«Дар освобождения», курс 4 «Ретрит об энергиях», занятие 5

[Говорящий 2] (0:00 - 10:57)
Okay, let's start. Let's start in my position. Sit up straight.

Chin on your screen. Do this kind of movement. Relax your face.

Forehead. Eyelids. The corners of your mouth.

And bring your mind to your breath. I'm going to ask your heart teacher to come. I like to picture them in front of me.

And I try to make them align in our program so I can feel the warmth of their body. And can smell the fragrance of their skin. And see their eyes.

Moving, blinking. And most of all, feel the comfort of having your teacher in your presence. And bow down to your teacher by thinking about what quality that they have that you would like to have.

And admiring the quality. That's really a namaste. And make an offering to your teacher.

Imagine something sweet you've done for somebody else. Now tell your teacher the most negative thing you've done for the last 24 hours. Maybe it was just a thought towards somebody.

And make some kind of commitment to try not to do it again today. Then think of the nicest thing you've done. Could be recently or could be long ago.

Think of something you're really proud of. Maybe it's trying to get along with someone that you had trouble getting along with. Think of the sweetest thing you've seen someone else do.

Maybe here at the camp since you got here. Take pleasure in that. Think again about that goal we talked about yesterday.

The main thing that you would like to do with your life. The main dream or hope that you have. What you would like to be or become in your life.

Ask your teacher to help you to become that thing.

[Говорящий 1] (10:57 - 11:06)
And I think most importantly try to get a clear picture of what you would be like afterwards. After you achieve that goal.

[Говорящий 2] (11:07 - 22:03)
Try to envision what you would look like, what you would be like. And ask your teacher to guide you through your day, all day, all night. Then come back to your breath.

Try to keep the mind sliding against the breath. Try not to think of anything else. Then we'll start into deeper meditation.

Keep your mind on the breath. Try not to move. Now separate a part of your mind off of the main mind.

Let that part of your mind step back. Away from the mind. Then watch the mind.

Watch the main mind. Thinking its thoughts. Don't try to control the thoughts.

Just watch them. Watch the mind as the subject. Watching the thoughts as the object.

See where your mind is at this moment. Now put up the wall. Make sure that your mind is clear of the wall.

It stops any thoughts about the future. Keeps you here in this moment. Try not to block any thoughts of the past.

Put a crystal wall behind your mind. No thoughts of the past. The only place to come now is in this room.

In this present moment. In this day. With the people here.

Relax into the present day. Present moment. This moment.

Feel the relief of surrendering into the present. Not worrying about the past or the future. Try not to stay here in the present.

When you move it, it means you're thinking of something. How do you feel? That's the future.

You ask your mind to come into your heart. Smile with your eyes. Stretch.

So we're still reviewing.

[Говорящий 1] (22:05 - 22:39)
Today we'll review. This morning we'll review class 4. And in the afternoon we'll review class 5.

And then in the evening we'll start the new stuff. Because for me it's more fun. But I think it's good that we're reviewing.

So I'm just going to go through the homework for the fourth test. Which we already did on Tuesday. So the first question was about how do you feel?

So the first question was about motivation. In Tibetan it's called kundong chepa. Say kundong.

[Говорящий 2] (22:40 - 22:40)
Chepa.

[Говорящий 1] (22:41 - 29:19)
Kundong means your motivation to be happy. Chepa means to fix. Or to repair something.

But I feel like that's sort of a negative. You know, because they have to start by reframing motivation. I feel a little strange.

I think it should just be more. You want to set the good motivation. I don't think you have to translate it as repair.

I think it could be just a second motivation. And it's easy. I think, you know, in my own context.

I think for most of you. Who have taken some courses. Or who've been taking courses for years.

For me it doesn't take any great leap of imagination to imagine how I'm going to use this stuff. It's not difficult for me. It's not difficult for me to imagine changing the world.

