Базовый курс ACI 2: Буддийское Прибежище — собрание великих идей из Совершенства мудрости (2019, Мексика), занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
Okay, I feel like Tara is going to come if I drink more. Okay, so let me cover the homework questions for homework number two, which is still about the idea of protection. And I don't know, they call it refuge in the Buddhist English books, but in America we don't use the word refuge very much.

Refugee we use. So, I don't know, Dharma refugee or something. But protection I think is maybe a better word.

So, course number two, it's really not just about Buddhist refuge or protection. It's a sampler. In America we have chocolate box sampler.

You can taste it differently. So, really course number two is a sampler of the great ideas from the Perfection of Wisdom. So, the first two homeworks are about shelter.

But the third homework, which we're supposed to try to start this afternoon, is about bodhichitta. So, let's try to finish homework two before we do homework three. Okay, the first question is, what's the definition of taking refuge?

And I'm going to give you the Tibetan. YOD GZHAN LA RANG THOB KYIS DUNG YIN DU RE BAR BYA BA'I SEMS PAR KHYAM GYUR TSE NYID This is the technical definition. YOD GZHAN LA means somebody other than yourself.

RANG THOB KYIS means automatically.

[Speaker 2]
RANG THOB KYIS means automatically.

[Speaker 1]
DUNG YIN DU RE BAR BYA BA'I SEMS PAR, which is a word I think even word doesn't know. BYA BA. RE BAR BYA BA.

It's a very extremely rare word. It means to put your hopes. Yeah, place your hopes.

So, it's a feeling in your heart when you have a problem. Who do you think of automatically? And we talked about it yesterday.

Like when you have a fire in your house. RANG THOB KYIS means automatically.

[Speaker 2]
RANG THOB KYIS means automatically.

[Speaker 1]
You start looking for the fire department phone number. DUNG YIN DU As somebody who can support you and help you. RE BAR BYA BA Immediately you start hoping, oh, they can help me, they can help me.

[Speaker 2]
Immediately you think they can help you.

[Speaker 1]
And I think the first, who's the first, who's the first person you did this with in your life? Yeah, always your brother. My brother, when I hit him, he always said, I'm going to tell mom.

That means he took refuge. Automatically, he thought about a person outside of himself and put his hopes in this person. And that's the definition of taking refuge.

You automatically put your hopes in somebody outside of yourself to give you help when you're in trouble. That's the definition of Buddhist refuge. Okay, so that's your first homework question.

And I know you're going to get it right. Okay. Oops, hang on.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, second one.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, there's five, there's five kinds of taking refuge.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And here we go. Let's do the five. The lowest one is same.

The wording is the same.

[Speaker 2]
You automatically think about somebody to help you when you get in trouble about dying and going to the lower realms. Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, this kind of thinking comes to everybody just before they die. It's kind of a ... It's kind of a sad joke, okay?

This is number 33, Lam Rim Retreat. I don't know, it's thousands of classes, okay? And then people email me.

I couldn't come to the retreat, but I got cancer. Can you help me? I don't want to become a roach after I die.

Like, can you help me, you know? That's refuge, okay? Now they are taking refuge.

And that's considered the lower ...

[Speaker 2]
the lowest kind of refuge.

[Speaker 1]
You are putting your hopes in somebody that you hope can help you if you get cancer or if you die, because you don't want to go to someplace bad.

[Speaker 2]
But now you don't need that one, because you have the pen, okay? And you know, many of you are studying to become ACI teachers, and you will have the pleasure of finding out people don't come to your class for ten years, and then they write you an email.

[Speaker 1]
Now I'm ready, I have cancer. Will you teach me? And actually I get pretty irritated.

I mean, I'm sorry they have cancer, but I get irritated. You know, I offer free class for ten years, and you didn't come. And now you want to take refuge.

[Speaker 2]
You're hoping something will help you after you die.

[Speaker 1]
So there are five kinds of refuge, and this is the lowest one.

[Speaker 2]
I also give DCI teacher training three times a year. We teach people to be DCI teacher. The big strategy has two parts, okay?

