«Дар освобождения», курс 5 «Обрести то, кем нам всегда суждено было стать», занятие 2

[Говорящий 1] (0:04 - 27:33)
We were discussing four things that make what's called lam rim. If you don't know what lam rim is, you should learn it. It's probably the only two words in Tibetan that are pronounceable.

Lam means path. Rim means step or stage of the path. What do they call it?

Marga, karma, steps of a path. So this 10-year exercise that we've undertaken, and we're done with one year I think, is that we will go through one of the greatest books on the lam rim. And I told you, but I'll say again, I was having lunch with some people a couple of years ago, and we went around the table and everybody said what they thought was the greatest book in the world.

And it was important for the people at the table because they were all book lovers. And I said, for me, Namdarlakjang, this book, it's the greatest book ever written, ever. So it's a complete presentation.

They've taken all of the teachings of the enlightened beings, 200,000 scriptures, and put it into one book. All the steps are in one book. So putting it in that framework of all the instructions that someone would need to get enlightened, no matter where they were at.

The cool thing about the lam rim is that it can be entered at three different levels in your spiritual career. There are stages that are meant for beginning capacity, and there are stages meant for middle capacity, and there are stages meant for higher capacity. So the cool thing about the lam rim, which is not even true of tantra, and it's not even true of great books on emptiness, like the one we're going to study, what, tomorrow?

Or, I don't know, Monday? I don't remember. But you see, those books are not accessible to all levels.

And the lam rim is accessible to everybody. And it's all-inclusive. It has all the teachings of Buddhism in it.

So once you have studied the lam rim, and once you've practiced the lam rim, then you can appreciate that there's no contradiction in the entire body of Buddhist teachings. Because you can read a tantra, like Guhyasamaja, or you can read Vajrayogini, or Chakrasambhara, and you don't get the foundation stuff there in those texts. And then you might pick up a book on the foundation things, and then you'd think these two books are contradictory.

So the beauty of this comprehensive presentation is that you understand how the whole body of the teachings of the Buddha flow. Because Buddha is an enlightened being. Buddha can perceive all three times at the same time.

The Buddha can see everything that ever was, everything that ever will be, and everything that is now at the same time. So it's hard for them to relate to us. It's hard for them to make a presentation that's comprehensible to a person who's stuck in the present moment.

You have to appreciate that everything they taught, it flows together. Everything they taught is totally compatible with everything else they taught. And you can only do that, you can only recognize that in a text which includes all the Buddhist teachings.

You see what I mean? If you just took a tantra, and then you just took a book on monk's vows, you might think there was some contradiction. If you studied the Lam Rim, if you studied this teaching, then you see how keeping your morality flows into the higher teachings, of the secret teachings.

You see what I mean? So in one text you have everything from the most foundational things to the highest teachings. And then because that's all in one book, you can come to an understanding that there's no internal contradiction in all the teachings of the Buddha.

So that's how we resolved to... He gave an example of two possible contradictions yesterday. One was between monk's vows and secret teachings.

And then we saw that keeping your morality, for example, about other people's relationships, not harming other people's relationships, or not engaging in sexual misconduct, would actually give you the inner power to practice the higher teachings, which are practiced using the male and female energies. So you can't say that they are contradictory. To keep your morality is what empowers you to do the higher teachings.

What was the other example he gave? Yeah, the Hinayana and the Mahayana, the lesser way and the greater way. So it might seem that if you picked up the Abhidharmakosha, which teaches the lower way, and it tells you just concentrate on your own meditations, you don't have to worry too much about other people, go to a cave and meditate.

And then you picked up something like Master Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, which said, go to a cave so you can help other people, so you can become someone who can be of help to all people. That should be why you go to a cave. And then you have to go help other people.

Then if you just took those two books by themselves and tried to reconcile them, you might have a problem. If you read the Lam Rim first, if someone trains you in the Lam Rim first, then you see that one is a foundation for the other. I will go to a cave so that I can serve others, so that I can help the world.

So we resolved that contradiction. Then I promised you an example, and here we go. This is a medical example.

DPER NA means, for example, RTZA BA'I GNAS DRAG PO Let's take the case of a person who has a very severe fever. What's a good fever, Dr. Moore? I don't know.

Typhoid? I don't know. Somewhere you get very hot.

Like a serious one. Okay, encephalitis. All right.

So the patient has an extreme fever, dangerously high fever. ZHIG LA MEN PA'I DANG PO ZHAG DANG CANG SOGS PANG DGOS Then a responsible physician would tell them during the height of the fever, as the fever rises, they would tell them, under no circumstances should you take meat or alcohol. You should avoid meat or alcohol.

Animal proteins and alcohol. MI SPANG LA SOGS PA RTOGS SHES BSTAN The doctor will tell the patient, if you don't give up meat and alcohol, you risk your life. You're actually risking your life.

RJES SU, RTZA BA'I RING DANG TSAMS CAD LAS PAS RJES SU means, you got it up there? Yeah, good. You may have noticed that some Tibetan words are not pronounced.