Or making an enlightened world. I mean, we're already very actively doing it. Maybe too active.

Not enough sleep. Too many airports. Sometimes we can't remember what country we're in.

They're like, you go on 30 minutes. They're like, what country are you in? I'm like, what day of the week is it?

You know. But it's. We have a very sweet karma.

It's not a big leap to have some bodhicitta. It's not a big leap to have motivation. I think, oh, I'm going to save the world with this stuff.

I could help a lot of people in the world. We already are. You know.

Many, many countries. And many more are waiting. We have many, many invitations.

I need, we need you. We need more help. We need more people.

And it's a lot of fun. You can't imagine how much fun it is. You know.

It's hard to like walk through. Go for an hour to find a croissant in Paris. And the next day you're in Ukraine looking at.

You're in a thousand year old church looking for icons. Or your grandmother or something. It's a beautiful life.

So. I don't think it's difficult to imagine that. As you.

As you take these teachings. About the long way. That you could.

Fairly quickly turn them around. And start serving people. Wherever you are.

In the world. That the world is a small place now. With the internet and airplanes.

Bonicetta is not such a difficult thing to. Imagine. Helping the whole world.

And the information here is unique. You know. It's special.

I go to Belpe. Belpe is one of my publishers. And we have meetings you know.

In their big offices. 57th Street. 8th Avenue.

6th Avenue. And we're way up in the sky. And we're sitting there.

And the guy. He says. What new ideas do you have for a book?

I'll say. I'm thinking about writing a better book than Stephen Hawking. Correcting Stephen Hawking.

And then he's like. Okay. And then.

And then he says. And then I have like 8 other ideas. And then he says.

Okay let's do all of them. And he says. He gets 1500 manuscripts a week.

He chooses one. He gets. He did the Pope's book.

He did Mother Teresa's book. And he's like. You guys have content.

You guys have something valuable. And anything you want to print. And it's like.

What you're learning here. Is something really valuable for people. And I'm saying outside of the Buddhist context.

Okay. Like I'm very careful. The DCI thing is.

We don't even mention Buddhists. And I don't think there's any need to. It's not in my interest to make sure.

Everybody has a picture of a certain. Six armed blue guy. On their wall.

It doesn't matter to me. I don't know if it's even helpful. If you meet a six armed blue guy.

That's okay. But. I don't have any interest to see.

The paraphernalia spread in the world. That's cultural. It's not the same in India as.

Tibet or China or Japan. It's all different. That's just cultural stuff.

The ideas can be used by. Russian Mafioso's. And anybody.

And just be more successful. And make a better world. So it's not difficult.

I think. The first question in the homework is. What's the motivation.

With which you should come to this teaching. And I think in the back of your mind. You should see yourself.

Like Amin came on her first tour. She was nervous. At first.

And then by the end. She's like surrounded by a crowd. Of Ukrainians.

And they're asking her. Questions about how to plant seeds. And she flowered.

Herself. In the experience. On the tour.

Big groups of people. You can't walk through the hallways. Just people.

Crowd around you. And ask you beautiful questions. And you can help their life.

I don't think it's difficult. As you sit here. To imagine yourself like Amin.

Going on a tour. Or starting. Like Jeff just showed up from Detroit.

And now he's building. The whole thing in Phoenix. Stuff like that.

It's not difficult to imagine yourself doing that. In your own way. According to your own life.

What you like. What available you have. Then.

Pabongka Rinpoche says. How do we deal with the lesser motivations. That come up.

You know. Like when you. When you sit down in your class in the morning.

And you think why am I here. Then some miscellaneous. Motivations will come up.

I heard the food was really good. I frankly. I just wanted to get out.

In the pines. Away from Phoenix. And.

You know. Walk around in less than 110 degrees. You know.

Or I needed a break. From the airports. And my Facebook page.

[Говорящий 2] (29:20 - 29:21)
And.