[Speaker 1]
And recently I found a proposal I wrote for the teacher training college of DCI. I found the first proposal I wrote. I wrote it in 2014, and I asked some rich guys for three million dollars, and they gave it, and we built the college, and it's working, and you should come, okay?

If you want to come sometime, okay? So, right now we only give English language training. So, your English has to be good enough.

In fact, we even require ... what do you call it? TOEFL?

Examination? TOEFL? TOEFL.

TOEFL Examination. And many people have come. Lucia came.

[Speaker 2]
We had a good time.

[Speaker 1]
And then, we thought after we teach all twelve courses, which is four years, we would like to open branches in different countries. And for example, for Latin America, Guadalajara is a very nice weather, and it would be good to have a branch here, for example. But it's interesting.

I'll tell you something very interesting. Last month, 10,000 people came to DCI. It's very, very popular.

We are booked up for 10 years or something. Already booked, you know. But, we're not supposed to teach people the lowest kind of refuge.

You see? We're not supposed to, in the business audience, we're not supposed to tell them, we will teach you how to find protection five minutes after you stop breathing. But it's more important than doing business your whole life to get ready for the trip that you have to take.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, in some way, ACI teachers are more lucky to teach ... One of the first classes you're teaching is how to protect yourself after you stop breathing.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, I just gave you a diamond deal.

[Speaker 2]
What's diamond deal mean?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, you want to be ACI teacher?

[Speaker 2]
It's better than a DCI teacher. Then you should say, I'll take both.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, and you're welcome to do both. Okay, and again, we need more doctors. I have physical limit.

I cannot go to more cities.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Now I'm negotiating my hours. How many hours? Can I spend three hours in Vancouver, then I get on the plane, can I do a class in China that night?

You see? It's like that. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
So, we need more help. So, do either one. Together.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, alright. Second kind of refuge. Okay?

People decide, look, I don't care if I come back as a human. You think it's difficult to have a baby, it's difficult to be had as a baby.

[Speaker 2]
Your head gets squashed.

[Speaker 1]
Somebody told me ... I asked a woman, what's it like to have a baby?

[Speaker 2]
She said, Geshe-la, okay, clean your thumb and your finger, and grab your upper lip hard, then pull it over your head. It feels just like that.

[Speaker 1]
But it's also difficult for the head. So, some people say, look, I don't want to take this kind of life again. I don't want to get born, go to school, meet my boyfriend, break up with my boyfriend, do these things over and over and over.

I have enough. I want to go to a place where everything is working. I don't want to be in a broken world anymore.

So, that's the second level of refuge.

[Speaker 2]
That's the second kind of refuge. We call it medium taking refuge. Lowest taking refuge?

[Speaker 1]
Ask the three jewels to help you to be born as a human, for example. Second refuge, ask the three jewels to help you not to be born in this kind of trouble again.

[Speaker 2]
Help me to be born in a world where there is no trouble.

[Speaker 1]
So, where's the DCI refuge? Which one? It's lower than both of them.

It's lower than the lower? What's lower than the lower? I take refuge in the three jewels so I can get a lot of money and a house and kids that I will lose, that I have to lose.

[Speaker 2]
It's kind of a crazy request. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Sophie, can you ... Sophie, can your company make me some coffee which I will never drink?

[Speaker 2]
Which I will never finish. It's crazy. Okay, but that's what we do in DCI, okay?

[Speaker 1]
But we trick them, we teach them the pen. Actually, they get higher protection, okay?

[Speaker 2]
They get higher protection.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so that's called medium scope. Okay, scope means how big is your vision?

[Speaker 2]
Okay, small vision.

[Speaker 1]
I don't want to be born as an animal.

[Speaker 2]
Medium vision.

[Speaker 1]
I'd rather be born in a place that doesn't have any trouble.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, now we call higher scope, bigger scope.

[Speaker 1]
I would like to become a person who can protect every other living being, and myself. Okay, that's called third level, third scope. Okay, and that's what we talked about this morning when Anatole gave a question.

By the way, I didn't answer your question. I think that part of the question was, so if you see infinite numbers of beings, what's the number exactly? He said that I said that it had a number.

It's a big argument in Buddhism, okay? It's possible to see every living being and they have no number. Okay, how's that?

