Занятие 9, часть 2

[Говорящий 1] (0:03 - 17:30)
This is a great question. This one is really good. If everyone is my projection and I can change them with new seeds, how can there be people still suffering for me to emanate to when I become a Buddha?

My mind is totally pure. If everybody is coming for me, I should just see angels around me all the time. Rinpoche asked this question.

He was in New York on Houston Street, near Houston Street. What's the street that runs perpendicular towards NYU? MacDougall.

He was on MacDougall. He was in a little apartment on MacDougall Street giving a discourse. And this question came up.

You're talking 1974. I was there. Then he said, what do you think?

All the Buddhas are going to retire? Then he refused to answer anymore. Wouldn't I take them all with me?

Because there is no one to take. What is the implication of this to my boyfriend? Do they still have their own world?

I want to help their experience and not just my experience of them. That's beautiful. That's really good.

That's very subtle and it's very true. We got into this question. I was one of the examiners for Pabongka Rinpoche, the third one.

We gave him this question. I gave him this question. I said, if you are enlightened then you see everybody is enlightened too.

Then who's there to help? So why become a Buddha? Then we had a nice debate.

It went on for like three hours. It continued onto the porch. After the examination was done, we kept going.

It's true, like the pen. What this person is saying who wrote this very sophisticated question, they said, so my boyfriend likes the pen. You're suggesting that in order that I should not hear my boyfriend criticize me, I should stop criticizing other people.

Then I will perceive my boyfriend as being more kind to me. That's true. But does that fix how your boyfriend perceives himself?

The answer is no, it doesn't. Then she knows that and she's going one step more. She says, I care about him.

I care about how he's experiencing himself. So how do I help him with that? I know I can pull off this smoke and mirrors thing and he won't criticize me anymore.

But maybe he's miserable. Maybe he's perceiving a chittar when he looks at himself. I perceive him as something special.

In Buddhism that's... What's the body that stays in the heaven? What's the headquarters body?

Yes, Sambhogakaya. They call it enjoyment body. Then it has NGES PO NGANG DEN.

It has five features. It's almost a definition of the Sambhogakaya. It has five qualities.

One is that it's always surrounded by 10th level bodhisattvas or better. Then I think that has relevance to this question. I think in your own paradise you can't perceive other beings who are not high level bodhisattvas or better because it's just your karma.

Your karma is so good that you never meet anybody else. My life is kind of like that. I live in sort of a bubble.

I go to some weird disaster country and suddenly I'm surrounded by 10 beautiful people who are archetypes. One is Dhrusha, like my friend in India for 40 years. What I mean is I keep meeting the same person in different countries and they always show up and they're always doing the same thing for me.

You see what I mean? Yeah, you would start to live in kind of a bubble and then you would just meet nice people because they're coming from you. But how do those people perceive themselves?

Do we have any responsibility to help them not perceive themselves that way? I'd say yeah. In the end you have to teach.

You have to explain to them how to plant seeds. You can't plant seeds for them. You can plant seeds to see your dying mother as an angel who is taking you on a tempting journey.

But how does she see her death? That's a different story. We should worry about it.

We should be concerned about it. For that you have to teach her about seeds. There's no choice.

Her perception of herself is coming from her seeds and you can't change that. All you can do is teach. All you can do is explain the seeds to them.

So the boyfriend question, you'd have to explain the seeds to him. The next question that always comes is, he could care less. He's not interested in all this stuff.

Do you want the half answer? I got into this thing. Do you want the half answer or the full answer?

What should I do? Yes, both is good. Why not?

The half answer is trick him. Just trick him. There are a lot of stories I tell like that.

For example, that's THEBS KYE, skillful means. I had a friend, he's very wealthy, he's very cheapskate. So he started to lose his wealth.

Then we would go out to dinner all the time. I was trying to think, how can I get him... I tried to reason with him, like you've got to give money to people.

He's like, no, I don't want to. Then finally I got desperate and I... Sometimes I leave a $100 tip.

Sometimes I take all my money and leave the tip for somebody and I just leave. I did it last week. Sometimes I get a $50 tip, sometimes I get a $100 tip.

I give him, I don't know, $100. I pull out $100. He says, what's that for?

You already paid with your credit card. I say, I'm going to give the guy a $100 tip. He's like, are you crazy?

I say, no, no, man. This is how I get my money. He's like, I don't believe it.

Then I say, you know what? God damn, I've got to go to the toilet really bad. Here, you give him the $100.

I'll be back. Then I go to the bathroom and I look out this little car. I wait until the waiter comes back.

Then my friend gives the $100 bill. Then all this emotion hits him. The waiter's gratitude pours over him like an ocean.

Then he's like, you know. Then now he's started to do it himself. I mean $20, okay?

That's the half answer. You can trick people. But the bottom line is, if you have somebody in your life who you want to help because you want them to plant their own seeds so you don't just see them as a miracle.