[Говорящий 1] (29:21 - 30:10)
You know. I just wanted a couple days off. Then Pabongka Rinpoche says.

Latch on to those lower motivations. Say okay. What do you call it?

Hook up. Connect with your lower motivation. Okay I just wanted to.

Get away from pollution. And I wanted to be in the pines for 10 days. You know.

And then he says. Follow that motivation. To its logical end.

Okay. So then you say okay. What do you mean?

Say well. Okay I'll spend my 10 days in the pines. Then I'll.

Have to go back to. What's that movie? Back to Reality?

The kid that sticks the whole. He takes over the house for a week.

[Говорящий 2] (30:11 - 30:12)
The parents leave him alone.

[Говорящий 1] (30:13 - 30:44)
And the last line of the movie is. Back to reality. Back to all the screaming family.

And then you gotta go back. To your screaming family. Then how many trips to the pines.

Can you make? In one lifetime. This course itself.

I used to tell people at Diamond Mountain. This is going to end one day. And they're all like yeah yeah yeah.

Yeah really I mean. We're going to reach the last page. And then that's it.

You're going to have to get a job. And they're all like.

[Говорящий 2] (30:45 - 30:46)
Yeah yeah.

[Говорящий 1] (30:49 - 32:36)
He's like no no. This will go forever. And now we're finishing.

And this too shall pass. This 10 years sounds like a long time. It's not a long time.

You'll be looking back and say. I was on the first tour in Bulgaria. Back in the 011.

And. Then the Bulgarians will be sending. Younger teachers here.

And. Everything passes. So take thing one.

You will come to your last. Long-term. Gift of liberation.

Class. And you will make your last trip to the pines. And then.

They'll come a day when. I have this old lady I take care of. And we are in heavy negotiations.

To take away her car. Because she's in six. Accidents this year.

And we're afraid she's going to kill somebody. And then. She's so intent.

On not giving up her freedom. And she can't. She's a very compassionate person.

But she can't really grasp. That she could kill somebody. And she almost has.

But she's so intent on her freedom. And her life. And then it got down to.

A couple weeks ago. Before the judge. We had to go before the judge.

To decide whether she should keep her license. And she's like. You're all going to support me right?

And we're all like. Yeah you know. Then we wrote a note to the judge.

That said. Don't believe anything we say. Take away her license.

Please. And then we sent it to him. And he's like.

Reading it. And we're like. She's a good driver.

Sorry. She'll hate us for the rest of her life.

[Говорящий 2] (32:37 - 32:38)
Sorry.

[Говорящий 1] (32:38 - 44:38)
I had to do that. Then the judge took it down. And anyway.

He didn't want her to have it either. But. It'll come for us too.

You see. It'll come for us. You won't be able to get to Friendly Parks.

You won't be able to get there. At least I can't leave. My walker won't work.

No don't leave me here. Don't leave me here. It's going to happen.

Now you're laughing like those people at Mountain. You know. Who said it'll never end.

It doesn't. So any lower motivation. You could have.

Follow it's logical consequences. To the last trip to Friendly Pines. To get away from the pollution.

You see what I mean. And then you'll end up. At the right motivation anyway.

You see. It's cool. You can't escape the right motivation.

Just follow the logical things. I'm going to make my last trip. I give up.

I got to do something about it. And I got to help other people do something about it. Because I don't want to see Ms. Inherit live like that. And then the whole motivation gets twisted back to the way it was supposed to be. It's automatic. You can't escape it.

Follow the logical consequences of the desire to serve your own small pleasures. And you will reach Bodhichitta. Because there's nowhere else to go.

Got it? That's beautiful. Alright.

Then he goes into. He's going to start talking about the long run as a kind of spiritual path. And then he says.

What are three things you should look for in a spiritual path? And the first one is you should look at who founded it. Who founded this path?

You see. In our case it's the Buddha. Lord Buddha.