It's possible to see every living being directly, but you cannot put a number on them. So, I don't know how that's possible. Okay, understand?

Okay, anytime you can't answer a question, just ... Okay, now, so we have three kinds of refuge.

[Speaker 2]
First kind, three kinds of taking refuge.

[Speaker 1]
I would like someone to protect me when I die, so I don't go down. I would like someone to protect me when I die, so I don't have to live in this kind of world again. And I would like someone to help me to help every living being to not live in this kind of world again.

The next homework question is, is it possible for a person to have all three at the same time? Yeah, of course, okay.

[Speaker 2]
So, in the Lam Rim, we talk about three levels of motivation, but it's not that you reject number one when you get to number two.

[Speaker 1]
It's like building an apartment building.

[Speaker 2]
You build the first floor, then you build the second floor on the first floor, then you build the third floor on the second floor. So even a Buddha has the lowest kind of refuge.

[Speaker 1]
Even a Buddha would rather not be a roach after they don't die. Even a Buddha would like to not come back to this kind of world. And of course a Buddha would like to protect all living beings.

So that's a principle of Lam Rim.

[Speaker 2]
It's like a ladder. You don't give up the lower parts of the Lam Rim when you go to the higher parts.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, now, I like refuge number four and number five.

[Speaker 2]
Number four.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so when you say five kinds of refuge, the first three go together, and the next two go together.

[Speaker 2]
So we finish these three. Okay, I want someone to protect me from lower birth, from any painful birth, and I want someone to help me to help all people, all living people. Then number four, take refuge or look for protection from somebody who is already a Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, that's easy. That's how we usually think about it.

[Speaker 2]
You know, you're drinking your coffee, praying to Tara to come. She's already Buddha. Then $100 for number five.

[Speaker 1]
Up to Pachi. Pachi is the man. Is he here?

You got to choose somebody. Choose some people over here.

[Speaker 2]
You're always choosing people over there.

[Speaker 1]
I mean, you always go over there. She's going to give the right answer.

[Speaker 2]
You know that. You're just trying to spend my money.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, here we go.

[Speaker 2]
Refuge in yourself.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, nice.

[Speaker 2]
Do you have anything else to say about it?

[Speaker 1]
No. You gave me about a $75 answer.

[Speaker 2]
I'll help you.

[Speaker 1]
I'll give you $25 help. Number four is take refuge in the person who already became a Buddha.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, take refuge.

[Speaker 1]
Take refuge of yourself when you are already a Buddha.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, in the day I will become a Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
You got the money, honey? Where's the money, honey? Huh?

You got it? Oh, why you have it? Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Alright, I like that one. That's the one you can use in the toilet at your work. I told you already.

I expect you to give this answer very quickly.

[Speaker 2]
It's very fun. So, when you have a hard day at work, or you have a fight with your husband in the kitchen and you forgot to not go in the kitchen, go ...

[Speaker 1]
You know, I found out something. Even in our diamond company, we will have vice president meetings, sometimes five, six hours. And if you really can't stand the meeting, you can always stand up and say, I have to go to the toilet.

And no one ... I never saw anyone try to stop anybody. You know?

Okay, go, go, you know? Then, it's a wonderful time to take refuge. You're supposed to take refuge six times a day.

So, you just go to the toilet six times a day.

[Speaker 2]
Sit down, whether it's number one or number two for boys, and ask for help. Okay? And the cool thing about refuge number five, you can call, hey Mike, Buddha, Buddha Mike.

You know? Future Buddha Mike. We need some help here.

We're having a bad day at work. Can you give me some protection?

[Speaker 1]
And that Buddha can see you now. Okay? And you can ask for help.

[Speaker 2]
And strange things will happen.

[Speaker 1]
You will get unusual strength when you're having trouble. So, you can ask for the help of future Nour Buddha.

[Speaker 2]
And she likes you.

[Speaker 1]
So, she will help you. Okay? And it's fun, and it works.

You will get some inspiration.

[Speaker 2]
You will find some answers, and she will send them. It's very strange and cool.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? Alright. I'm sorry to say you just finished homework two.