«Дар освобождения», курс 2 «Прорыв к высшей реальности», занятие 14

[Говорящий 2] (0:01 - 2:18)
Can I just meditate a little bit? Watch your breath. Come to the golden room.

I'd like to play a little bit with the feeling of losing the object.

[Говорящий 1] (2:19 - 2:52)
I have this theory that if we can replicate purposely what it feels like to lose the object, maybe we would notice it more easily when the time comes. So, come to the golden room, and then I'll ask you to think of dinner, and then I'll take you back to the golden room, and then I'll take you to dinner. And I just want you to feel what it's like to be constantly interrupted by gupa, by adhutashi.

[Говорящий 2] (2:54 - 6:52)
Stay in the golden room. Bring your lama before you. Have them touch your hands.

Think of dinner, what might be for dinner. Picture the cafeteria, picture the people moving around. Picture the serving dishes.

Come back to the touch of your lama's hand. Feel that sense of the mind withdrawing inwards towards the core when you try to bring your attention back. You're on your lama's hand.

Now think of arriving at your home on Sunday or Monday, coming in the door, things you have to do. Come back to your lama's hand. Think about the people in your cabin, who makes noise, who you'd like to talk to more.

Come back to your lama's hand. Think about your job, your work, what you do for money, what you're going to have to do in the next few months, what bills you have, and come back to your lama's hand.

[Говорящий 1] (7:15 - 7:19)
Now, focus just on your lama's hand, in the golden room.

[Говорящий 2] (7:20 - 9:09)
Relax into it, enjoy the touch of their hands, the warmth of their hands. Feel contented as if you could stay in that room for an hour, two hours, just quietly holding your hand. Come back to their hand.

Come back to this room, and relax.

[Говорящий 1] (9:09 - 24:40)
I think you feel how unpleasant it is, yeah? It's like someone bothering you, right? It was really hard for me.

I was thinking it's a bad sleep. But it's good to know what it feels like. It's very disturbing and tiring, right?

I'd say that was a recreation of level one, right? Okay, I was trying to do more time off the object than on. But anyway, play with that sometimes.

Identify within your own mind the different states of mind we're talking about. Identify the state of mind that catches a problem, the watchdog state of mind. Then try to, it's hard for me, identify the state of mind that pulls your mind back.

Because it's very sudden, for me it's very sudden. And then try to play with nara, like focus on the object without nara, and then bring some nara up and see how it feels different. If you can't do those things at will, then you won't be a good meditator.

At will you have to be able to identify those states of mind within your mind. And in time you'll get to know them like friends, and you'll be able to evoke them when you need them. Okay, we have a box of questions here.

I'll read the whole thing, okay? Dear Holy Lama, you defined real as something that appears the same way that it exists. Unreal would therefore be an object which appears different than how it actually exists.

Buddhist scripture also uses the phrases deceptive reality and ultimate reality to describe the same process. What about the word duality? Is the original meaning of the word duality the same as unreal and deceptive reality?

This word duality seems to be used in different ways with Western scholars writing about Buddhism. Can you clarify? Including the idea that everything is one in a lovey-dovey hippie sense.

Yeah, the word duality is one of my pet peeves in Buddhist translation. I can only think of one word in scripture that they might be translating, I don't know. But that's called ninnang.

Ninnang means... It does refer to something looking one way, appearing to be one way, and being actually a different way. Which is what deceptive reality refers to, okay?

So, deceptive reality... Buddhism does define two different kinds of reality. One is called deceptive reality and one is called ultimate reality.

Deceptive reality is that reality which is fooling you all the time, okay? It's the gaccha reality. It's the pen that appears to be coming from itself.

It's the nick who doesn't deserve to get blamed, okay? That's the way things appear to us. They appear to us to be coming from their own side.

But then in reality they're not. They're coming from us. So that discrepancy is called duality.

Ninnang means two appearances. So in Buddhism the word is ninnang. Ninnang means it looks one way and it is another way, okay?

It seems like, especially to nick under pressure, that there's a nick who doesn't deserve to be criticized. But in reality there's never a nick who's criticized who didn't deserve it by definition, okay? So the discrepancy between those two is called deceptive reality.

And that's what duality means in Buddhist philosophy. People have tried to draw a distinction of duality between the object and the subject, right? The subject state of mind and the object state of mind.

And they've tried to say that that's somehow wrong. That it's wrong for me to think that I'm over here and the object is over there. Like I'm here and the paper is there.

And that's some kind of a bad duality, okay? There's been attempts to say that that's what duality means or that that's what Buddhism meant duality to be. I'm not aware of any Buddhist school that holds that.

There's none of the classical schools of Buddhism would say that there's any problem with saying that I'm over here and the paper's over there. And that we are not one, okay? The word for object is yo, desha, which also means a place like Bangladesh.

And then the word in all of the classical languages of Asian philosophy for subject is that which holds the object, okay? Deshin, that which possesses an object. Or in Tibetan, yochen.

So there's not even a separate word for object. Object is defined by being that thing, sorry. Subject is defined as being that thing which holds an object.

So to say somehow that the subject is the object is just not... There's no school of Buddhism which would say that. It's a misunderstanding.

I don't know who got that. I don't know where it comes from. The direct experience of ultimate reality is sometimes described as like pouring water into water.

The subject becomes engrossed in the object in the way that water is poured into water and they become indivisible. That doesn't mean that you become what you're meditating on or something like that. That's a new ageism.

I don't know where it came from. It's not part of any classical school that I know about. So you are...

During the direct perception of ultimate reality you can no longer distinguish yourself from the object because you are not ultimate reality. A person, Mike, Mike's mind, Mike's body, these are not ultimate reality. These are changing, changing ephemeral things.

They're not ultimate reality. Ultimate reality actually is an absence of something. Absence of what?

Gag ja. Ultimate reality is the absence of gag ja. Ultimate reality is the absence of a nick who didn't deserve to be...

I'm sorry, yeah, who didn't deserve to be blamed. That's ultimate reality. When you're perceiving ultimate reality directly you can only perceive those things which are an absence of gag ja.

That's all you can perceive. You can't perceive anything else. You can't even be aware of yourself.

At that moment because you are immersed in an absence of something. And you are not an absence of something. You're a positive thing.

So during the, say, 20 minutes of your first direct perception of ultimate reality your mind is absorbed into the object in the way that water is poured into water. And you can't be aware of yourself because you are not an absence of the gag ja. You're not ultimate reality.

But that's not an overcoming duality or something like that. That's just a bad understanding. It doesn't mean that Mike is the emptiness that Mike is watching.

It just means that when Mike is engrossed in the emptiness he can't perceive Mike. But that doesn't mean that somehow Mike is the object. So subject and object, that division is, that's not what duality refers to.

So classical duality only means the discrepancy between how things appear and how they really are. And that's duality. And you can overcome that kind of duality.

That's all. I think I'll go to the text. Because I...

But I'll throw in questions when you seem to get sleepy. Okay, here we go. So they were talking about ke chik ke chik ke chik che pe che.

ke chik ke chik ke chik che pe che. If you could talk, I'd have you do it. Do it in your mind, okay?

ke chik ke chik ke chik che pe che. That's the definition of anitya, or impermanence in Buddhism. A thing which is instantaneously coming in and out of existence.

every moment it is coming in and out of existence. Then they were saying that if Nick were his body and his mind, if Nick were his body and his mind, all physical things and all mental things are impermanent in the sense of changing instant by instant. They come in and out of existence instant by instant.

Why? They are being sustained by your mental seeds. And your mental seeds go off 65 per second.

So the frame is being put up in front of your mind and then it's being taken away and then the next frame. It's like a movie. It's like this.

And then you have the illusion of motion. So the question here was, if when we're looking for Nick, Nick is his body for example, then Nick should be going in and out of existence moment by moment. Nick.

And he would have to be subtly different each time. So you'd have to call him a different Nick. He'd be Nick 1, Nick 2, Nick 3, Nick 4, Nick 5.

You see what I mean? He's subtly different each time. So you couldn't use the same word for each momentary appearance of him.

You'd have to have different words like Nick, John, Tim, Ted. You see what I mean? He wouldn't be one Nick.

He'd be all these little Nicks who came in and out of existence. Okay, I didn't know if I... I told you yesterday there was something I didn't want to get into.

But you're all fresh and all that. So the colds are getting better. You know, originally, people have asked if they could have some more exercise.

Originally, we were supposed to do walking meditation, but we were afraid people would break their necks. And then we had the camp set up work for you guys, like fixing fences and stuff, but they're all under snow right now. I have an idea, they could clear the road actually.

That's what, in Boy Scouts, what they did when they wanted to keep us out of trouble. They'd say, clear this road, boys. The road out is very dangerous right now.

I took it yesterday to pick up my Lama, and it was very dangerous. So I think maybe we could go work on that. I'll look into it with the authorities.

Anyway, I thought that since you're all chipper, we could go a little deeper. So we've been examining whether Nick comes from his own side. We had a class like this in Serra, okay?

Geshe Thich Nhat Hanh took the name Tashi. There was a guy named Tashi. We talked about Tashi for weeks.

And then we all went to Gimei Tantric College, because one of my teachers had become the abbot there. And we were trying to talk about some top secret books, which he didn't give us, and which later we sent in a Tibetan lady from the computer center, and she just walked out with them, and we talked about it. But I'm not supposed to tell you about that.

Then the vice abbot came to, they had an honorary dinner for us, and the vice abbot came in. He was very, sort of, I don't know, full of himself? And then he said, My name, we want to welcome all you Americans to the greatest tantric monastery in the world.

And, of course, I'm the vice abbot, and my name is Tashi. And then everybody started running. And he was very offended.

It's like he comes in and says, I'm Nick, you know? And we've been looking for Nick.

[Говорящий 2] (24:44 - 24:44)
Wow!

[Говорящий 1] (24:50 - 35:24)
So we've been trying to find a Nick, which maybe we could start to call natural. Rang shing gi drub pa. A Nick which was natural, meaning, a Nick which was inherent in the part of Nick.

Or you could say, if you want to make it easy, a Nick which is coming from his own side. A Nick which had to be that way. Independent of the karmic seeds in my mind, independent of how I've been treating other people, he's Nick, and he's a certain kind of Nick.

And we've been saying that that Nick is a gac cha. That kind of Nick doesn't exist. The Nick which is Nick from his own side doesn't exist.

The only Nick which exists is the Nick which my seeds are forcing me to perceive. Any other Nick is not there, although I strongly feel that it's there. And that's the cause of all my problems.

So let's talk about the Nick who is there. The one which I'm creating with my mind. Does he have a relationship to his parts?

Yeah, right? The ultimate example is the pot on the stove, right? And there's a round silver and there's a long black.

And we've come to the conclusion that there wasn't a pot on the stove, but that I was watching a picture in my mind. But does that picture in my mind have a relationship to the round silver and the long black? Yeah, I mean it's placed onto that, okay?

There's a relationship between pot and pot's parts. By the way, pot is the picture, okay? When you say pot, you're actually talking about the picture in your mind.

And then there is a pot which is the sum total of its parts. Roughly, there's a pot. If you throw in the seed thing, okay?

But let's not go there. There is pot which is made up of all the parts of the pot. There is such a thing.

A car, a Chevy or whatever is the collection, the proper, what do you call it, screwing together of all the parts of a Chevy. And then that's a Chevy. You can call it a Chevy.

What's its relationship to its parts? It depends on those parts, okay? If you took away the parts, it wouldn't be a Chevy anymore.

At some point, if you tear screws off the car, it's not a Chevy anymore, or at least a working Chevy, okay? So Chevy doesn't come from its own side, got it? And the parts of the Chevy don't come from their own side, got it?

Does the relationship come from its own side? Now, see, I'm going a little deeper, okay? I'll say it again.

Does the Chevy come from its own side? No. Do the parts of the Chevy come from their own side?

No. Is the relationship between the whole Chevy and the parts of the Chevy, does that come from its own side? Is it a natural relationship?

Would it always have to be that way? That's delicate, right? That's delicate.

And the answer, everybody's not speaking correctly, is no. The relationship, nothing comes from its own side. But now you're getting to a very delicate question, okay?

Try to hang in there. Who was it that drew a connection between Chevrolet and the parts of the Chevrolet? It was me, okay?

It was me. So I like to say, whenever we're into these deep emptiness things, there should be some connection to your real life. If you can't draw some connection to your real life with this stuff, I don't think it's necessary to talk about it.

I don't care about a philosophical point if I can't use it for my own life, okay? So what implication does this have for your life? The connection that you draw between me and your parts is artificial.

You've made that connection. It could have been a different connection. The connection between me and my parts is also flowing from my karmic seeds.

My perception of a connection between Mike and these legs and arms here is artificial. It's flowing from my karmic seeds, okay? It could have been, okay?

Ready? Here's the application to your real life. It could have been that my seeds demanded that I see a parts and whole connection between Mike and his body and my body together.

I could call that Mike. I could have called that Mike. The decision that only these parts are Mike is arbitrary, okay?

It's not natural. It's not coming from its own side. The connection between Mike and only these parts is also arbitrary and artificial.

And it's not coming from its own side. It's coming from my seeds. So what would happen if my seeds were different and they demanded that I draw a connection between Mike and two bodies or ten or six billion, you see?

Because it's artificial. It could have been different, you see? It's cool.

Okay, I'll say it one more time. Even the connection drawn between Mike and Mike's parts is empty. It could have been different.

It's just coming from my mind. And a mother who has a child... You know, I was with Lama Aura.

There were a couple of... A group of us went to... You know, we were fundraising.

We were fundraising Pratas, okay? We wandered the world looking for funds. And so we were being fundraising Pratas in the back of Peggy Hitchcock's car.

I don't know if you were there. I don't remember. Anyway, we were going to take her out to dinner and trade a $30 dinner for, say, $100,000.

And she's a melon, okay? So anyway, we took her out. Melon carrying a melon.

So we took her out. She's really old. She's about 75 or 80 something.

And Aura had just... Lama Aura had just had her... You know, she was pregnant.

So Lama Aura was describing her projects and everything she was going to be working on. And then... And she said, The baby's not going to change my life at all.

You know, I'm going to... I'm actually going to, you know, press... I'll just have the baby and then keep it in a crib.

And then... And then I'll... You know, I'll keep doing my world...

What's it called? Knowledge-based project. And, you know, don't worry, Geshe-la.

Everything will be the same. And Peggy Hitchcock turns around and looks at her like this, you know, and goes, Honey, when those hormones take over, you're going to be sitting there slobbering over this baby for years. You won't even put it down.

You won't even put it down. It's true, right? It happened.

Why? Because her perception of what parts were covered by Aura changed with the birth of the child. And as it often does.

Her perception of who I am changed when the baby was born. Peggy would call it hormones, right? We would call it karmic seeds.

I guess it's the same thing. But suddenly, two... Suddenly forearms, forelegs, two heads were essentially Aura.

So there's no inherent connection between a certain group of parts and the thing, say Nick or Aura or anything, okay? The relationship itself is pouring from your mind. The connection itself is drawn only by your mind.

And there's no natural connection. And that's why people get, what do they call it? Serious cognitive disorders.

Maybe you can say autistic, I don't know. But I imagine, I believe that their karmic seeds are firing in a different way. And they might connect the edge of the pine tree to the window and call it something else.

You see what I mean? And then they have trouble relating to us. Because we're drawing the connection differently.

We all have the karmic seeds to separate the edge of the pine tree from the window. But that's not a natural thing. It's an artificial thing.

It could have been that you always connect the side of the tree to the window and call it chwindo or something. You know what I mean? You laugh, but all your words are similarly funky.

Your words are also similarly funky. You're just used to them. And you found a group of people who have the same seeds as you.

Luckily. And then when you get married and then after a year, that stops.

[Говорящий 2] (35:25 - 35:26)
And...

[Говорящий 1] (35:28 - 1:03:33)
And you have different words for different things. You divide objects differently. Okay.

All right. So here comes the scripture. SKYE BA SNGA PHYI DANG DE SKYE BA SNGA PHYI SO SOD PUNG PO DE NGO BO RANG BZHIN GCIG YIN NA SKYE BA SNGA MA'I SNGA DANG TSE DI SNGA GNYIS RANG BZHIN GCIG YIN NA YIN NAM THA DE He says, let's talk about your last life and this life.

Your last life and this life. Let's talk about the body and mind you had in your last life and the body and mind you had in this life. Do they have a relationship?

Do they have a relationship? I guess. You say, that was my last life's body.

That was my last life's body. So there must be some connection. His last life's body and mind, I don't call my last life's body and mind.

SKYE BA SNGA MA'I SNGA DE TSE DI SNGA GNYIS RANG BZHIN GCIG YIN NAM THA DE RANG BZHIN GCIG Naturally speaking, is the mind from this life and what I was in my last life, are they one life or two separate lives? That's the question he's asking now. Are they one life or two separate lives?

Naturally, he throws in the adverb. He throws in the adverb. Are they one life or two lives?

Okay, here we go. If you don't believe in the last life, I think he's just kind of naive. I mean, go be with Aura's baby for like 15 minutes, you know.

And tell me all that developed in the last 365 days. Anyway. YIN NAM THA DE YIN GCIG YIN NA If your last life's body and mind are naturally this life's body and mind, SKYE BA SNGA MA'I DON DROG GYUR BA'I LEN GOOK GI SDUG BSNGAL RNAMS KYANG then since you might have been an animal in your past life, which is defined in Tibetan as LEN GOOK.

LEN GOOK means... Do you want the politically correct translation or the actual one? LEN GOOK means stupid and incapable of expressing themselves, which is the definition of an animal in Buddhism.

And then you're like, what about dolphins Geshe Michael? And I'm like, well, look, dolphins are getting slaughtered by the Japanese trawlers because they can't figure out how to get around them. Okay?

They're dumb. And they suffer for it. And their species is becoming extinct.

They have a... On a tantric level, they could well be tantric deity, and they are. On a non-tantric level, they have a lesser intelligence than people do and therefore they suffer.

Generally animals suffer more than people. They're in a constant state of terror. Why do you think birds fly away when you approach them?

Did you ever wonder? They're afraid of you. They think any moving thing within a hundred yards might kill them.

And they will because it's sometimes a cat. So they just run from everything to be safe. And they spend their whole life looking over their shoulder.

It's terrible to be an animal. It's not this hoppy bunny existence. They are terrorized.

They are in a constant state of terror that somebody will eat them. And they do. So anyway, if this life, if this life's you is the same as last life's you in a natural way, the relationship is natural, then since you have been an animal in your past lives, you should in this life be dumb and mute.

Dumb and mute. All right? If your last life and this life are one, naturally, nam kyang, sem dir nyo gupa-tang, tha te ni dewa ngun le dun du Or, conversely, since you are currently enjoying the relative ease of a human existence, then the dog that you used to be should have had some comfort.

Okay? Because you are the same, naturally. The two lives are one, naturally.

So if in this life you enjoy some human comforts, they should spread back to the dog that you were before. And that dog should have some human comforts. Okay?

If your two lives are connected in a natural way. ngun me gud thewa dang kyewa nga ching nga rang shing yi tha de na But let's say that me in this life and me in my last life do not share a natural connection. What if we are naturally separate?

dzukpa le, jampa nyerpe la ten, chun nam ni, shen ni chun na gyu chik tok min te, gang da rang se nyi gyi so so wa, de da gyu chik tokpa rig ma yin Then he quotes the Madhyamaka Avatar. jampa nyerpe means jampa nyerpe means Joe and Sam. Okay?

Joe and Sam. He picked two words out of two common names. Okay?

Joe and Sam. la ten chun nam ni, shen ni chun na If you and your last if you and who you used to be are as different as Joe and Sam two people in this room say if you're as different as them gyu chik tok min te gyu chik tok min te if you are not a single mental continuum if you are not the continuation of who you were in your past life because now we're talking about naturally separate. gang da rang se nyi gyi so so wa If there were such a thing as you being naturally separate from who you were in the way that John is separate from Allison.

Okay? So so so wa dey da gyu chik tok pa rig ma yin Then it would be incorrect to say they were the same being. It's who I was in my past life and who I am now are as separate and different as John is from Allison at the present moment.

Then you'd have to say that we couldn't have been one person who got reborn. I wouldn't have any connection with who I used to be. Okay?

If we're just two completely separate people you couldn't say that was my last life. If we're totally separate. If we're not separate he should be experiencing the pleasures of my life.

If we are separate then you can't say that was me. Got it? Naturally.

Try to draw your mind to this question. Because it doesn't only apply to your past life and your present life. It applies to who you were before you drove to Prescott and who you are at Prescott.

Okay? Who was that who got in the car or in the airplane to go to Prescott? And what's their relationship to you now?

Do they have a relationship? Are you them later in time? Or are you separate from them?

Are you disconnected to that person who got into the car to come to Prescott? Or are you the same person? And if you say you're the same or if you say you're separate is that separateness or sameness natural?

Or could it have been different? Is it coming from its own side? That separateness or that sameness, is that coming from its own side?

You have to say no. But then you get into this same thing. If you say the connection between me and the person I was yesterday.

Okay? Try to hang in there. This is heavy stuff.

It's going to save your life. Try to hang in there. Is there a connection between me and the person I was yesterday?

Are we the same person? Or are we separate people? And is that separateness natural?

Or could it have been different? Or could I reasonably think that I was two people before? Or that I could be two people tomorrow?

Could the Mike of today whose parts are only these tomorrow be a person whose parts are twice as many? Is it possible? Is it possible?

Then what would be the relationship between us? Mike one developed into Mike two. And then who draws a connection between what I'm going to be tomorrow and who I am today?

Where is that connection? Yeah, what reality does it have? Where did it come from?

Why do I think I was in the sixth grade in Maryland Elementary School on Glendale Avenue in Phoenix? Why do I think that? And is it true?

Okay? Or did I have a totally different past? Is it true who you think you were?

Because if it's not... True means... What does true mean, real?

Does that connection between me and the kid in sixth grade in Maryland Elementary School, is that connection natural and necessary? Or is it, what do you call it, malleable? Could it change if my seats changed?

Could I draw a different connection between me and my past? Could I rewrite my history? Is it perhaps the case that every teacher in Maryland Elementary School was a tempting daddy and that there was...

Where? And that they were setting me up for something. Now, could I rewrite that connection?

You see? If the connection is there from its own side, I can't. They were just underpaid, nice people.

But if that connection between me and sixth grade Michael is not natural, if that connection is coming from my own mind, then with the right seeds I could perceive that every figure in my childhood who influenced me was, in truth, a tempting daddy trying to get me here. You see? If the connection is not natural, if the connection is being drawn by my mind, then you can rewrite your past validly, without make-believe, without making it up.

You can validly rewrite your past. And frankly, in tantric terms, you can establish logically that the teachers that you had in your elementary school were in fact Buddhas who wanted you to be here. Okay?

That also applies to your high school boyfriend, of course. You know that. I mean, that's the important one.

Okay. Wait, wait, wait. BYA BA DANG NIRMAY GYUR THAG DER PA BZHIN RANG BZHIN GYI BRAL MA'I THAG DE YIN DGOS PAS SKYE BA SNGA MA'I TSER RAB THU MA DRAN PA'I NGON SHES MI THEG PA'I KHYENT DANG So he starts listing problems that would arise if you were somehow separate from who you have been.

Okay? Problems that would arise if you were somehow separate from who you have been in a natural way, okay? In an incontrovertible way.

Here's one problem. How could you remember your past? How could you remember who you have been, if you're separate in the way that John and Allison are?

If you are naturally separate from who you used to be, how can you remember who you've been? He quotes cases where people have remembered their past lives. But I don't think you have...

In an American audience, you don't have to go that way. You could just go to sixth grade. How could you remember who you were in sixth grade, if you are essentially different or disconnected from that person?

He's quoting Arya Nagarjuna again, okay? I'll read you the lines of Arya Nagarjuna, which are kind of hard. But then he explains them clearly for us, okay?

If I am essentially different from who I used to be, if I am as separate from Mike in the sixth grade as John is currently from Allison, okay? Two different people. If I am two different people, de me par yang jungwar gyur, then that would also have to not exist, okay?

What? Memories of who I used to be, okay? Why are we talking about this?

Is there a Mike who has been sustained since the sixth grade? Is there a Mike who is somehow separate from his body and mind, who has been going on since the sixth grade, independent of his body and mind? You see?

Body and mind have changed drastically. But is there some uber Mike that has been, you know, going the whole time? All right, that's the question, right?

Me par gyur. De shin duni neng gyur shing. The same would apply to his living, to his dying, to his being born.

We'll get there, okay? Here comes the sexy part. You were waiting for this, right?

CES DANG LAS RNAMS CHOS SA DANG There would be a disconnection. And then karma could be... Karma could just go away.

CHOS SA was a very powerful word. Just go away. Meaning, is it possible to do a kindness or a meanness to another person, plant a seed in your mind, and just vaguely hope that it kind of forgets to ripen?

You see? Is it the case that some of the deeds you do are not well recorded, and don't flower in exactly just ways? Or is it the case that everyone is just, you know, inevitably will create the same thing for you that you gave to somebody else?

You see? It's a principle of karma that no karma is ever lost. It's a closed system.

It's an ecology. Karma cannot be lost. Everything you do, everything you say, everything you think comes back to you and must come back to you in space.

There's no... what do you call it? God can't cut you a break.

God can't say, Oh, gee, let's just cancel that abortion. You know what I mean? Hey, why do you want me to cancel the abortion?

This is God talking. Because I was dumb? Because I shouldn't have done it?

Because I feel bad about it? Because I really don't want to experience the result of that? You know, I mean, that's your thinking, right?

You think like that. But karma is just cun misal. Cun misal means you never get out of anything.

Nobody can cut you a break. There's no being who can cut you a break. You get what you give.

If you want to be the beneficiary of that principle, you have to live with the downside of it also. Like everybody wants more money. How do you get money?

Give money to other people. How do I get healthy? Serve the sick.

How do I get strong and attractive? Be patient. And then they're like, Okay, I'm going to be patient.

I'm going to help the sick. I'm going to give money. And you can't go up to people like that and say, Oh, by the way, it doesn't work all the time.

Then they'll get upset, right? They'll say, this is unjust. Then they come up to you and say, I have an abortion.

Do you think anything will happen to me? And then you're like, Aren't you the person who asked me yesterday about the money thing? You know, whether it would always work?

And they said, Yeah, I asked you yesterday if giving money would always work. And what did I say? Oh, you said it would always work.

You said all karmic seeds always work. So why are you coming to me today and asking me for an exemption on something bad you did? There's no exemption.

Karma always ripens. Unless you do the four powers that you're going to learn on Thursday. Anyway, if me and Mike in the sixth grade were essentially separate in the way that John and Allison are at the current moment, then karma could screw around and I don't have to worry about it.

He could do whatever he did that has been canceled because I'm essentially a different person. All right? Got it?

We didn't get there yet. ,GZHAN GYIS BYAS PA'I LAS RNAM NI, ,GZHAN GYIS SO SRUNG NYONG BA DANG, And then you'd also have the problem that karmas committed by Allison would have to ripen on John. Okay?

Karmas committed by Allison would have to ripen on John. If it's possible, if I am essentially separate from Mike in the sixth grade, but I still have to experience the results of what he did, then by that logic, the things that Allison did could ripen on John. Okay?

,DE LA SOG PA THAL BAR GYUR, ,GZHAN GYIS BYAS PA'I LAS RNAM NI, ,GZHAN GYIS SO SRUNG NYONG BA DANG, ,GZHAN GYIS SO SRUNG NYONG BA DANG, Hang in there. We got like ten more minutes. ,DE LA SOG PA THAL BAR GYUR, ,DE LA SOG PA THAL BAR GYUR, ,MIG RA YE'I REC GYUN ZHUNG ZHING,,MIG RA YE'I REC GYUN ZHUNG ZHING, So then you would have to...

If Mike is essentially separate from who he was in the sixth grade, in the sense of two separate people, then there's the problem that the deeds that Mike in the sixth grade did would never come to fruition. I'll ask you a question. Given the proper circumstances, Given normal circumstances, is there ever a karma which doesn't run?

I mean, can't you just die with a lot of karmas left and they're canceled? Is it your opinion that upon death all deaths are canceled? You'd like to think that a little bit, right?

No, you'd just like to think I start over with a clean slate. If I go on at all, I certainly go on with a clear slate. The fact is, you approach death with billions upon billions of unripened karmic seeds in your mind.

Every one of us approaches death with countless of remaining seeds in our mind. Their ripening takes precedence over your dying. Their ripening takes precedence over your dying.

Your dying cannot stop them from ripening. The death of your body cannot stop the seeds from ripening. They will ripen.

The end of your body has no effect on their ripening. They must ripen and they will ripen. They will ripen as a new body.

They will ripen as a new life. And you can't get out of it. Even if you die, you can't get out of it.

Death and taxes, right? You've got to pay my taxes, Jimmy. The seeds will assert themselves whether you are still alive or not.

They will create a new life. Got it? Seeds are...

All the karmas you've done in the past have to ripen. Even if you want to be dead, you can't be dead. People ask me, should I commit suicide?

I said, if it helped, let's all do it. But it doesn't help because you still have all those seeds and they assert themselves and you have a different body in a different place and it's probably going to be worse because you killed yourself. Okay?

Because that's a bad deed. You destroyed someone's chance for enlightenment. Whose?

Mine. All right. Okay.

Where are we? ,GAL TE SNGA MA'I BDAG DOR YANG, ,GAL TE SNGA MA'I BDAG DOR YANG, ,BDAG CI MA ZHIG GI, ,DE BU MYONG BA'I SO NYAM NA, So, let's say you commit suicide with the idea that... Okay, a person who believes in rebirth commits suicide believing that who they will be and who they are now are essentially separate, are naturally separate.

Okay? That would make sense, right? If I'm not the Mike I was in sixth grade, then it would make sense if I had collected a lot of bad deeds, I could just kill myself now.

And you know, some other guy will have to experience those results. ,DE LTAR NA, ,RANG BZHIN GYI GYUR PA'I GANG ZAG GZHAN GYI SAG PA'I LAS KYI DE BU, ,RANG BZHIN GYI GYUR PA'I GANG ZAG GZHAN GYI MYONG BA'I, ,LAS MA BYAS PA DANG BYAS PA RGYUR BA'I BSKYEN, So, one of the principles of karma is ,LAS BYAS PA DANG BYAS PA You can't say it. ,LAS BYAS PA DANG BYAS PA means anytime you commit an action, you must encounter the result.

There's no choice. You must. Okay?

You will. But, if it were the case that, Mike, again, why are we talking about it? We're trying to find out where Nick is.

We're just trying to find out where Nick is. Does Nick cover all the Nicks he's been in his life? Does the current Nick cover all the Nicks he's been in his life?

And if he does, does that Nick own all the parts he's ever been? Is there an Uber Nick? You know?

And then, you know, it's kind of weird because now he has to shave and before he didn't have to shave. And now, you know what I mean? Okay?

He's covering two cheeks. One that didn't have whiskers yet and one which does have whiskers. So, it all gets weird.

Is he the Nick who didn't have fuzz? My dad came to me in the hippie days. He said, okay, God damn it.

I don't care if you grow sideburns, but they look straggly, you know, because you're too young. It's just these, like, three threads, kind of. He said, wait a few years, you know.

But, so whose cheeks are mine? You see what I mean? The ones who didn't have hairs are the ones who have too many hairs.

You know? Which ones are me? Okay?

All right? We're trying to find Nick. Why?

Because Nick has spent a lot of time defending Nick and suffering because of it. If we can clarify who Nick is, then Nick won't get angry when someone yells at him and then he'll reach nirvana and then he'll change, right? If we can find out, if we can separate the Nick who's not there from the Nick who is there, all right?

We're still trying to separate the Nick who's not there from the Nick who is there. Okay, here we go. RANG BZHIN GYI BROS PA'I GANG ZHAG BZHIN GYI GNOD Okay, so if Nick, if this Nick is not the Nick who was here yesterday, then, and if the Nick now still had to, what do you call it?

Dang. If this Nick had to experience the karma of Nick yesterday, Nick yesterday was naughty, then Nick today has to experience the result of that. But if the Nick today is not the Nick he was yesterday, okay?

Then it's unfair. Then a person would have to experience a result when they hadn't done anything. Okay?

If this Nick is not the Nick he was yesterday, then it would be unfair because this Nick would be experiencing karmic results that he didn't have anything to do with because that was yesterday's Nick. Okay? Which is also illegal.

RANG BZHIN GYI BROS PA'I GCIG GCIG DU GRUB LUG GCIG BSTAN PA'I MIN GDUG GNYENG DU NGES PA NGES PAS NI BSTAN PA'I GCIG DANG NGES PA YIN He's concluding the third of the four essential points that you should understand if you're going to understand who you're not.

[Говорящий 2] (1:03:33 - 1:03:34)
Okay?

[Говорящий 1] (1:03:34 - 1:03:52)
Who you're not. There are four points for him. The first one was, what is the Gaccha?

Who's the Nick that's not there? What's the Nick that's not there like? What's the Nick that's not there like?

[Говорящий 2] (1:03:53 - 1:03:53)
Okay?

[Говорящий 1] (1:03:53 - 1:10:32)
I'm searching for the emptiness of Nick. If I find the emptiness of Nick, I can become an enlightened being. To find the emptiness of Nick, I have to find the Nick who's not there.

I have to identify the Nick who's not there. Who I always thought was there. Got it?

That's the first one. The second one was, I've got to look for Nick. Nick is either his parts or he's the sum total of his parts.

I'm going to look for Nick either in his parts or in the sum total of his parts. Nick is either a plural or Nick is what? He either is his parts or he's the Nick that we say has his parts.

Okay? Because there's no place else Nick could be. So, we just finished understanding that Nick either has...

Who you think Nick is, either has to be his parts or he has to be someone who owns his parts. Got it? That's the second point.

There's no other choice. If there's a Nick, he's either got to be his parts or he's got to be someone who possesses his parts. Like Uber Nick.

And number three, we just finished destroying the idea that Uber Nick could exist. There's no Nick... By now you should be like totally convinced.

Or asleep, okay? You can have a choice. Totally convinced.

There is no Nick who is naturally the sum of his parts. There's no such Nick. There's no one Nick who's controlling his body and mind.

Because there's too many problems with that. And frankly, this is the one that we tend to... Number three is the one that we tend to have trouble with.

We believe Nick is the combination of his body and mind. And we believe a car is the combination of its parts. You ask somebody, what's a car?

You say, well, it's four tires, it's two axles, it's one driving steering wheel, it's a front windshield, it's a back... You name all the parts and you say all of that together is a car. Is it?

Tell me the right answer, you get to go to wherever you're going. A break, I guess. If you put all the parts of a car together, you know, properly, screw them together in the right way, is that a car?

Then you have to say no. Or at least you have to shake your head. It's not a car.

Why? It's not a car until you think of it as a car. Right?

Okay? If you put all the pieces of a pen together, it's not a pen. Then you have to say, okay.

No, because it could be seen differently. Those pieces put together could be seen differently. I know people whose only relationship with cars is to use them to plant flowers in.

You know? They have no interest in driving or owning a car. They just...

When they look at a car, they're like, God, look how many places you could plant some flowers. You know, you take off the top and... You know.

They don't see a car. They don't see a means of transportation. They see a flower pot.

So it's not true that all of Nick's parts together is nit. Naturally. You have to use that word.

You have to add that word. Naturally. Without my karmic seeds synthesizing it that way, he's not the sum of his parts.

He's not one thing which possesses all his parts. That was point number three, and we finished it just now. All those gymnastics were to prove that Nick is not all of Nick's parts until you think of Nick that way.

Forced to do so by your own past deeds, by your own past kindness to others. Which is to say, in the new roach system of science, Nick is a product of my kindness. Nick is not a product of certain chemicals or enzymes or eggs or sperms or...

You see? He is solely a product of my own kindness. And if I haven't been so kind, he'll be grumpy and irritating.

And if I've been kind, he will be a nice person, as he is. All right? That's all.

There is no one Nick who's naturally a combination of his parts. That's the part we just finished. What do you think is going to be last part, number four?

There is no Nick who's other than his parts together. What do you think? Nick is his arm?

Or Nick is his legs? Is there any other choice, by the way? I'll give you the two choices I've stated so far.

Nick is the sum total of all his parts. Here's the second choice. Nick isn't the sum total of all his parts.

He's just one of his parts, or some of his parts. Nick's arm is Nick. That's the second choice.

Tsongkhapa and Arya Nagarjuna and Lord Buddha didn't even mention another choice. What would be another choice? Yeah, it's Nick Chere's arms and legs.

Because that's just crazy. We don't even go there. All we have to prove is that Nick is not the sum of the parts of Nick, and Nick is not just his arm, or just his ear, or just his nose.

Then we can establish that there's no Nick in those parts. There's no Nick. The way we used to think.

Independent of my kindness. There's no Nick independent of my kindness. This exercise, three and four, is meant to prove that there's no Nick who is independent of my kindness towards others.