And then you try to get to know more about the founder of the path. Because then you can establish whether you're going to buy it or not. So establishing the authenticity of the founder is important.

Is the founder someone who's going to stand up to scrutiny over a long period of time? Like his holiness. He stands up to scrutiny very nicely.

And the way he lives is good. What he's teaching is good. His whole life is an example.

And then you're not making excuses for the founder of the path or something like that. It's a good path. It was founded by someone for real.

And in the case of the Buddha, I mean most people don't know much about the Buddha. Historical information is a little It's as if you just had the stories about Jesus' childhood exploits but none of the New Testament. You see I mean like people are not aware of the teachings of the Buddha.

They know that he was. They know about the movies. Like what's his name?

Little Buddha? But they don't know what he taught. They don't know much about what he taught.

But the more you learn, the more you love the founder of the path. The more you study what the Buddha said. He taught for 51 years.

He taught 1500 sutras and tantras. And they are extraordinary. Every page of every one is extraordinary.

And then you start to feel, oh this is special. This is a special path. So the founder was great.

Then in the interim between then and now, 2501 30 years ago or something. During that time, the people have passed it on sweetly. People have passed it on responsibly.

And it's good. I mean you can pick up this scripture which was written in the 1920s and you can pick up a sutra from 500 BC and they read the same. It's like Wednesday's edition of the New York Times versus Tuesday's edition of the New York Times.

It's not any different. It's extraordinary. If you can read this book, you can read all of the Buddha's own teachings because it hasn't changed.

Even the language hasn't changed. In the debate in the monasteries, if you could hear what they're saying, they're like, thou art wrong because thou dost believe. And there's even debate in the ancient language.

It hasn't changed. It's been kept very pure. And in fact, with this Buddhist time, I don't even like to say Buddhist anymore, this particular time, it has been refined in every generation.

Rather than getting more, what do you call it? Usually it corrupts. You know, you do that thing where I whisper something to Akash and then he whispers it to Anya and then by the time it gets over to here, it's like Gershwin Michaels is a schmuck.

And and it's not like that. In this particular lineage, which we'll talk about later, they're so careful about how they pass on the transmission that it has become more refined. It has become more clear and more sweet the more time has gone by.

The Buddha spoke in very cryptic words because his audience was more intelligent. He didn't have to. They could memorize what he said on the spot.

The Heart Sutra wasn't written down for generations. And then so his own words are difficult. They're decipherable, but they're difficult to decipher.

And then each generation up to Khen Rinpoche, who's the third lama from the back, who's my direct teacher, then up to him, it has been clarified more and more sweetly. You know, each lama has taken it to their own generation. So we're not allowed to change the information.

You can't say there's seven perfections or three noble truths. But you present it in your own world. And if this tradition is considered a corruption, not to present it in modern terms.

You see? If I try to force you to learn it the way it's taught in a Tibetan monastery, it would corrupt it because you wouldn't get it. And you wouldn't appreciate it.

It wouldn't feel beautiful to you. If I forced you to do syllogisms with me all day, then you would tire and you would leave it. It's more pure and it's more accurate if you update it to your present times.

You know? You've got to talk about Heron Mead 7. See, my movies are so new you don't even know them.

Waiting for forever. 2011. It's your responsibility when you teach your students in even more obscure Eastern European cities that you will have to pull out the movies from 2015 or the movies from 2020.

You can't freeze it. You see? Freezing is corruption.

That's interesting. It has stayed living but precise. Precise and living.

It has changed with each generation. The language, the presentation has stayed modern. And the information has stayed the original information.

So that's your challenge. As you teach in YMCA in L.A. in Spanish to your younger students, you've got to be here. And you've got to be up to date.

And you've got to present it to them in their own way. But the information hasn't changed. The second requirement of a good spiritual path is that it's current but it's ancient.

My boss used to say in the jewelry business, you know, Mike, the best advertisements I said, what? He said put contradictions in the advertisements. For some reason people love it.