They see themselves as a miracle too. But they're not interested or they're not open to it. Where's that coming from?

You just got to keep going on the seed thing. Where's it coming from that your boyfriend isn't particularly interested in your new discovery in Prescott? It's because you don't listen to other people.

Then you just start listening to somebody else. By the way, it's rarely your partner. If you're having trouble with your partner and not listening to you, it's usually someone else that you're not listening to.

You got to go through your life. I call it dredging your life. Like those big dredges.

You have to dredge your day for times when you're not listening to people. You'll come up with some goopy thing. You'll pull it up out of the ocean.

It will be, I'm not listening to my supervisor at work or something. Then you just fix it. Then suddenly your boyfriend is like, can I go to Prescott too?

There are many stories like that. Jeff Alexander can tell you. I picked an easy one.

Is it okay? Questions okay for a while? Does neutral thought travel through the central channel?

Like we said that Starbucks is over here. Fifth Donut is over here. Every country has its pirozhok.

In Bulgaria it's pirozhok. I learned the name for donut in every country. Just so I can talk about it.

Desired thoughts travel through here. Upset, angry thoughts travel through here. What about neutral thoughts?

You're just daydreaming or looking out at the camp. You're not thinking something bad and you're not thinking something good. You don't particularly want anything and you don't particularly hate anything.

You're just neutral. Then they discuss that in scripture. It's a question in scripture.

I think it's in the Abhidharmakosha. They say neutral thoughts are background ignorance thoughts. Neutral thoughts are background ignorance thoughts.

While you're spacing out and looking out the window at the camp, there's an underlying assumption that the camp was built and the roads were paved and the trees grew from little pine cones. There's an assumption in your gut In my religion class in college they call it visceral assumption. You believe all this stuff grew from seeds or somebody built that cabin.

You believe that even while you're enjoying it, you have background, low-level misunderstanding of your whole reality. That would travel through the ignorant channels. Either the left or right.

Probably there's a little underlying enjoyment of the scene or the non-enjoyment of the scene. Somebody said, are you more happy or more unhappy right now? I don't know, I'm pretty neutral but I don't know where neutral thoughts travel.

I suspect, for me, I have this thing. What do you call it? What's chingmo, sorry, what's gupa-tamo?

Subtle agitation. They say, ,GAL TE'O BLAG CHU ZHOR BA, What's that mean? ,GAL TE'O BLAG CHU ZHOR BA, Not ,GAL PA, ,GAL PA ,GAL PA means poo-poo.

,GAL PA means ice. Under the ice, the thoughts are running. That's subtle agitation.

You're trying to meditate, but you just heard that they're having pizza for dinner, which is never going to happen. You just heard they're having pizza for dinner. Then you're not focusing on the pizza, but there's that anticipation running under your mind.

Under your conscious thoughts, there's an anticipation running. That happens for me. When you say don't think of future or don't think of past, I have a lot of subtle future thoughts.

They're defined in scripture as just about to break out. They're called future thoughts that are just about to break out. You can feel them.

You can feel them a few minutes before they break out. You try to restrain them, you hold them, and then they break out. They break out into the conscious mind and you start to think of the future.

Something good is going to happen tomorrow. I have great anticipation, which is usually dangerous. I have this anticipation running under my mind.

I'm able to block it from a future thought. I don't think about tomorrow. But I can feel it's bucking.

It's like, I want to come into the conscious mind. Guess what's happening tomorrow? I believe you're always having one of those, good or bad.

My answer to the question which channel neutral thought is traveling in, pick the channel where you have the most subtle future thought is hanging out. By the way, this is a big idea I had. When you think of another place than this room, or when you think about moving your leg because it hurts, that's also a future thought.

You've got an underlying future thought because that assumes that my leg is going to feel better if I move it. You sniffle. When you decide to sniffle in a quiet room, then you're already having a future thought.

You already broke out of the wall. You're having a future thought. It's interesting because you think you'll feel better after you sniffle.

By the way, any good meditator knows that you just open your mouth and you breathe through your mouth and you let the stuff flow. It's a little salty and it doesn't hurt you. Then you don't disturb the rest of the people in that room.

That's what you do with sniffles. Let's do a little more. You mentioned that your mother was taught how to die by the lamas in Dharamsala.

That was like what? 1974 also. She was dying.

I was in Dharamsala studying. I got a letter from my mom. She had already gotten breast cancer.

She was a school teacher. I got this letter and she said, I blacked out in the class. I had a seizure in the class and they told me I couldn't come back to school.

Her whole life was finished. Then I asked my lama, what should I do? Sherpa Rinpoche, who's in the Vajrayogini Dhakye, Tenzin Chinde Sherpa.

He said, bring her here and we'll teach her how to die. Maybe the Dalai Lama's doctor can treat her. Yeshe Danden.

We brought her and it was terrible. It was really hard. Then they propped her up in the class.

