five minutes, then hold your breath for ten minutes, and you know, and everyone in the room is like ...

and maybe you get up to ten minutes or something, I don't know, three minutes, four minutes, and you get a headache, you get lung for three years, really, that's not how you stop your breath okay, focus, perfect your meditation, and it will stop on its own, and you will notice it one day, I didn't breathe for ten minutes okay, it's not ... there is pranayama right? In Tantra, and you will learn it, and there's many pranayamas, LUNG ROL GO CHUG, is the most famous, but holding your breath is not going to stop you from breathing, got it?

Learn to meditate, deeply, and you don't have to breathe anymore okay, you got the food the other way. Why are we talking about that? A human being needs focus, as much as they need food okay, if you deprive a human being of sleep for three, four days, I did it just for fun, the nicest person in your company will become the biggest ...

I almost said asshole, but I'm not allowed to say that, my teacher hates it when I curse by the way, so don't let me curse in a class, anyway ... if you don't let people focus, they will also go crazy okay, so a good way to ruin a good employee is to keep interrupting them every half hour with a different job okay, again just teaching you Future Diamond Academy, if you want to lose a good employee like Annie, keep interrupting them and giving them another job, and it will make them crazy okay, and that's why, because focus is the kind of food, focus is a kind of food okay, why are we talking about this? Yeah, we're talking about how to plant the seeds for good meditation, don't interrupt other people's focus you know, come back when they're not busy and tell them about what the cat did okay, don't interrupt people when you don't absolutely have to, if you have to do it you know, hey the house is on fire honey, maybe we need to do something, that's okay, that's not a bad seed for meditation, but in general, be respectful of other people's focus, if your husband's reading a book, if someone's listening to music, wait till they're finished okay, and then talk to them about the bills okay, okay got it? And your meditation will improve, because that's the only reason for meditation, that's the only cause of good meditation, there's no other cause of meditation, it doesn't matter how you sit, it doesn't matter which leg you put on first okay, the best meditator in my Geshe class meditated on his back, and one night he beat the Abbot of Tashi Lhumbo in a debate, in front of like a thousand people, this is the guy who only studied on his back, illegally, and he had the illegal tape recorder with rock and roll okay, but he never interrupted other people, and his focus was ... got it? It's not the posture, it's how much seeds do you have okay, that's the connection between class number nine and class number three, good, question?

Yeah, absolutely yeah, doing the book helps your meditation, because when you do bother other people, you can confess and clean the seed okay. Let's try to, I mean I didn't think about it to be honest, but how does nine connect to eight huh? Eight is like death meditation, nine is like be a good person, any connection there?

Yeah, not to go to the hell realms, how's that? Okay, so I guess there's some flow there, how about nine and ten? What's ten?

Yeah, so look, I have 11 minutes, I'll start and I won't finish okay? Probably the most important book for Bodhisattvas is, guess what it's called? A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life okay?

So, it's written by Shantideva, around Master Shantideva, around 700 AD okay? Around Tung Chao right? Tung Dynasty, early Tung Dynasty?

No, it's right in the middle, in the middle of Tung Dynasty yeah, Taizong, maybe, I think so. Anyway, so he wrote a book called Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, okay I'm going to tell you part of the story tonight, I'll tell you part of the story tomorrow okay? It's a cute story, he would say busuku, yeah he had a nickname in the monastery called busuku, busuku means Mr. Lazy, Mr. Do-Nothing, and so he had a reputation in the monastery, he didn't study well, he wasn't a good teacher, he didn't show up in the kitchen to help with the dishes, he didn't help roll the carpets up before yoga, and he especially didn't help roll them back after yoga, basically he seemed to be the laziest monk in the monastery okay?

And the monastery got tired of feeding him, you know we're feeding this guy every day and he just doesn't do anything you know, so they set a meeting, they said let's kick this guy out, and there was a very wise abbot who was a fool, and he said let's help him kick himself out, you know, then we don't have any responsibility, so he said what's your plan? He said let's ask him to teach, teach a class you know, and he'll make a fool out of himself, and then we can tell him you know, we need people who know how to teach in the monastery, we can't feed you anymore, you have to leave okay? So, they went to him and they told him you have to teach okay?

And so, he said you want me to teach something somebody else wrote, or you want me to teach something I wrote? And they're like haha yeah yeah yeah, teach your thing okay? Yeah, you can't even write you know, he said okay I'll teach something, and then he sat down and he taught the Bodhicaryavatara, he taught the Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, which is basically a review of the ten bodhisattva levels and the six perfections okay?

Basically, although importantly it includes the meditation preliminaries okay? So, the first part that we study in HCI is the same preliminaries I taught you from his book okay? So, he taught, and it's probably, I think surely it's the greatest bodhisattva book ever written, ever in Buddhism, even more cool than what Buddha said, I'm sorry, like unbelievable sweet book, and full of incredibly funny, fun, deep ...

the emptiness section is studied by all Geshe's you know, it's the best emptiness section ever written okay? And it's written in the ... as personal advice how to be a bodhisattva okay?

So, it's not part of the Geshe course alright, it's very interesting. Oh by the way, you want to know the end of the story? In the middle of the wisdom chapter, he started to rise off the seat into the sky, and I put a picture of it in your reading, and the caption if you can read Tibetan, maybe a word will translate it for you, I found it in ...

there's the normal picture, go down to the next picture, maybe the course 11, can you just scroll down? That's Gyeltsabje who wrote a great commentary okay? Next, there you go, what's it ...

what's the last three syllables there, word? BUSUGU okay? This is BUSUGU, this is him flying off okay?

He's got his book in his hand you know, and he's flying off, and when he got deep into emptiness, he started to rise up in the air okay? And then there were some monks in the audience who were high yogis, and they followed him, they also said hey I want to hear the end, and they started going up in the sky with him, so there's this circle of people around Shantideva, he's like going up higher higher, and then people drop out you know, people can't go so high, they can't follow him you know, and it got less and less and less, and then finally they gave up, and he's still teaching in the sky, and he's headed towards South India you know, and he disappeared, and he never came back, and it's a famous story.

Then they had a big meeting, and they said oh my god, this is the best Bodhisattva book I've ever written, and his emptiness teaching is the best emptiness teaching we ever heard, we need to get the rest. So they actually sent search parties to many cities, asking did a guy land here with a book in his hand, you know, and they found him, and they said you know, we apologize, we made a big mistake, you're actually a great master, please come back to the monastery, and he said go to hell, I'm sorry, he said I decline respectfully, and he never went back, and which is another thing about criticism right, they were all good monks, they're all nice monks, but they made a big mistake you know. Then they sent another team like later, and they said look, we understand you don't want to come back, we can't explain you, but can we have the book?

And he said I knew you're gonna ask me that, so I made a copy, and I hid it in the roof of my monk's room, in the ... up above the wood, you can find it there, I left your copy you know, and so there's a copy. Okay, so the next three courses, because that is so important, that book is so important, for how to be a bodhisattva, I did three courses, it's 20% of the ACI Foundation courses, because the last three courses are review, so three of the 15 courses are Shantideva, Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, 10, 11, and 12, am I right?

Okay, so I'm gonna do two things, tomorrow I'll tell you the subjects of ... how I split it up, and why I split it up, okay? Why I split it up that way, okay?

And then, I'm gonna let you out two minutes early, good night, I knew you'd be happy. You got anything to ... oh, let's see, by the way, Shrey MacDonald, McDaniel, I'm sorry, is the registrar of ACI for like the last 20 years, and so without pay ...

by the way, she's the financial officer of a large city in the United States, so she's doing it for free, which is amazing, so we have one of the most talented managers of a city in the room, and for free she's keeping all your records for the last, I don't know, I think it's about 15-20 years, although she's only 30. So, you should, A, you should thank her, B, you should get on her good side, and maybe your grades will improve, okay? Would you like to do, Mandala?

And we'd like to thank you for your work. By the way, Shrey's father, Dr. Michael Moore, started as a heart surgeon, and later became a very famous anesthesiologist, and I think about 20 years ago, or longer, towards the beginning of ACI, he offered to check homeworks for ACI students in prisons, and it became extremely popular, because they're not allowed to have ... there's a, like, you can't send them CD-ROMs because they can make knives out of them, stuff like that, so he took care of them for about 20-25 years, and he's still doing it, and I think we should give him a hand, yeah.

They love to write long answers, because they don't have anything else to do, and you have to have so much patience to check their homeworks, because they add 17 pages to the homework, and because they're lonely, and they have a lot of time. Okay,