You know, like modern traditional. You know? And people buy more.

Because half the people are traditional and half the people are modern. So you don't say modern line or traditional line. You say modern traditional.

And that's what we've got here. This is updated ancient. Okay?

All right. Number three. There should be real examples of people who used that path and got some cool stuff happen to them.

Okay? All right? Which puts pressure on the elder students here.

Okay? Like if there's nothing special about me we go to Iowa. Cali, Columbia, somewhere new that are waiting for us.

Bogota also. Also Medellin. Three cities in Colombia are waiting.

We don't have enough staff to send them. So you go there and you present something. They're going to look at you.

And they're going to say do I want to be I've been doing this for 15 years and your hands are shaking when you hold your coffee cup. Yeah, it's okay. Maybe I'll try something else.

Very reasonably people want to see if anything magical happens here. And if it didn't then they'll say no thanks, I'll try something else. It should be that way.

So a path should the third requirement of a nice spiritual path is that people have tried it and people have gotten results from it. The big selling point for Colombia and one of the big selling points although it doesn't make as much impact in a country where people don't worry much about their future life is that you can reach enlightenment in one lifetime. You can try to imagine the universe, try to imagine billions and billions of stars and billions of planets and normally to become an enlightened being, to evolve into an enlightened being it takes visits to billions of those planets.

It takes many lifetimes of evolution on countless planets to become a Buddha. And we try to sometimes go out and look at the stars I heard that in a visible quarter inch of stars there are trillions of stars that we can't see. But just imagine the normal journey to enlightenment requires lifetimes spent on billions of the stars you see in the sky.

If you study the Lam Rim, if you learn it you can do it in one lifetime. Here in Friendly Pines.

[Говорящий 2] (44:39 - 44:39)
Okay?

[Говорящий 1] (44:40 - 45:27)
Alright? And it's not unreasonable and it's not impossible. What's it feel like when you get close?

What's it feel like? And then you start talking Vajrayana, which means diamond way, or it means secret teachings. You can say tantra I don't like the word tantra because even in Bulgaria there's magazines about tantra and it's not tantra.

But it means secret teachings. So what makes them secret? Secret means you do your Lam Rim, you meditate nicely, you relax you help out in the kitchen, you do your yoga almost every day, you do your five times both.

And then I lost mine, okay?

[Говорящий 2] (45:27 - 45:28)
I don't know where it is.

[Говорящий 1] (45:28 - 47:39)
They're looking for it. Ukrainian internationals looking for mine. Anyway.

So you just do your practices sweetly, calmly as well as you can. No what do you call it? Traumas.

Or be, I'm not good enough I didn't do my six times, you know. Just relax, do your practices mildly, sweetly, semi-ventrally and then then tantra happens to you. How does it happen to you?

You're sitting in your discussion room and you know, you're having a problem with your boyfriend, but you don't want to say anything because it's kind of an embarrassing problem. And then the person next to you says, I have a problem with my boyfriend. And you're like, wow.

And then they say, you know like, I want him to kiss me, but he won't kiss me. Even if he kisses me, he just gives me a pat on the cheek thing. And you know, I was kind of hoping for some slobber.

And then you're like that's exactly the question I want to And then you're like you start getting suspicious of this person next to you, right? You know, that's kind of weird. But the next time you sit with them at dinner and they're like, I hate tofu, don't you?

And you're like, yeah. I didn't want to say it, you know. And you know, how can we sneak a coffee into this place?

I got mine coming. It smells too good. I'm working on that.

And then this person keeps saying all the things you're thinking, you know. And then, that's tantra, okay. Tantra is not like cutting chicken's heads off in a park.

It's just doing that to somebody and you think, you have this flash. This is Tohoku. This lady from you know, Guadalajara sitting next to me is Tohoku.

And then you're already into tantra. You're already getting it. Then you are close to enlightenment.

Here at 25, you think? You'd be smarter.