Geshe Dargye just propped her up against the wall. She stayed there for, I don't know, I think two months or something. They taught her.

It was cool. Then at the end she met His Holiness. That was really cool.

Mainly it was bodhichitta. Mainly it was teachings about love and changing the world. There's a special teaching about trying to take on other people's pain as you die.

There was a really beautiful... His Holiness was holding a crucifix and explaining it to her. It was really cool.

See you later. What channel does fear or lack of self-confidence run in? What would be the most powerful antidote for this?

They don't say in the scriptures. What do you think? Is it closer to anger or is it closer to desire?

Maybe it's a kind of desire. Are you thinking anger? I think fear would be anger.

Maybe low self-esteem would be desire. Something like that? No, they don't say.

[Говорящий 2] (17:30 - 17:46)
They say the karmic root is useless talk. Do you talk uselessly that the karmic result would be low self-esteem? What's the word?

Useless talk?

[Говорящий 1] (17:47 - 56:16)
I think useless talk would be desire. I don't know. Karmically, useless talk results in low self-esteem.

Anyway, in a practical sense... I don't know. Let me think about it.

I don't know. They don't talk about it in the scriptures. You may have to figure it out.

Find somebody with self-esteem and twist them one way or the other for a long time and see which side. I think desire. Personally, I think desire.

I'll vote for desire and low self-esteem. But how to fix it is easy. People ask me all the time.

People ask me constantly about low self-esteem. Then I tell them some story. Me and Rinpoche, we decided to do a...

I wanted to write a book. It was about... I wanted to teach the Mongolian kids debating.

I wrote a grant for NEH. We got it. Then we got permission from the local elementary school to teach debating to the children in the school, with the school.

Then we taught them all this debating stuff. It was fun and they wrote a book. It still exists.

It's a good book. Some radio show heard about it. Some radio person heard about it and they called for an interview.

I picked up the phone and I said hello. They said, this is KWBC. You're on the radio right now.

What do you have to say about this project? I just froze and I couldn't say anything. There were just these clicking and gagging noises.

It was really bad. I couldn't say anything and finally I just hung up. Then I went to Rinpoche and I said, what can we do that this doesn't happen again?

I have trouble speaking in front of people. Then he went off on this long thing. You go to the grocery store.

I said, yeah, I was the grocery man, I was the laundry man, I was the postman. I spent weeks at the post office trying to send registered letters to Kuala Lumpur, India and get answers from the Indian post office. He said, you have a busy day doing all my stuff.

You go to the grocery store, you buy the food, then you wash all my clothes, then you go to the post office and spend hours there. You go to the bank and then you meet people. I said, yeah.

He says, do you ever see people who are unsure of themselves? Are they nervous? I said, yeah, I mean half the bank tellers in the bank are nervous.

The lady at the laundromat, she miscounts the coins and she gets all flustered. Then the guy behind the counter at the post office never heard of Kuala Lumpur. Then he goes looking through these notebooks of what's the rates to Kuala Lumpur.

This is near Darjeeling. What does it cost to register a letter to Darjeeling? He gets all flustered.

Then he said, well, then you have your answer. Find people who are flustered and find people who are unsure of themselves and find people who they don't seem very confident at what they're doing. Then encourage them.

Just encourage them. You're the best quarter counter I ever met at this laundromat. You're the first guy to find Kuala Lumpur under 45 minutes in those notebooks.

You know what I mean? Then just make them feel happy. We had a guy recently.

Where were we? We were in, god, it all blurs together. I think we were in Paris.

Not the last time, but the time before that. We went for a special dinner at a diner because it was the only thing open. Are you getting this?

The guy had his own diner. He just got the place and his wife was there. That's Paris.

That's Hamburg. You're right. It's Hamburg.

We were in Hamburg. Anyway, we got into this diner because it was the only place open at midnight. The guy is flourishing this unedible stuff and he drops a plate.

Do you remember that? His wife dropped a plate. You dropped a plate.

Anyway, somebody drops a plate. Then there's this whole thing of Rinpoche telling me to encourage people. Everybody is flustered.

The guy is like, ugh. Then you latch on to him immediately and you say, don't worry, this is the best diner we've ever been to in Hamburg and you guys have really got a nice place. Then we ended up being good friends.

She had her baby. She brought out the wife, they brought out the baby and we all sat down. But you do this thing where you make them feel good.

Then that's the karmic seed to gain self-confidence yourself. Now they can't stop me. I just talk.

They're like, okay, that's okay. That's enough for our interview. I'm like, yeah, but there's one more thing.

Okay? It works. Whatever you want, you got to go on a search for somebody who needs it.

Your whole life should be a search for people who need stuff. Then you get whatever you want. It's just the way it works.

People come to me for advice. I must see on tour. I just sit there and people flow up to the front.

Long lines of people. Sometimes they fight with each other. Then they're all asking me questions.

Then I'm always the same answer. Find someone. You got to...