Like we don't say, I know you are going to this door. But you can figure it out. RJES SU, RTZA BA'I RING DANG TSAMS CAD LAS PAS This is a difficult expression.

RJES SU means later on. RTZA BA means the fever. LAS means once it has arrived at the TSAM.

What's a TSAM mean? Yeah, TSAM means a border, normally a retreat border. Or it could mean a retreat border.

RI THANG TSAM means RI THANG Do you guys know who LANG RI THANG BA is? LANG RI THANG BA, sound familiar? Dorje Senge, LANG RI THANG BA.

Yeah, he wrote the eight verses. He wrote the Lojong. He was called LANG RI THANG BA.

LANG RI is a mountain. THANG means the plains. THANG RI means the place between the mountain and the plains.

Now it's a common medical term also. Meaning that the patient has reached the place where the fever will start to break. The fever has run its course and it's reached a balancing point where the height of the fever is gone and now it will start to break.

So it's the breaking point of the fever. Meaning the place between the mountain and the plain. TSAMS CAD LAS PAS LUNG ZHES BYAS BAR In that point, there will be a high concentration of the wind element within the patient's body.

ZHES BYAS BAR CHUNG DU ZHAG CANG SOGS BSTAN DGOS PAR When you've got a patient who has a very excessive LUNG, excessive wind element, and according to a trained professional's evaluation of the person, it might be necessary to prescribe meat or alcohol. In that case, the person's all like this and you say, eat a hamburger. It'll bring you down.

And it might be necessary for a physician to actually prescribe alcohol or meat. DGOS PAR MA BA NA MA YON NEN PA GCIG Keep in mind that the patient is only one patient. MA BA PO MEN PA GCIG And the physician is only one physician.

We're not talking about competing physicians or two patients. We're talking one patient and one physician. ZHAG CANG SA MI SA SA MI SA SA MI SA means first he tells him to eat it and then he tells him not to eat it.

Take it or don't take it. NGES BYAS NGES BYAS NGA STING NGES BYAS NGA STING means what he said in the first place and then what he talked about later. Like when you're accusing somebody of contradicting themselves, you say, what you said in the first place and then what you said later.

NGES BYAS NGA STING NYID PO DE RGYAL BA LTAR NANG RGYAL BA LTAR NANG What's NANG mean? It means to appear. Appearance.

So RGYAL BA LTAR NANG means it might appear that the physician is contradicting themselves. First they say take it, then they say don't take it. Obviously, it might appear that the physician is contradicting themselves.

DMOS BSKYANGS DMOS BSKYANGS means but, we all know. We all know, DMOS BSKYANGS. DON DU GNAS PA CIG SO BA LA NYID GA DGOS PA DON DU means but the actual case.

What do you call it? The fact of the matter is that the patient needs two contradicting treatments at two different stages in their treatment. So they're not contradictory for the doctor.

Who's the doctor? The Buddha. And at different stages in a person's spiritual career, They might tell them one thing and then they might tell them the opposite later.

THEG PA BYAS CHUNG DANG, SDUG BSNGAL SOGS DU BYA SOGS SU BYAS LAS, KHAR ZAG CI TZAM RGYAL BA'I NYAM NGAN DU TZANG MA, MI DGOS NYAM DU YOD NA YANG So the Buddha, BYAS DU means according to the personal needs of different disciples. The Buddha spoke different teachings. KHAR ZAG CI, but all of them taken as a whole represent stages that any one person can follow to reach enlightenment.

The whole body of teachings taken as a whole is similar to the whole, what do you call it? What's that big book that has all the medicines in it? The who?

No, there's a pharmacology. Anyway. Anyway, the whole book of medicines is useful.

It's all one big happy thing. It's just that if you give the wrong one at the wrong time, you kill the person. It's not that it's a bad medicine.

There's times when you're supposed to use it according to the person's needs. And there's times when you absolutely shouldn't use it. But it's all one big book of medicine.

Pharmacopeia. Yeah, okay, the old word. DE LTAR MIM PAR GSUNGS PA PO'I GCIG GI GANG ZHAG GCIG TZAM RGYAL BA'I NYAM LEN DU GSUNGS PA STE DE LTAR MIM PAR GSUNGS PA PO'I GCIG GI GANG ZHAG GCIG TZAM RGYAL BA'I NYAM LEN DU GSUNGS PA STE So keep in mind that when a Lama or the Buddha teaches a disciple, they are a single person talking to a single disciple.

But they might have to say contradicting things at different times in the disciple's career. DE YANG SKYES BU'I CHUNG STENG GI SKABS LA THOB MAR THEG MEN GYI DE NUS NAS SHES PA MI THAG So when a person is beginning their spiritual career in the foundational years, or if they need more support or they need more foundation, then we should teach them things from the Hinayana, from the lower way. For example, mitapa.

What's mitapa? You're not going to live forever. Everything about your life is in motion.

Everything about your life is in constant flux. All things you take for granted this year are going to change by next year. And sometimes radically.

Even your country. You are accustomed to living in a very influential and wealthy country. And that is changing.

And that will undergo a great change in the coming years. And you have to realize that that's the way things go. That's foundation level.

Don't assume that. I mean, there's no productivity here anymore. The banking is gone.

Wall Street's gone. GM is gone. The space program is gone.

There's no great innovation here. The people who could do the innovation haven't been trained. They haven't been educated.

There's not enough education to support any new creativity here. So we're just kind of standing on the shoulders of someone who went before. And the people alive now in this country aren't doing much.

They're just kind of hanging out. And things will change. And other people who have more drive and work harder, which is most of the rest of the world, will rise.

So even your country is impermanent. Your lifestyle is impermanent. And your freedom is impermanent.

All right. MI RTAG SDUG BSNGAL LA SOGS PA BSGOM PA DANG And hard things could come. DE LAS CUNG ZAD GRAB TU SONG NA Once a person has come to appreciate how fragile their life and their situation is, their privileges, SKYE BU CHEN PO'I SEMS SKYE then you can move them on to higher capacity.

And you can talk about helping to create a world where no one is at risk and there are no places of poverty and there are no places of, what do you call it? Like regimes that are hurting their people, right? Like you can, what do you call it?

Oppression. Yeah. So you can start to have a larger vision of what the world could be once you appreciate the fragility of your own life.

Because the rest of the world has already been there for a while. Most of the rest of the world, I don't know, two out of five people on the planet are seriously underfed. Once you understand the fragility of your own life, you can go on to try to work for a world where no one is in want.

CHEN PO'I SEMS SKYE DANG And then you can teach people the six activities of a bodhisattva, the six perfections. SOGS THEG CHEN GYI RDU NI NUS SHES PA RNAM DANG The Teachings of the Greater Way. LHAG GI NOD DU RGYUR NAS It's a nice tune, but...

Okay. LHAG GI NOD DU RGYUR NAS And once you see a person is NOD, NOD means a worthy vessel for the higher teachings, the secret teachings. LHAG GI NOD DU RGYUR NAS People ask me all week, can I listen to the secret teachings you're doing this week online?

Don't ask me that. The answer is the same as it was 15 years ago. That should be passed on person to person.

If you're too busy to come to that, then you shouldn't get it anyway. DE BAR BYED THEG PA NAS SHES PA'I RIM NI BYED PA DANG BYED PA Then you are ready to study the two stages of the secret teachings. SKYE RIM and RDZOG RIM.

BYED PA DANG BYED PA SOGS RIM BZHIN RANG NYID LTA BU'I GANG ZAG GCIG TZAM RGYAL BA'I NYAM DMAN DU ZHIG MTHUN PA YIN So all of those teachings are ZHIG MTHUN. What's ZHIG MTHUN? One thing which can embody two features.

It's not impossible for it to be. It's my hotspot when the wireless doesn't work here in my waiting room there. And it's also a phone.

So those are ZHIG MTHUN. It's one object which can be both, no problem. So a path to enlightenment can be what?

It can be the teachings on the impermanence of your situation. It can be the teachings on love for all living beings. It can be the teachings on suffering.

It can be the teachings on the secret way. Both levels. All things fit into what we call the teachings.

And if you study the Lam Rim, then you see the flow. And if you don't study Lam Rim, and you just study the secret teachings, or you just study the lower Abhidharma, you won't see how it all ties together. How it's all one big...

I don't remember. DE NA RGYAL BA'I GSOS RAB THAMS CAD LAM GYI MTSO'O DANG YANG LAG CI RIGS PA Then we can say that all the teachings of the RGYAL BA. RGYAL BA means jina, victorious one.

Meaning, you should know something about scripture. When they refer to the Buddha as the victor, the victorious one, then it's generic. It means all the thousands of Buddhas, all the millions of Buddhas.

So the teachings of the Buddhas. When they say RGYAL BA'I THAMS CAD LAM GYI MTSO'O. They all can be summarized in LAM MTSO'O RNAM GSUM.

What's that? The Three Principal Path. Anyone who says the three principles of the path should get hanged and stripped of their skin.

No, I mean it's terrible. It's an extraordinary mistranslation of the title. And I think almost everyone does it.

But anyway, it's three main paths. It's not three principles of one path. Each one is a path.

LAM MTSO'O RNAM GSUM All the Buddhist teachings can be summarized in a small genre of literature called The Three Principal Path. LAM MTSO'O RNAM GSUM LA CI RIGS PA GANG ZHAG GCIG GI TZAM RGYAL BA'I NYAM NANG NA MI KHOR BA GCIG RGYAL MED There is not a single practice that you can find in this thousand pages which is unnecessary for a person's enlightenment. None of them are extra or superfluous.

They are all powerful. DER MA ZAD KYI BYANG CHUB SEMS PA RNAM GYI ZHES BDUN GYI RTZO BA NI SEMS CAN GYI BDUN ZAD PA YIN LA Now he's going to go off on a defense. The subject we're on is what?

Why the teachings are not internally inconsistent. Why there's no contradiction in the teachings. So that's his main subject.

But now he's kind of going off on why you should appreciate all the teachings. Maybe you don't need the Hinayana right now. Maybe you are advanced.

Maybe you don't need to think about the fact that your country might collapse next year and have armies walking across it. Maybe you're beyond that. But still you should study those ideas.

Still you should master those ideas. Still you should appreciate those ideas and you should learn them. Why?

BYANG CHUB SEMS PA RNAM GYI ZHES BDUN GYI RTZO BA The main thing that Bodhisattvas claim that they're out to do is to help all living creatures. We're all supposed to be Bodhisattvas. And their main duty or their main...

What do you call it? ZHES BDUN means what they've agreed to do or their stated mission in life. Their mission is to help every living being.

ZHES BDUN TSOR BA SEMS CAN GYI BRTZEN ZAD PA YIN RANG DE LA BRDUL BYA RIGS CAN GZUN NA RANG RANG GYI THAR PAR GRUB PA'I LAM BDUN DGOS If your mission is to help all living creatures, then you should have a big toolkit. Like, I don't know, Jared gave me a big belt, a real carpenter's belt. I can't wear it because it pulls my pants down because I don't have any butt.

But anyway, sometimes I hold it up. But there's room for like 18 different tools there. And if you're a good carpenter, you don't go to a job without the tools because you're going to have to get in the car and go to Home Depot and spend half the money you're making on the job.

You get your tools ready before you go because you don't know what's going to be the situation when you get there. You might have to repaint the wall after you mess it up. You better take some painting tools.

You know what I mean? You should have every possible tool that you might use. If you're a shayadun, if you're a stated mission, declared mission, that's good, declared.

If your declared mission is to go out and save every living being, then you better know a lot of different tricks for getting enlightened, even if you personally don't need them. Even if they're not something that you personally need. You should learn a lot of spiritual methods that might be necessary for someone who you're teaching or someone who you are guiding.

So you should have a big, what do you call it? Selection of spiritual methods in your repertoire. Big recipe book.

Because you never know what they might want to eat. You don't want to have just like a Mexican cooking or just French cooking. You should have a couple of books with you or a bunch of books with you.

DROD GOS ZHING DE YANG RANG GI MA SHES PAR GZHAN LA BSTAN PAR MI GNAS TE Look, if you don't know those methods, then how are you going to teach them to other people? So you have to at least get very familiar with all the different methods, even if they seem to contradict each other. See, that's how he got into this.

Maybe you don't need Hinayana or maybe you're concentrating on the higher teachings, secret teachings or something like that. But you must know all the teachings because you might need to pull them out to help somebody. RNAM BRAL LAS THAG CHUN DE RGYUD GOG GYUR PA DE BYED PA NI RGA BA YIN Then he quotes a very difficult text which Nyingbo is teaching on Friday, which is called Pramana Vartika, the commentary on valid perception.

It's a treatment of how we perceive things. How does perception work? Why when we look at a thing with four circles do we see a car?

What happens between seeing four circles and thinking car? What is the process? Which also gets into formal logic.

How is it that people think? How is it that the mind works? Very beautiful book by Dharma Kirti.

There's two Kirtis. Everybody gets them mixed up. Don't feel bad.

Dharma Kirti is that one. The other one is Chandi Kirti. He writes about emptiness.

I went and got this quotation because I was curious. Because it's too short. He only quoted two lines.

I thought I wanted to see the whole thing. I was very fortunate when I was younger. Geshe Thubten Rinchen is one of my main scripture teachers.

I think he's the greatest scripture teacher in the world. I've seen many. His teacher was Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk.

He did not get out of Tibet.

[Говорящий 2] (27:39 - 27:47)
He couldn't get out of Tibet. He was stuck. He was in prison like many Lamas.

[Говорящий 1] (27:50 - 28:02)
But I guess it was in the late 80s, he was allowed to visit India if he came back by a certain date.

[Говорящий 2] (28:04 - 28:31)
Because he was doing some special teaching in Tibet. He had an official position. He was allowed to come for a short visit to India.

He came to the monastery and he brought with him this pile of papers. He said, while I was in prison, I had time to write a commentary on Dharmakirti. I snuck it out.

[Говорящий 1] (28:32 - 28:52)
Because nobody would do a commentary on Dharmakirti unless they had 20 years in prison. He's so difficult. No one would even worry about it.

He snuck out these papers and we printed it. It's a two-volume commentary.

[Говорящий 2] (28:53 - 29:06)
There hasn't been a commentary like that written in 500 years. It's beautiful. It's really beautiful.

So I had the honor to edit it and get it ready for publication. I was going to...

[Говорящий 1] (29:06 - 30:50)
The quotation says, THAB CHUNG DE'I RGYUD GOG GYUR BA GOG GYUR PA DE BYAS PA NI RGA BA YIN THAB LA'I CHUNG BA'I SDUG BSGOGS NYID DANG DE'I RGYUD KUN LAM GYI BSTAN PA RNAMS GOG TU GYUR PA YIN THAB LA'I CHUNG BA'I SDUG BSGOGS I'll read you the... This is tough. I don't know.

I enjoy going deeper. So I'm going deeper. Then if it's too much for you, you can think about something else.

THAB CHUNG means came from the method. DE'I RGYUD means that cause. GOG GYUR YUD NO means hidden to normal perceptions like deep workings of karma.

Like what's the karma that created the pattern on the carpet right now? What did we all do in the past to see that particular pattern? It's beyond our ken.

We can't see it. We don't know. There is a cause.

There is a karmic cause for the pattern on the carpet. But we don't know. That's GOG GYUR to us.

GOG GYUR DE'I RGYUD PA NI To explain that, GA WA YIN would be difficult. So it doesn't make any sense unless you have a commentary. He wrote, I think, the greatest commentary, which is really cool.

For somebody in modern times to write the best commentary on something that's been around for 1,000, 1,500 years, that's pretty cool. To know him is pretty cool. He died in a car accident.

[Говорящий 2] (30:51 - 31:17)
We think we got word that we were told he was killed in a car accident. We don't know how. We don't know what really happened.

In Tibet. So you'd never know. In those times, you don't know what really happened.

THAB PA'I CHUNG BA So he's saying, it refers to two of the Arya truths.

[Говорящий 1] (31:17 - 40:39)
It's core. Two of the Arya truths. Which two are causes and which two are results?

Let's start with results. I'll go through the four. We are suffering.

There's a reason why we are suffering. There is an end to it and there's a way to end it. These two are causes.

The second and the fourth. The first and the third are results. Suffering and the end of suffering come from making karma and following the path.

So THAB PA'I CHUNG BA means, he says, it's those things which came from THAB. Those things which came from something, other cause. But he doesn't want to say cause.

Why? He doesn't want to say RGYUD LAS CHUNG. See, he said THAB PA'I CHUNG.

He doesn't want to say that the first truth and the third truth came from a cause. Why? Does suffering come from a cause?

Does the end of suffering come from a cause? Anything which comes from a cause is changing and can be lost, can be changed. Is your release from suffering final?

If it's not, then it's not a very good, then liberation is not so cool. I mean, we kind of like to assume that our liberation will be permanent. But anything that has a cause is not permanent.

So it's a little tricky. He's being very subtle. He doesn't want to call it something that comes from a cause.

It's very interesting. It comes from certain actions. By the way, the conundrum is solved traditionally by saying the achievement of your liberation has a cause.

Achieving liberation has a cause. The liberation, you can't describe it. The body of a Buddha is not described as changing.

It's unchanging. So it cannot have had a cause. The reaching of it has a cause, but not the body of an enlightened being.

It's very interesting. Okay. So anyway, THAB CHEN DE'I RGYUD GOG GYUR BA The reasons why we can achieve the first and third truths are GOG GYUR, means what?

Yeah, no normal person can see them directly. They are hidden to normal people's minds. Are they hidden to our minds?

Is the cause of suffering not something we can understand? Can we understand the cause of suffering or not? You can.

Can we understand the path to end it? Yeah, you can. Unless you decided it wasn't worth learning because you didn't need it.

Okay, got it? Unless you decided, I'm a Tantrica. I don't need to go study Abhidharma.

Let me just concentrate on Vajrayogini all the time. I'm beyond that. I don't need that stuff.

That's just philosophy. I'm off on a higher thing now. And then if you thought that, and then you ignored those foundations, I don't like to call them beginning teachings or lower teachings.

I like to call them foundation teaching. If you ignore the foundation, then to you they will be GOG GYUR. Those foundation teachings will be beyond your perception.

And then BYAS PA NI RGA it would be difficult for you to share them with others. Got it? So that's the quotation.

Two lines from Dharmakirti, Master Dharmakirti. In the monastery every year for three months we study Dharmakirti. Three months of the syllabus in every 12 months is devoted to Dharmakirti.

And sometimes we only cover a page in a month. Okay, it's beautiful. And that's when we do the inter-monastic debates.

BYAMS KUN CHUD For one month of those three months we compete with other monasteries. So they will bring a team. We rotate among the great monasteries.

So Sara gets it every third year. And then the other monasteries send teams. And we go all night sometimes.

SEMS PA'I DAM BYAM means all night. You debate all night. And then you don't cover one page in a month.

It's like, he's unbelievable. And so Nyingpo is going to teach hundreds of pages on Friday. BYAS SUM DE NA BYANG CHUB SEMS PAS THEG PA GSUM GYI LAM ZHES PA'I LAM ZHES RGYUD LA SKYES PA NI GZHAN DON SGRUB PA'I YAN NA LTUNG NGES PA DGOS PA MDOR LAS KYANG So we haven't had a chance, I haven't had a chance to teach you Prajnaparamita.

It takes 12 years in the monastery. The root text is the Abhisamaya Avankara Mantokhyen, the Ornament of Realizations, written by Maitreya, spoken by Maitreya to a Sangha. And it's the first 12 years of the monastic curriculum.

And I have never taught you that. I put a little bit in course number two, a few pages, but it's thousands of pages. And I don't know, when we have some time we can do that.

In the monastery it takes 12 years. The root text is 70 pages long. And it starts out with NYEN THOS SHI BA MTSO RNAMS KUN SHEN GNYIS KYI GNYEN ZHIG RGYUN ZHIG BYANG CHUB PA BYANG CHUB SEMS PA LAM GZHAN GNYIS KYI GCIG RTEN DON DU GRUB PA BYED PA GANG GANG DAG YANG DAG LDAN PA'I GRUB PA RNAMS MEN KUN DANG NYAL TSOR GYIS GSUNGS PA GNYEN DU BYANG CHUB SEMS PA'I TSOGS CHE BYANG CHUB SANGS RGYAS KYIS NI LAM GYI LA CHAGS SA LO These are the opening lines of the Prajnaparamita. Okay, we'll do it again.

So the main subject of most of that 12 years on 70 pages is SHI SHES LAM SHES NAM KHYEN SEMS SE SHI SHES LAM SHES NAM KHYEN SHI SHES LAM SHES NAM KHYEN So SHI SHES basically, very roughly, means the perception of emptiness by someone on the lower path, in the lower track, on the two lower tracks. LAM SHES then means the perception of emptiness by a bodhisattva. And then NAM KHYEN, what would be higher than that?

The perception of emptiness by an enlightened being. So then that's the subject of Prajnaparamita. That's the subject of the lower half of the Middle Way School.

So is it necessary for us to study SHI SHES, for example? Is it relevant for us to explore how a person on a lower track perceives emptiness directly? And the teachings they get to get there, which are those lower flavors of Mahamudra that you were taught, is it useful for us to study them?

Yeah, I mean, obviously. Even the Buddha said you should understand these three great levels of spiritual realization. How does a person who's not yet a bodhisattva see emptiness?

And how do they train to see emptiness? And what do they think emptiness is? And then how does a bodhisattva see emptiness, who's not enlightened yet?

And then how does an enlightened being perceive emptiness? How do they perceive it? So this is the subject of the entire Prajnaparamita.

So to say that it's not useful for me to study the lower schools, he's trying to say it's ridiculous. You spend 12 years learning the lower schools and the whole study is a lower school. Got it?

The whole 12 years is a lower school. The whole 12 years spent studying the lower and lower schools is a lower school. And you're telling me it's not necessary?

Or you're telling me it's contradictory somehow? Or that you don't need it? Or you don't have to learn it?

Got it? He's just saying a bodhisattva should learn everything. Master Shantideva goes further.

What does Master Shantideva say? He says, you see somebody broken down on the side of the road and some mechanics leaning over the engine? You stop.

You get out. You watch what he does. You watch what they do.

Someone's putting chains on their tires in the snow? Stop and watch how they do it.

[Говорящий 2] (40:40 - 40:48)
Rinpoche forced me to go down and watch the guy clean the furnace in New Jersey and learn how to take it apart and put it back together, including his Volkswagen.

[Говорящий 1] (40:49 - 41:26)
I had to take it apart one day and put it back together. The whole engine. And he said, I want you to know how it works.

Why? It might help somebody sometime. You should know everything.

You should be interested. Languages also. You go to Guadalajara.

You should, on the drive to the retreat, you should learn some Spanish. And you never know. It might help somebody someday.

So Master Shantideva makes it bigger. All knowledge is worth having. Maybe it will help someone someday.

You could fix somebody's furnace or something.

[Говорящий 2] (41:26 - 41:35)
But it was terribly boring and dirty. I didn't want to do it.

[Говорящий 1] (41:35 - 41:56)
Okay. YID BLANG KHANG YIN PA'I LAM THAMS CAD KHYAD PAR BYA SHING THAMS CAD BSHAD PAR BYA'O And then he quotes Lord Buddha. Rabjor.

Who's Rabjor? I hate these afternoon classes. Everyone's more sleepy than me.

Who's Rabjor? Subuddhi.

[Говорящий 2] (42:01 - 42:06)
He's the nude-naked student in the Diamond Cutter who keeps asking dumb questions.

[Говорящий 1] (42:07 - 1:00:39)
And then in Tibet later they decided he was Manjushri. The God of Wisdom. He was masquerading as an irritating student.

So you never know. Rabjor chakshin seman nam kyi ni MYAN DUG GI LAM KHANG YIN PA DANG RANG SANGS RGYAS GI LAM KHANG YIN PA DANG SANGS RGYAS GI LAM KHANG YIN PA'I LAM THAMS CAD KHYAD PAR BYA SHING He says to Subuddhi, bodhisattvas should master and in fact they should develop within them the path which is shared with the lowest levels. They should learn them and they should actually go through them themselves.

You should study all the spiritual methods there are and you should actually get good at them even if they're not something that you need personally. Like some people they're already, what do you call it, overwhelmed by the fragility of life and they don't need someone taking them through a whole training about why their country is going to fall apart next year and why they're going to be working in a Libyan sweatshop next year. It's too much.

They're already nervous. I don't need that Geshe Michael. I already feel threatened enough by life.

Yeah, that's okay. But you should experience each thing that you're going to ever teach somebody. You see what I mean?

You should go through it yourself. Take the medicine yourself even if you don't need it right now to get good at it and then you can share it with somebody else. It's like certain kinds of yoga.

Like I did Ashtanga for three years. It doesn't suit me personally. It makes me angry.

And Bikram. Bikram gives me a terrible headache, like a three-day headache. Every time I try.

I've tried it like six times. Last time I was laying down in the parking lot and the barge and nobles and the guard came and hassled me. I said, man, I'm sick.

He says, yeah, yeah, get out of the parking lot. Anyway, but I still thought I should go to the class and see how they do it because people will ask me and then I should have experienced it. Okay.

LAM BSTAN GCOD ZHES PA BYA'O ZHES DANG RGYEN LAS KYANG, SBYOR LA PHAN PA'I PHYIN NAM NA, ZHES NYID KYI JI GNAS GRUB DU BYAS PA GANG, GANG PA YANG DANG DE PA'I THUN DANG NUN GOM KUN DANG NA TSUL DI GSUM PA NYAN DU BYANG CHUB SEMS PAS SOGS CIG BYANG CHUB KYI NI YUN DE LA BYAMS SEL LO Okay, so he quotes the Abhidharmakara. He quotes some of the famous lines from the Abhidharmakara which state that we should learn the three paths. We should master them and we should develop them.

NUN NA SEMS PA GANG, ZHES SEMS PA DANG, ZHES YANG, THOB CHE SANG GI GYI RGYUN KUN RGYUN KUN ZHES YUN LDAN KUN DE YIN YIN PAS DE RGYUB PA'I LAM TE PA CHEN PO YANG, RGYUN GYI RIG THA DAG GOGS CING YIN LDAN GYI RIG THA DAG RGYUB PA BYAS PA ZHIG DGOS LA Then he points out that look, the basic quality, the basic nature of an enlightened being is that they have overcome all obstacles and all problems within their being, within their own being.

All faults have been overcome. Each fault, like anger, jealousy, competitiveness, desire, they had also 84,000 different flavors of negative thoughts. And so they also had to apply 84,000 different antidotes.

In their personal spiritual journey, an enlightened being has applied 84,000 antidotes to their own being, right? So if an enlightened being is described as someone who has one-by-one picked off all their negativities and one-by-one gained every positive quality, DE RGYUB PA'I LAM TE PA CHEN PO YANG RGYUN GYI RIG THA DAG GOGS CING YIN LDAN GYI RIG THA DAG RGYUN RGYUB PA BYAS PA Therefore, the teaching itself must include, and it does include, 84,000 different spiritual methods. And they're not contradictory and they're all useful.

That's the point. RGYUN NA RE ZAL BA DANG YIN LDAN NA RE SKYES PA MI BYAS PAS ZHUNG RAB GANG YANG MED PAS There is no teaching by the Buddha, by the enlightened beings, which doesn't help to remove some personal fault or help to develop some personal quality. There is no teaching that doesn't help us with some part of ourselves.

MED PAS THAMS CAD THEG PA CHEN PAS YANG LAG TU NGES PAR BDU BA DE LTAR RE Therefore, we can say that even the foundational teachings, like the Hinayana, are part of the Mahayana. He's pretty radical there. He says, when you think about it, then the Hinayana is part of the Mahayana because the Mahayana is meant to remove all faults and develop all the high qualities in a person.

So all the teachings at every level can be considered part of the higher way. I think you could go further than that and say that all the teachings the Buddha ever gave are part of tantra. You think you could say that?

Okay, NGES PAR BDU. DE YANG ZHIP DU CHEN NA, CHOS BYAS LUNG GI BSTAN PA THAMS CAD RGYAL MED DU RTOG PA'I TSUL DANG, CHOS BYAS RTOG PA'I BSTAN PA THAMS CAD RGYAL MED DU RTOG BU TSUL NUS NYID MYUR CING He says, appreciate the fact that within the written scriptures of the Buddhist path, there are no two sentences which contradict each other. The words which are used to express or convey spiritual methods, none of them are contradictory.

They are meant to inspire within your mind certain ideas. Certain ideas are supposed to pop into your head and you're supposed to get certain realizations. For example, I'll just give one example.

If someone's critical to you, if someone criticizes you, then if you have trained properly, the minute they criticize you, the first thing your mind goes to is, yeah, what did I do last week? Who was I critical of last week? A well-trained spiritual person, a well-trained yogi.

It doesn't even cross their mind to dislike this person or to be angry at this person. Their immediate reaction is, who did I criticize last week? They almost ignore this person.

This person's like, you're stupid. You can't do anything. You can't sing either.

You're like, who did I say that to? It kind of disarms people, the attacker. Because you're like, who did I yell at last week?

Then they want you to say something or they want some kind of reaction out of you. You're like, I'll have to stop yelling. That's just one practical understanding that is conveyed to you by certain scriptures or certain teachings.

You go to a teaching, somebody says something, or you read a book like Master Shantideva and it says something. Then you mull it over at home. Ther sam gom, right?

You hear, you mull it over, and then you meditate, you practice it. Somebody says, hey, you know, the last time your wife criticized you is because you criticized somebody at work. Like somebody says that in a teaching or you get that out of a scripture.

Then you get a certain idea comes in your head. What? It's coming from me.

I must have done something last week. Then you examine your life and you fix it and you stop yelling at people. You stop being critical.

Because it's not fun to be criticized. So you say, I'm going on a campaign. For six months I'm not going to be critical of anybody.

Then I'm just going to shut all these people down. This is the preferred way to get rid of a boss that you don't like, because it's permanent. They never come back.

And I did it. I don't have any bosses. Well, one, but anyway.

That's a voluntary boss. So anyway, not only are the scriptures which conveyed these high spiritual ideas to us internally consistent, but the ideas which pop into our head once we've studied them are perfectly consistent also. Got it?

That's his big deal. That's his big point he wants to make. If you study the Lam Rim, you will come to see that none of the hundreds of ideas that the Buddha taught, those scriptures, tantra, Vinaya, you won't realize that none of them are contradictory.

They all are one big happy flow. And beyond that, when you start understanding their meaning, those ideas are going to fit into your head like a jigsaw puzzle and it will make a huge beautiful picture at the end. Each little piece, each little idea, concept, will have its place in your mind and then it will all fill in nicely and then you'll be enlightened.

So not only are the scriptures that we use to express the ideas internally consistent completely, but the ideas themselves, once they get stuck in your head, have a perfect consistency and they make you a perfectly wise person and you start to think really perfectly. What would happen if the whole world thought that everybody who was criticizing them was their own fault? I mean, can you imagine a world without argument?

A world in which no single person thinks it's useful to argue. Can you imagine such a world? Because that's what would happen.

And that's just one idea. And then all those ideas together are like a big crossword. What do you call it?

Jigsaw puzzle. And they all fit perfectly. I learned last week the Chinese word for jigsaw puzzle, but I forgot it already.

Anyway. ,DNGON DU ZHUGS PA LTAR, ,DE NAS GSUM DANG RGYU DE ZHI, ,SOGS SUM RAB GONG BRAL DANG, ,CHAD PAR GANG ZHAG CI TZAM RGYAL BA'I NYAM DANG, ,DU ZHIG STON PA LAS, So he's summarizing the three baskets of Buddhist teachings, the three great groups of the Buddhist teachings, which we'll talk about, I think later, maybe the day after tomorrow. And tantra, those four great corners of the carpet.

Did we get into that? And the dice and all that? I think we're about to get there.

We didn't talk about dice yet? No. All right.

So you can call it the four pillars maybe or the four corners of the Buddhist teaching. And we'll get into it. All of them together are one big happy recipe to get any particular person to enlightenment.

Rinpoche used to go off on this thing. Ken Rinpoche, my teacher, when he taught this, there's an old saying in the monastery. He would get a ball of, it's called khor in India.

What's khor? It's brown sugar. It's a big lump of brown sugar.

Like if you can't afford white sugar in India, you use khor. And it's unprocessed sugar. And then he would say, the teachings are like a big ball of khor and you can bite it.

You taste it from any direction and it's still sweet. It's the same sweetness. So you can, he would constantly talk about, I think as a kid he must have stolen them or something.

He did stuff like that. And then he'd say, it doesn't matter which side you lick it from, it tastes the same. ,GANG ZAG CI TZAM RGYAL YIN, ,ZHI BSTOD PA, They are ZHI BSTOD PA.

They're all components of one clever gadget. Okay. ,ZHI BSTOD PA TZAM MED, ,RGYAL GYEN DU GRO BA, ,BYUNG SA'I TZAM YANG MED PA, And there's no way in which they are at the least bit contradictory, that they contradict each other in the least bit.

,KHO BA DE, ,RUNG GI BRTAN PA THAMS CAD RGYAL MED DU, ,RTOGS SU YIN, So he's summarizing. When you see that every single Buddhist teaching is part of one big ball of sugar, then you have reached the understanding of the first of the four greatnesses of the lamrim. ,DE DAG GIS GCOD BYANG, ,GNGON MTHO LHA MED GO PHANG, ,THOB BYED KYIS RGYU, ,MI DGE BA CHUG PONG TSUL TSUL KHRIMS SOGS, ,SKYE BU CHUNG BA DANG, What's the lamrim teaching?

Well, first of all, it's teaching the path for people of least capacity. Less capacity. Lowest capacity.

And it's teaching them how to just stay in a... how to avoid a bad rebirth. Basically, just how to avoid something bad happening to you after you die.

If you don't believe in rebirth, then you can just say something bad happening to you after you die. That we can put our minds around, right? That you can wrap your mind around.

It's conceivable that something bad could happen to you after you die. Don't call it rebirth. Because when you say rebirth, you get into, I don't believe that.

But everybody knows they're going to die and something might happen afterwards. Call it whatever. THOB BYED KYIS RGYU, ,MI DGE BA CHUG PONG, MI DGE BA CHUG PONG The way to handle that situation is MI DGE BA CHUG PONG.

MI DGE BA CHUG means the ten harmful deeds. The ten ways of hurting other people. Killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, slander, harsh words, idle gossip, craving ill will, and wrong view.

These are ten ways of hurting other people. