«Дар освобождения», курс 4 «Ретрит об энергиях», занятие 4

[Говорящий 2] (0:00 - 1:47)
Relax your face, especially pay attention to the corners of your mouth and your eyelids. Please start to count with me. Keep your mind up against your back, or as if you're pushing it against your back.

Step back from your mind, take a small piece out of your mind in the back.

[Говорящий 1] (1:49 - 2:03)
Step back and watch your mind and watch it thinking thoughts, like a person thinking thoughts, like another person thinking thoughts. I'm going to spend a little longer each day on this.

[Говорящий 2] (2:05 - 8:00)
Observe your thoughts, see what comes up naturally, don't try to change them. See where you're at tonight. Please begin to block any thoughts of the future, any thoughts after the present moment.

Thoughts about the past are okay for a while. Thoughts about the future are not allowed. Now block thoughts about the past.

Try to get in touch with a sense of relief that you are committed not to worry about the past or the future. Just be here in this room, meditating with all of us together. Know the thoughts.

Relax and don't struggle. Now please bring your mind to life plans. What would you like to do?

What are the things you would most like to do?

[Говорящий 1] (8:00 - 8:06)
They don't have to be spiritual, but it could be anything.

[Говорящий 2] (8:08 - 10:20)
What would you like to accomplish with the rest of your life? What would you like to see happen during the rest of your life? It's a large goal, a global goal, but what is it?

Two or three goals? What would you like to happen with your life? You can slowly come back to your breath.

[Говорящий 1] (10:36 - 36:36)
I thought I would just read you some of the texts we've lost to you. So this is a review of the class we did in Phoenix. Oh, it is another book.

All right. I think it's a blessing to hear the original text. He's discussing goals which are directed only at ourselves, only for ourselves.

So is it enough in life that your goals should only be directed at yourself? Then he says, this is interesting, he says until such time as you are devoting much of your life to helping others achieve their goals, you can't achieve your goals. Then it won't happen.

I'm going to talk about it later. I mean the karma to achieve your own goals is to help others achieve their goals. So it's not even possible to ignore other people and just worry about your own goals because it won't work.

You won't get them. See what I mean? If it worked, it might be okay.

But it doesn't work. And again, as I said earlier, it's just so pleasant. You know, we all have hard days.

We all have days when we have doubts. We all have sad days. We all have days when we don't feel very inspired.

And if you just do that exercise of watching your own life and then try to think of somebody else, everything goes away. Everything gets nice. It's weird.

It's really weird. Just think about somebody else's needs. And it can be very artificial and unfeeling and just force your mind to think about somebody else's needs, you know, for five years.

And then suddenly you feel really happy. Even if you achieve the Buddha in a wrong path, he says you don't achieve your own goals. You can't achieve.

You don't have a dream. You can reach the Buddha and you haven't helped yourself. Also, a person who has achieved nirvana...

Achieving nirvana without caring about other people, okay? People keep asking us in the tours, on these international tours, you know, they'll say if I just use your principles to try to seize, to make money for myself, does it work? If I don't care about other people, will it still work?

We have that question about amount of money. Three years ago, we came up with the money we call the cara. Chandrakirti asked the question.

Master Chandrakirti asked the question. Is it possible to, for example, get financial success by giving others money and not care about them at all? You know?

And what did Chandrakirti say? You will get. If you help other people achieve their financial goal, you will get money.

You can't avoid it. It will come. So he's asking the same question here.

He says even if you achieve nirvana, which is, which is what? You use the principles of mental seize, right? You take advantage of the principles.

You manipulate them. You say, I don't want to have anger anymore. I'd like to be free of anger.

So then they say, okay, then just understand that the people who make you upset are coming from your seize. You're responsible for the people who make you upset. They are a reflection of your behavior in the last six months, which is very frustrating, right?

And then, uh, and then you won't get angry at them because you realize it's not their fault. Whatever they say to you, it's coming from you. It's not coming from them.

Then you don't get so upset. So you can reach nirvana that way. Meaning you reach a point where you never get upset in your life again.

You're not capable of being upset. Then he says, you're not helping yourself and you're not helping others much. Your own goals are not completed and the help you give to others is very little.

That's kind of weird because by the way, you have to sit in this direction to get nirvana saved. Then, uh, he says, because you haven't eliminated the obstacles in your mind, which prevents you from being optimistic, knowing all this. So what he's saying is until you can see the future pretty clearly, and until you can read other people's minds, uh, until you can see what they did 20 years ago to cause the seeds in their mind right now, the problems that they're having, you can't really help them.

You're not like a big help to them. So you have to meditate, you have to work on seeing emptiness, and then you can, you're not a doctor who can't diagnose people. You know, the doctor said, I want to help people, but I don't have an excellent machine, right?

You know, you don't have the tools to help them. So he says you have to, you have to reach full enlightenment. The only way is to want to help them.

So he's talking about, I don't know if you remember the, the fourth, he talked about how to get away. You have to lift up your own ropes. There's one, you have to lift up, you have to carry, if you can figure out a way, you've got a backpack, but you're also trying to pour a river, which is very common in Tibet, because there's lots of rivers and streams everywhere, and there's no bridges.

So when you come to a river, you have, like on the way here, you would have to get out and, and wade through the three rivers on it, you know. So it's like, if you can figure out a way to hold up your ropes and hold your stuff with the same, you put your ropes up on your arms, and then you hold your stuff on top of that, it's more efficient. You don't have to go like two times back, you know, drop your ropes off on the other side.

You see what I mean? If you're going to go through the process of saving all living beings, you might as well, you might as well reach Nirvana on a great wave, on the great wave. There's love.

So as you are removing your anger at other people, by understanding that they come from you, you might as well, at the same time, do it for everybody, like that, to save the world. And to me, that's, like I said before, I don't think it takes a big, I don't think it takes much more effort. Just think Harry and Sally, you know.

As you do your good deeds, think Harry and Sally. Sally, where are you? Oh.

That's during my blackout period, which was 1974. So anyway, it doesn't take any more effort to say I'm going to learn to put up with my husband, who criticizes me constantly, and I'm going to learn how to see that he's coming from me. That will involve not criticizing people at work.

And I mean, it doesn't take much more effort to say, and I'll try to therefore, thereby become an example. And then everybody will say, what's with you? You know, you seem to be really happy, and you're relaxed, and your husband, what do you call him?

He like, ruffles at you, and you're just like, Teflon. You say Teflon, right? With politicians?

You're untouchable. You know, like, he can just blah blah at you, and you're just smiling, and you're having a good time. And he's grumbling all by himself now.

And then people are going to take notice, you know? People are going to say, what, you know, what are you taking? Or, you know, what kind of antidepressants are you on?

And then you can say, MPS and Karma. And it doesn't take much more effort to do it for others. So you can be an example for others.

And you don't have to do anything bigger than that. You don't have to buy a radio station, and, you know, you don't have to just be an example. And if you want to be an example, you start a movement, right?

Start a fan. People, one friend will ask you, how do you do that? And you'll teach them the trick with your husband.

And then they'll have two friends who'll ask them how you do that. And then you start this whole little, we got, we were in Bulgaria, and they were so happy, like, the third day, they're all like, oh, this is going to be a new revolution. This is better than the old revolution.

We're like, yeah, that's cool. And we keep getting letters from them, like, new revolution in progress. Okay.

So there's a physician in the monastery called Magde. Magde means, uh, do you know what, you know, so you gotta have tea in the monastery. Everybody has to have like, what, 20 cups a day.

And, uh, so the way they make the tea, they have a pot that's bigger than a Volkswagen. You can fit a Volkswagen in the pot. And, uh, so you make tea for, in, in, in Santa Maya it's 1500 people.

20 cups, that's, 20 times 15. So you, 30 cups? 3000.

3000 cups of tea. Yeah. So anyway, it's a big pot.

And then, uh, somebody has to clean it afterwards. And you're talking a wood fire, you know. So that means, you know, it takes like six to scrub the pot.

And then like three guys have to get in the pot. And they're just walking around scrubbing it, you know. That's a long day.

So they say you enter the monastery, you become the long day. That's the first job you have. And then you work your way up the alley.

And then what, you're going to go to a new monastery and start over again? You know, so why waste the time? While you're in the process of fixing your husband, why not do it with the intention, the conscious intention that other people will watch you and, and they'll, they'll carry that value.

They'll start doing what you're doing. And why not just have that extra intention? It doesn't cost you anything.

You're still fixing your husband. So then just, just have that little extra thought that, oh, people will see how cool I am. They'll see my husband change.

They'll see our relationship change. And then everybody will start doing it as we imagine them. And that's a new revolution.

We'll start a new revolution. Okay. All right.

So why not? That's Mahayana. That's higher way.

Why not just do the extra thought? It doesn't cost anything. It's spreading.

Okay. I gave you my AR in the sleep. I don't know what it is.

That means something. Okay. This is this cool thing.

I saw it on Google the other day. I was looking at surfing movies, big waves. And somehow I got into whirlpools and they had, this is what I do when I can't sleep at night is I watch big waves.

But anyway, there was a, a natural thing in the ocean and have you ever seen it? It's like a whirlpool. And it's, there's some of them last for years or something.

And, you know, they like suck you in and they just, the water is pouring over like that into this huge whirlpool and ships get, oil temperatures just drop off and you never find them. And so Arjuna Garjuna, if it's Arjuna Garjuna, is saying the ones you love have fallen into the ocean and they've been caught in a whirlpool, right? And then they've gotten spun around to the other side of the whirlpool.

And then you're, you're still over here. You were with them. They fell in and then they spun around to the other side.

And you can see that you can watch them, but you don't remember that they used to be with you. Meaning you meet people in your life who, who were your love. Even in this life, like I met, when I met Kusum, they, I was with her, I was with her.

And now they said, this lady's name is Elizabeth. And that's my mother's name. And then I counted up the years, you know, and I'm like, oh my God, this could be my mother, you know.

Maybe it is my mother. It would be likely, right? And then, then I'm like, but I wasn't sure.

You can't be sure, right? So you meet people in your life and they have been your mother. If not in this life, they've been your mother before.

And then you say, I don't believe in past lives and that's dumb because you have a mind. Mind cannot be born, no matter what science says. Science is dumb.

I'm going to write a better history of time and send it to Stephen Hawking. But anyway, I didn't have time yet. But, but they have this, the idea that the mind rests in the brain or something, it's just silly.

I mean, you can go home right now and look in the refrigerator and there's still that apple pie there. Maybe, you know, and your brain stops here, but your mind can travel everywhere. The mind is not dependent on the brain.

It may rest on the brain or it may not, but it's not in the brain. It can't go anywhere. And you can't destroy the mind.

You know, you could put a nuclear weapon here and set it off and all the bodies would burn up and the mind would just sit there because the mind is still, they're independent. And you can't cut them and you can't weigh them and they don't have a physical substance. So anyway, it had to come from somewhere.

It came from another ineffable thing before that. You have done everything to everybody and everybody in this room has done everything to everybody else. Everybody in this room has been your mom.

And then they fell into the ocean and they got twisted around a few times in the whirlpool and then you can see that passing by, you don't recognize that that was the person who was standing next to you a couple hours before. So, you just don't recognize who they are. It being logical that everyone has been your mom, everybody sitting around you has been your Everybody sitting around you has had their guts ripped out giving you birth and everyone sitting around you has sucked you out their teeth, right?

And you just don't remember. Then to to not go the extra step and think I would like to start a global revolution or I would like to be an example for other people. Then that, he said, Chalbot.

Chalbot means shameless, okay? Like, I take care of this elderly lady, right? Very, very beautiful elderly lady.

She's 86? 86, I think. She came out of the door the other day.

Like, I walked up and she like meets me at the door and she walks out and she's like wailing, you know? And I'm like, what's wrong, you know? She never gets, she's very graceful, right?

She's like a princess in Spain. Bigger. And she's like, then she's like, I can't believe it, you know?

I'm like, what's wrong? You know, I'm just like, you know, my neighbor's kids, you know, I can't believe it. They're like stealing her pension money and spending all her, you know, retirement money and wreck the house.

How about these kids? She says, well, one's 62 and one's 61. I said, how long has this been going on?

He said, since they were born. They still live in their mom's house. And they have, they got to 60 years of life without doing anything.

And now they're eating up the pension, you know? And that's childbirth. That's like, come on, you know?

It's shameless. We call it shameless in English, right? Childbirth is shameless.

Get your act together after 60 years. And then she was so indignant. It's really beautiful to see her.

There's nobody who hasn't been in love. The previous lives you have lived are countless. So the mothers you have had are also countless.

And there's no difference in the amount of kindness that the people around you right now, the people sitting around you right now, okay? Like, okay, yeah, that has been your mom, okay? All the kindness that your mother showed to you in this life, she also showed you in that past life.

No different. You're not different. It's not like in the old days they paid less attention to their kids or something.

It's the same. So he says, some people say, it's not true that everybody in this room has been my mother, because if they had been my mother, I would have, I would have bet on them. I would know.

Some people say that. If they had really been my mom, I would know. When he says, 10 people are young momisheka momisite.

Momisheka suddenly meets mom Linda in New York. There's a lot of people in the current lifetime who don't know their own mothers. Like, I have a niece, an adopted niece.

And she's 21 now. And she just found her real mother on the internet. She went on the internet and figured it out.

So like, she could have walked by her mother, or she could have sat next to her mother on the bus, and she wouldn't have known who she was. So for Boko Haram, it's like, it's not logically necessary that if someone's been your mother, that you would know they have been your mother, even in this life, much less if you're a black pastor. Momisheka momisite.

I don't have to consider all the potential candidates for my past mothers. With respect and love. Because that was that life.

And this is this life. Okay? Like, in this life, they bugged me.

You know, or they hurt me. Okay? Maybe they were my mother in my past life, but I don't see why I have to dictate her kindness, because now we're talking about this life.

Now we're in a different life. So, in this life, if someone helped you in 2010, and then they didn't help you in 2011, then would you consider them to be kind to you? Would you think they have been kind to you?

You know what I mean? And if you would, then you can't draw the distinction between this life and that life. If someone's been kind to you, they've been kind to you.

It doesn't matter if it was last year or this year. Or last life or this life. It's the same.

So, if you were to ignore their needs, especially like, I don't know, we've been talking about Eastern Europe. This is on my mind, right? Like, big, big empty place, as far as Dharma.

[Говорящий 2] (36:37 - 36:37)
You know?

[Говорящий 1] (36:37 - 49:23)
A big desert. Huge desert stretching across thousands and thousands of miles. And you just ignore them?

You know? I mean the feeling of what it feels like to go to a place where people have nothing. Absolutely nothing.

You know? Spiritually. The Orthodox Church was good and it's gone.

And Communism had a pretty good code of ethics that it's gone. And now it's nothing. It's just nothing.

And so they live like feral cats. The whole... They don't know any better.

I was in Mongolia. And we were walking down the street in Mongolia. And this...

Manhole cover lifted up. And I was looking at it. And it was kind of dark and I was kind of scared.

And then, like, five kids run up. Five, like, six-year-old kids run up. And they're a little pack.

And they run up to tourists and they rip their laptop away from them. Or they steal their purses. And then they run to their manhole cover to get back in the sewers.

And they live in the sewers. And they're feral. They have no...

Their parents left them. And they're like cats. They're exactly like cats.

They won't bite you. You know? They're weird.

And there's, like, thousands of them. And, uh... So it felt the same.

You know? Like, just... The government steals everybody's money.

And then if you complain to the police, they steal your money. And then, you know, if you hire a lawyer, they steal your money. And you can't do anything.

You call the judge. You want the bribe. And if the other guy pays more, you lose the case.

So everyone's just sitting like this and not doing anything. Because they're afraid, you know, to lose everything. So...

What are you going to do? I mean, when you go there, and you feel the vacuum, and then you feel what could happen if they learned something good. You see what I mean?

They're like feral cats. And if you train them, if you gave them something beautiful, they would get it. They get it.

Right away, they love it. They taste it, and they get all excited. Or are you just going to ignore them?

Are you just going to let them suffer? You know, it doesn't matter. I don't care.

Just ignore them. They also have the second-largest nuclear arsenal left over from Russia that they're sitting on. I don't think we should ignore them.

You know? So... So take some responsibility.

They have been your mother. And then you feel so good when you go to a place like that, and you bring them some kind of hope. And you feel so...

happy. Right? It's cool.

And they're so grateful, you know? Anyway... You have a little bit of closer training.

You have to meet like regular people. They're here. They're here to send you a message.

They're here to interact with you. So you don't meet anybody in your life who hasn't been kind to you, shown you great kindness. And it doesn't cost anything to make the leap to wanting to be an example for them.

You see what I mean? I'm talking Bodhichitta, right? And that's just, all that is, is I want to start a little revolution.

So you're going to do stuff anyway. You do nice stuff anyway. And then you think to yourself, well, if I can become a good person and a happy person, other people will watch me, and other people will try.

And that's Bodhichitta. And that's all you have to do. You don't have to go out and be a missionary or anything.

You know? You don't have to go to all the planets in the world. You don't have to do that.

Just think, I would like to be a happy person. And then other people will see me, and they'll say, I want whatever you choose. Right?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They don't mean that. They're not that bad.

I can do so much as well. If you think someone has brought you up and taken care of you so that you aren't feral, right, someone spent the time to make you civilized, then you would want to pay them back, right? You'd want to do something for them, right?

They saved you from being a feral cat in a sewer. And then you would want to do something for them. You would want to pay them back.

You could feed them when they were hungry. You could give them water when they were thirsty. You could give them money if they were poor.

But that doesn't help much. And it wears out, okay? You give money.

I was in the business of giving away my money for many years. I was in the business of giving away my money for many years. It's frustrating because you go to some poor village and you give everybody money and then you leave and then two weeks later they're hungry.

So, dīna dīnchen dērāna dīnso dīrāna dīnso ācchanti dērāne dērātaṃ dērāna dērātse If you want to give them something valuable, if you want to repay them in reality, teach them what we're talking about here, right? Teach them. So you have the, what do you call it?

You have the best gift you can give anybody already. Once you understand about seeds and stuff like that, you already have the best gift you can give anybody. And just, it's so cool.

When we travel, it's so beautiful. You know, people, I go to China and people say, Geshe-la, if you're going to meet big people in China, you're going to have to bring some gifts, you know? And I meet Lamas and they give me gold boxes.

They gave me a gold Buddha, you know? I don't know how much money this was. 50,000?

It's a kilo of gold. $56,000 to this price. And they said, Geshe-la, you better bring some partners with you when you go to China.

You can't just go to China and forget the gifts. And I'm like, but I can't think of anything better to give. Like, we're in Ukraine.

I would like to offer them something, but I can't think of anything better than just what to learn. Because then it would make their whole life happy. That's like the most precious thing you can give anybody.

Then to give them a gold Buddha along with that, it's kind of cheap, isn't it? It just seems cheap. You know, here, I have a gold Buddha along with the keys to the universe.

You know, it just feels different. I really can't do it. It's the nicest thing you can do for anybody is to explain to them how their husband is currently there.

And then they can be happy. You see? And what greater gift than to fix their husband, you know?

No, really. Teach somebody how the problems in their life occur within themselves, and then they just shut their mouth off and they fixed it. And then what more could you give somebody?

What greater way to repay someone who for countless lifetimes held you to their breast and gave you milk? What better way to pay them back? There's nothing better.

And you sense it when you go to a place like here or something. You sense that. Like you say, that's enough.

I gave them everything. And you feel so happy. You just feel so...

To learn this stuff, well. Work hard. Somebody gave me a hassle like an hour ago.

Yesterday, I know I didn't finish all the homework, but I wanted to and I kind of did, but I didn't really. But I was thinking about it, but I didn't really want to write it all down. And I'm like, just stop it, you know?

Whatever Shuri says is what you do. I don't care if you finished it eight times and she didn't remember to write it down. Just finish it again.

You know? It's not going to hurt you. It's not like some terrible thing, you know?

It's not like I'm making you dig out a sack full of crumbs. You know? It's rubbish I'm making you.

But anyway. You just... You'll take it again.

You'll do it almost again. And then you'll be qualified to give someone a gift which is more precious than anything you could give. I don't give gifts to anybody anymore.

I don't send any birthday presents anymore. No more. Because there's nothing better.

There's nothing else to give. You give them the ability to be happy. Okay.

Anyway. Let me say. What better gift could you give anybody?

And you can just think of those four limitless thoughts. I wish everyone could be happy. It's cool.

Because you go to like a foreign country on like one of the tours, right? And you can do it. You can live out the four infinite thoughts.

It's not some kind of prayer you bring at home, you know? You go there and you're giving them some way to be happy for the rest of their lives. And you're giving them a...

You're taking away their suffering. Their husband improves. That's suffering.

What do you think suffering was? You know? When it's something more bigger than their husband?

I mean, you know. That's their suffering. Take it away.

Then, then... Then treat them all equally. Go everywhere.

You know? Go everywhere. We...

Somebody paid for us to go to Ukraine. We lost... We lost $20,000 to go to Ukraine.

I mean, lost. You know? And you got to treat everybody equally.

You go everywhere. You teach everybody. It's cool.

Okay. Give it up, give it a look. Give it a courage, give it a way.

Chag samecheh. Chag samecheh. What's chag samecheh?

Yeah, I will do it myself if nobody helps me. If I have to raise all of them. Somebody's warning to me today that I wanted to go on a GCI trip.

I said, well, Jimmy went on the tour. And they said, well, what do you mean? I said, Jimmy doesn't have any money.

And we don't pay anybody. Most of it. And then, then she's like, what do you mean?

I said, Jimmy scrounges around and she gets, what do you call it? Miles. She scrounges miles around the country.

She gets 100 miles here, 1,000 miles here. And then she pieces together a 4 a.m. flight from, you know, to Blue Flag, to the airport. And then she gets on a bus, you know.

And everybody can do that. You know. Right?

It's really funny. This trip was kind of an equal of precious. And then she met this guy from New York.

That's funny. So you can do that. It says here, Hwaksam means, Hwaksam means, I'm going to do it.

I don't care if anybody asks me. You know. I'm just going to get it done.

And I, I, I'm not waiting for someone to pay me to go on to the next tour. You know. I'll work it out.

By hook or by crook. You know. I'll get there.

That's Hwaksam. If you do Hwaksam enough, they start paying for it. That's a reason.

All right. Okay. Let's see here.

All right. Two more. I'm going to give that one to you.

You're done, Shera. And then I'm going to do this talk later. See you later.