They say I have low self-esteem. Then I just grab their hands and I'm like, look, you have no choice. There's only one way.

You must find somebody else who has a similar problem. Then some people get it and some people don't. You want to shake their hands or something.

Nowadays I just grab them and I say, this is the only way you're going to do it. Nothing else is going to work. Just forget everything else.

You got to find somebody who has the problem and you got to help them. Then, I don't know, it works a lot of the time. But that's the only way to change problems that you have.

You need to find some other person. That's the only way. There's no other way.

There is no other way. You got to be on the lookout for people who have problems. Okay, let's do a little more of this.

I'll do more of this tomorrow. RGYAL PO PO DANG RGYAL TZAM CHEN NA MI KHYIM BUM PHRAG CIG DANG THUGS KYIS DZIN GOS STONG DRAG GNYIS SHUGS TZAG SNGA KHYIM MI RTZOD DUN RGYAL GNYIS SHUGS LTA LAS SBYONG ZHING STONG DRAG SNGA THUGS BANG GI SKYE BO STONG DRAG GNYIS SHUGS TZAG SNGA RA LA RIM PA'I SDUN GYIS KHO RO BA BAR GYI SA'AG LA ZING NA RGYAL PO PO DANG He had a palace called the Palace with the Banners. It was in the middle.

THUGS KYIS DZIN GOS STONG DRAG GNYIS SHUGS TZAG SNGA There were, what do you call that? 100,000 subjects. 100,000 families.

25,000 hot tubs. THUGS KYIS DZIN GOS Pools for pleasant washing. KHYIM MI RTZOD DUN RGYAL GNYIS SHUGS 720 gardens, floral gardens.

LTA LAS SBYONG ZHING STONG DRAG SNGA THUGS 56,000 imported palm trees. BANG GI SKYE BO STONG DRAG GNYIS SHUGS TZAG SNGA 7,000 personal attendants. RGA BA RIM PA'I SDUN GYIS KHO RO BA Seven concentric fortress walls.

Not just one. Like Jerusalem, you see the wall? Count seven of those.

BAR GYI BSAM PA GSUM RGYA RAS SUM 363 bridges connecting the walls. BSAL GYIS RGYAL SEMS STONG DRAG SNGA 25,000 golden banners. You knew that.

RGYUD KYI PO DANG RGYAL PHUB GCUGS GSUM PA 13 golden spires. KAPOLAS LONGS SPYOD KYIS RGYAL NA STONG KUN RGYAL PO DANG NYAM PAR YOD DUG The same amount of wealth that was possessed by the Chinese emperor. RGYAL PO DANG NYAM PAR YOD DU RDZO CHEN PO DE, DE LTA BU RGYAL ZHIG RTOGS SBYONG SNGA THANG LDAN DAG MED PA DE CHIL MED THAL BAR ZHIN DUG NAS Atisha rejected those riches as if they were spit.

He didn't consider them any more important than a piece of saliva that slipped out of the corner of his mouth. It took me a long time to find that on the dictionary. ,BDAG CAG GI STON PA, ,'KHOR LO RGYUD PA'I RGYAL SRID BYAG MTHIL NA, ,YOD PA CHIL MED THA BA GZHIN DU, Also Lord Buddha, he was offered the ,KHOR LO RGYUD PA'I RGYAL SRID What do you call it?

He was offered the presidency of the world. They said if you want to go that career path, you can be president of the world, king of the world. He also, ,CHIL MED THA BA GZHIN DU, It's like some spittle came on the corner of your mouth and you just go like that.

You don't even think about it, you're just like that. He rejected it like that, ,CHIL MED GZHIN DU. ,RAB TU CHUNG BAR ZAD DU NA, and became a monk.

,DE DAG GIS RNAMS DAG LA DMIG YAT TE GYIS LOB DGOS, We should look up to their example. ,THAR TE RANG CHAGS RNAMS GYUR TZANG CHOS MTHONG DANG, ,RDZONG DPUN ZHIG DU DGOS ZER NA, ,THETSAMS MED PA GNOD TSUD DU SDUG, People like you and me, meaning 1921, 900 monks listening to him. Was it?

Or 700, I don't remember. If somebody comes up to you and says, if you are willing to give up your robes, I will make you a local governor in Tibet. ,THETSAMS MED PA, Without a doubt, we would do it.

Rinpoche, I don't know, do you know the story? Rinpoche was offered the same, he got the offer. His teacher was offered an abbessy of a very wealthy monastery south of Lhasa.

He would be the vice abbot. Then he would be wealthy for the rest of his life. They were offered.

They got this offer from the government. Then Rinpoche said, how's the study there? They said, it's not one of the big three, which means not very good.

Then he said, can I stay? They had a big tension and then he stayed. He had to stay and sleep in somebody else's closet or something because they locked up their house and the teacher left.

He made that choice. ,MTHONG BZHIN GOS TE, THETSAMS MED, ,RGYAL SRID LTAR BZHAG, ,BZHAG NA KHUNG MTSAMS RGYI DKA' BYA YANG MOD MTHONG KA, People like you and me in this monastery, forget giving up a kingdom. We have a big fit if someone asks us to move out of a monk's cell, which is no bigger than a closet.

,BDUN NA NYON GYIL GSUNG, ,MTSAMS RGYI DKA BYA YANG MTHONG KA, ,DE LTAR RDOR BAR CHEN PO RGYAL SU PHYI MAI DVAGS BZHIN DO NAS ,SLO DON RING, ,BLA MA'I AABA'I DUS TE TSOR BSTAN, But Atisha was able to give up that kingdom as if it were spittle. He spent seven years studying with... Now we got a third one, right?

I don't know, this is funny. Sorry. MA RGYAL SU THAMS PA'I BAR ZHING ROL NA'I RNAM DU'I DE'I TSO BAR BSTAN GZHAN YANG DNGOS GRUB GNAS PA'I LAM MA BDOD MED CAN NGA'A RDOR BYED THEG PA LA BYANGS PAS He studied the tantric path, the diamond path, at the feet of a great many Lamas who had attained high realizations.

BDAM LA MA LUS PAR SKAD PAR GYUR TE SANG SNGAGS LA SNGA GNYIS KHYES SO NYAM DU BSGOM PA CHUNG BA NA Then he got to thinking, I'm the biggest master of tantra in the world. He was like, I'm the one who knows tantra. DAG GIS MA RNAM GYIS SNGAGS KYI LAS PA SNGAGS MTHONG MA NYONG BA MANG PO NYANG RLAM DU BRTEN NAS THUG RGYAL BYA GO Then the Dakinis came to crush his pride.

One night they appeared in his dreams. Yeah, in his dreams. This is a famous story.

It's a long story. Then they started talking about all this, look at this tantra. This is probably the most beautiful tantra there is.

In his dream Atisha is like, show me, show me. Then they say, look. He's like, I never saw that one.

They're like, oh yeah, there's lots you haven't seen. Then he woke up and he's like, dang. I thought I was the world's number one tantra master and then there's all these tantras I never even saw.

Then they... What's JAG mean? When you say KHYAYU JAG, when you're washing the dishes and your Lama says, it's a famous example in the monastery.

KHYAYU JAG means, hey you, your disciple is washing dishes carelessly so you yell out of the bedroom, hey you, could you just break all those dishes? Then that gets used as an example of CHENG YI. Anyway, NGA RGYAL JAG.

NGA RGYAL JAG, what? They smash his pride. Look, there's thousands of tantras you never heard of and they're secret.

All right. DA NI TSE RDI LA SNGAGS KYI THU ZHUGS KYI CHOS PA BYED DE CHAKYA CHEN PO'I CHOG KYI NGUR DU THOB PA ZHIG BYA SNYAM BSGOM PA NA I'm supposed to go till 4.30, right? You got to hang in there.

I know it's hard. But I don't care. DA NI TSE RDI LA SNGAGS KYI THU ZHUGS He decided, I would like to become a great tantrika.

I would like to devote the rest of my life to studying heavy duty secret teachings. CHAKYA CHEN PO I think I'll work on CHAKYA CHEN PO. MA MUDRA I think I'll become a MA MUDRA master.

CHOG KYI NGUR DU THOB PA ZHIG BYA And I will thus come to the highest attainments through the secret teachings and especially MA MUDRA. SNYAM BSGOM PA NA Lama Rahula Gupta Now they've added a second name to Rahula, Rahula Gupta. I believe it's the same lama.

Lama Rahula Gupta ZHUGS KYI TSIG PA LA YANG MA THOB PA THAL BYUNG DU CHUN NAS Rahula walks through the wall. At the moment that Atisha decided he'd be a great tantric practitioner, MA MUDRA, Rahula walks through the wall of his room. I like it.

GYUR GYIS SEMS CAN ZHAG NAS GAR CHA Why do you want to give up everybody? You don't care about anybody? He reads his mind and he walks into his room but not through the door.

And then he says, what's wrong with you? Why do you want to ignore everybody? GAR CHA RAB TU CHUNG ZHIG DANG, BSTAN PA DANG, MDOR BA MANG PO LA PHAN DU GSUM You should become a monk.

You should become a monk. Which means he hadn't become a monk yet. Atisha became a monk very late.

I think he was 29 or 30. I don't remember. He's probably in here.

But all of these tantric studies he was doing as a lay person. Then he's ready to go to high, high tantra. And his lama grabs his shirt and says, you want high realizations, you've got to become a monk.

That's the way. MDOR BA MANG PO LA PHAN DU GSUM Then you'll be able to help a lot of people. And the teaching.

PHAL BAR DUG GI RNAM GANG NGOS SU BYUNG NAS KYANG KHO Then Haruka shows up. Like this big mean tantric deity and says, I agree with him. BSTAN PA DANG, MDOR BA MANG PO LA PHAN DU GSUM Then Shakyamuni shows up.

This part's in a dream. Shakyamuni shows up and Maitreya shows up. And they say, you want to get anywhere, you've got to become a monk.

You've got to get ordained. PHAL CHEN DES PA'I KHYAM PO SBYOR LAM GSOS PA BA TSUL KHRIMS GSUNG BA ZHES BYA BA LA RAB TU BYUNG ZHING So he became a monk. I think he's 29.

He became a monk from somebody named TSUL KHRIMS GSUNG BA, Keeper of Morality. But then they describe him as a SBYOR LAM GSOS PA BA, which means what? He had reached the SBYOR LAM.

SBYOR LAM GSOS MTSAN MONGS SBYOR LA TSUL KHRIMS GSOS MTSAN MONGS SBYOR LA TSUL KHRIMS He's at the first part of... He just started to understand emptiness intellectually. And that's how they describe him.

They pin his level. You see what I mean? They say his habit was a first level SBYOR LAM.

Second path. He hadn't seen emptiness yet. GSOS MTSAN MONGS SBYOR LA TSUL KHRIMS He became a monk from him.

NYES PAR RTZOGS PAR TSE Became a full monk. DE LTAR BSGUNG LA GNYIS SHES TSAR BSGUNG LA At 29, he became a monk. You're talking in a world where people live to 40.

Nowadays he would have been 50 or something. BSGUL LA RAB TU CHUNG LAMA RGYAL DU BSNGABS CHU TSAR BDUN BRTAN NAS He studied with 157 different Lamas. RIGS NAS THA DAG DANG, SDONG NAGS KYI GSUNG RA BDAM PA DANG, BYAS PA THAMS CAD BYANG He studied all the great sciences.

There are Buddhist sciences and there's linguistics and then there's architecture and there's music. He studied all of them. And he studied the open and secret teachings.

BYANG KHYAD PAR LAMA DHAR MA RAG ZHID DE CHEN NGAG BDUL BA'I LUNG DE ZHIG GNAS DANG KUN DU ZHING LUNG PA DE DUNG KUN DU PA'I BSTAN CHE DAG TU SHES PA CHEN PO ZHIG BYA BA'AM BO RGYAS RGYAL TZAM YID PA'I BSTAN CHOS CHEN PO He met a Lama named Dharma Rakshita. He studied with him a book. It's called the CHE DAG TU SHES PA CHEN PO.

Say CHE DAG. CHE DAG TU SHES PA CHEN PO CHE DAG means Vaibhashika. That's where the name Vaibhashika came from.

They are masters of this book. There's a certain subject called CHE DAG TU SHES PA. The text, I believe the carving here is mistaken.

It should say RGYAL RGYAL. It has 800, I checked it. This has 800 folios.

You can say it's probably a few thousand pages. Inside that book are explained all the details of Vinaya and Abhidharma. These are the lower schools.

By the way, that's all that ever reached Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka. It's just those two sections. Vinaya and Abhidharma.

Which are beautiful. They're very beautiful. But what they're trying to say is that these are considered the foundation.

These are considered the lowest schools of the high schools of India. His teacher walked through the wall to tell him, I don't want you doing Mahamudra. I want you doing Abhidharma.

Which is like saying, I want you doing addition and not calculus. It's like that. He became a great master of both of those subjects.

RGYAL RGYAL YAT SAM YOD PA'I RTEN GYUR He spent 12 years studying that. The foundation schools of Buddhism. Morality.

They asked him to spend 12 years on morality. The fine points of morality. Because they wanted him to be a tantrica.

They forced him to spend 12 years on... What do they study? They study, if you are in a group of guys, if you go down to the stream, if you're having some lunch near the stream, if you decide to drink the water, then how do you choose the monk who's going to go get the water?

This is like one of the subjects. Then they say, well, you have to sit all the monks down, talk to them, and see who's most compassionate. Then you send him.

You send him with a sieve. He goes down to the water and he sieves the water to see if there's any tiny little bugs in it. He carefully takes each tiny little bug out and puts them on a leaf.

Then he quickly caps the rest of the water and brings it to the picnic. You might spend a whole day discussing this. That's how you can spend 12 years discussing morality.

You shouldn't send a monk who could care less about bugs. Don't send a monk who doesn't like bugs. Send a monk who cares about little bugs and he should get the water.

Monks in the old days were required to carry a strainer because you drank your water out of streams and you didn't want to suck in a mosquito by accident. Like that. His teacher, his big tantric teacher, is forcing him to go spend 12 years discussing this kind of stuff because he wants him to succeed in tantra.

That's the only way you can. Your moral lines have to be very strict and self-imposed, very strict. Don't hurt anybody.

Don't leave stuff on the floor. Like that. That should be a whole subject, I think.

Don't leave stuff where other people are going to be walking because they'll fall on it or they'll hurt themselves. Like that. Until you get to that level, you can't do tantra.

All right. Let me see. DER PA CHOG RGYAS PA I'm going to keep going, okay?

I know you're tired. Just hang in there. Ten more minutes, okay?

Otherwise, it'll take 20 years. DER PA CHOG RGYAS SOGS RGYIN LEN RUNG PHYIR SOGS CHAGS LEN MTHONG BA LTA DAG MA DER PAR KHYEN NAS Then he studied the laws of the 18 groups. There are 18 flavors of Vaibhashikas.

There are 18 different kinds of Abhidharma schools and Vinaya schools in those days. If you care, you don't care. Do you care?

There are seven Sarvastivadin schools, five Mahasandika schools, and three Stavira schools, and three Mahasamitaya schools. I think that adds up. Anyway, it's pretty famous in India.

There came to be 18 schools of Vinaya and they didn't get along with each other that good. They put patches on the back of their robes to identify which group they were with. We still do that.

We still put patches on the back of the robes, although nobody knows what they mean anymore. Anyway, he learned all 18 schools, which in ancient India meant he was like a rime. He wanted everyone to get along and he learned everybody's system.

He learned their jinlen ceremonies. Jinlen means a monk cannot eat food unless it's blessed ahead of time, through a certain ceremony. Food which has been stored for a monk's use, they cannot eat unless it's blessed.

RUNG GCOD A monk can't drink water unless it's been strained properly and certified that there will be no small creatures killed. Soak, etc. He learned all of those customs which relate to respecting life.

They relate to respecting life. That's the power that made him a great tantrica. That's why he was a great tantrica, because he mastered the details.

For us, I think it would be like a respect for the environment or something. I think for us, it would be like, I'm in my house and somebody gives me a Fiji water and I drink it and then I have a choice to throw it in the recycling. I mean, the ethics of dragging water from Fiji is another thing.

My Lama, by the way, told me I can't buy it anymore. You feel like you just want to throw the plastic bottle in the garbage and not put it in the back of the car and drag it to the recycling place. But then, that's your version of his level of morality.

That's the one that we have to keep, or you'll never be a tantrica. You want to learn all these big tantric teachings, then you got to be a plastic bottle into the recycling store person. It's the same thing.

That's our version. You take care of your world and you take care of the people in the world on a very subtle level. Then you're sitting there, you went to the recycling place.

I have to go to the post office. I have to turn into the post office. I have to drive behind the post office.

I have to get my hands into all these bottles and stuff that's been in there for three weeks and they all stink. Then I have to go take a shower afterwards. Then I come home.

Then the bottle cap of the Fiji water bottle is in the middle of the floor. I'm like, you know. Then there's a moral crisis.

That I can throw into the garbage. Then there's this voice in your head. Yeah, if you don't want to practice tantra, that's okay.

If you don't care about life on the most subtle level, then yeah, you could probably just throw it outside. Then you're staring at this little blue bottle cap. You're like, meh.

It's the same thing. That's what would make your tantra successful. I did put it in the recycling.

PHAG YOL GYI BDE PA CHOG RGYAL PO THAMS CAD KYI TSUG GI NOB PAR GYUR TOG He became the crowning jewel of all 18 groups of the Vibhashika. I'm going to keep tracking, okay? We got seven minutes.

Don't waste your time. DE LTAR SDONG RAG GI CHOS PA YUL NA DE'I DUS ZHUGS PA THA DAG SEMS CAN He learned all the open and secret teachings that were available in India at that time. THUGS BSNYAMS SU SHES TE And he grasped them.

NYUR DU TZAM RGYAL BA LA LAM GANG ZHIG GNOD NYAM NA Then he got obsessed by a certain question. Okay, I studied everything. I know all the open teachings.

I know all the secret teachings. What's the fastest way for me to get enlightened? He just got obsessed with the secret.

I've had people come up to me like that. They're like, Geshe-la, I enjoy the retreat. I enjoy all the teachings.

I like Phoenix. Just tell me where I need to go to get it done fast. Especially like I had a guy with AIDS.

Like what? 20 years ago in New York. He came to me and said, look, I got AIDS.

I like you. You're a nice guy. I like all your students.

Your school's very nice. Just tell me what I need to do fast because I ain't got time. I don't have time to go through all the books and the courses.

Just tell me what I need to do. Just tell me. You meet people like that sometimes.

They're just like, tell me what I need to do because I ain't got time. And he died. We took care of him and he died.

We split up the... Were you there? I don't remember.

That was before your time. He was a ballet dancer. He was very beautiful and he got AIDS.

We were taking care of him and he died in front of us. The students split the night and everybody went for a couple hours. It was bad.

Anyway, so he got that same obsession. He was like, nah, I just want to get it done fast. ,GNAR MAR YOD PA NA, ,RIGS SNAG PO GONG ZIN NA, ,ZHUGS PA'I LAMA RA HULA GUG STE, ,SNGON PAR BSHAD PA'I KHYEN DE, His teacher Rahula heard his thoughts.

He's like, oh, you want to get enlightened fast. Okay. He was on another...

He was like in Ohio. He read his mind from Ohio in Prescott. He's off on the place called Black Mountain Hermitage.

He's reading Atisha's mind. Atisha's like, how can I get it done fast? ,RIGS SNAG PO GONG ZIN NA, ,ZHUGS PA'I LAMA RA HULA GUG STE, ,DER CHUN NAS SBYOR LA GSUM PA, He went to where Atisha was.

He said, ,YID DAM GYI BAR ZHAL MTHONG BA DANG, You want to see the faces of the angels face to face. ,KHYEN GOR GYI LHA TSUL MANG PO RLUNG DU RGYUR PA, You want to be surrounded by the dakinis of the secret worlds. ,TU MO RGYI NGOD DANG MANG PO RTOG PA, You want to fly in the sky.

You want to walk through walls. ,RTING NGAN ZHIG RIGS RGYUR TZAM YOD PAR, You want to get a meditation which is more fixed than the Rocky Mountains. He says a mountain chain.

,GAR YANG MI CHIN, It won't get you anywhere. ,GAR YANG MI CHIN means you won't get anywhere. It won't get you anywhere.

Then he says, ,BYAMS PA DANG SNYING RJE BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS LA BLO SBYONG, You need to BLO SBYONG. You need BLO SBYONG. You need Course 14.

You need BLO SBYONG. You need to develop love for other people. You don't need all this tantric stuff.

You need love. You need to care about other people. That's all.

Therefore, ,THU BCAD CHEN PO SNYING RJE LHA YIN PAS, The angel of compassion is Avalokiteshvara. Take him as your close angel. Or Guan Yu.

In China they picture him as a woman and I think it's beautiful. I think it's beautiful that no one's sure. Just so beautiful that maybe both.

LHA YIN PAS. Take them as your angel. ,KHOR BA MA STONG GI PAR DU SEMS RJE GYI DON CHE PAR, ,DAM PHYIR ,DAM PHYIR means holy Dharma.

,DAM PHYIR spelled with an AU means make a samaya. Make a samaya to yourself. ,DAM PHYIR PHYIR Make a pledge to yourself.

Swear that you will serve others until the last being who is still suffering is transformed into an angel. Swear. Swear now.

Swear that you will stay until the last person who is not transformed is until you transform them. Swear. ,ZHIG GSUNGS Maybe we'll die in between.

Let's finish it. ,YANG DOR BYED DENG GI KHOR BZAN NA, He went one day to Bodhgaya which is called in Tibetan... Sorry, the old name.

,DOR BYED DENG, Vajraasana. Vajraasana. The diamond asana.

In those days asana in the sense of the seed of the diamond. ,DOR BYED DENG GI KHOR BZAN NA, ,DOR BYED DENG GI KHOR BZAN NA, He went to... He went to make...

What do you call it? He went to walk around the stupa. We did it, right?

That's where I met you. Yeah, that was cool. I met him at that stupa.

,RDZIN LAS SOGS KYI KHOD DANG, Then there was two statues there. They were like statues of Buddhas or something. Like in Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha.

Right? ,GCIG LA GCIG GCIG BA DANG LEN BDEBS SU, They were talking to each other. The two statues were having a conversation.

He doesn't like the conversation. That's kind of weird. Anyway, they started asking each other, what's the fastest way to get enlightened while he's walking by.

Like one statue turns to the other and says, hey, if you wanted to get enlightened really fast, what would you have to do? Okay. ,RDOR GYI LDAN GYI GLO CHOG, Then in the south of Bodhgaya, then there were two women in the sky having a discussion who were bigger than normal human.

,LAM GANG LA MIN DANG LAS BDEBS PA'I PHUNG BA NYID, ,GCIG LA GCIG They started asking each other, hey, if you wanted to get enlightened fast, what would you have to do? So it happened to him twice. !BSDEBS PA ,CHOG GANG LA BSLAB PA BYA, What should you do if you really want to get enlightened fast?

Then CIG ZHUG NA RE, oh that's easy. One of them said to the other statue and the ladies in the sky, ,BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS NA BSLAB PAR BYA'O, You've got to study compression. ,BO DI SPYI DU You've got to study the wish to become a Buddha.

the wish to change the world into an enlightened place. I assert that it's not much different than deciding that you would like to go on a DCI tour. It's that kind of decision that you would like to help other people.

In some way, you make a decision. I'm going to train myself. I'm going to become a good practitioner.

My yoga will be good. My meditation will be good. Then I'll start helping people.

That's all. Nothing more weird than that. The same decision faces you now.

You face the same decision now. Do you want to do it fast or not? If you want it to go fast, you got to go help people.

RAB PA BYA'O ZHES GSUNGS NAS Okay, we'll stop there, okay?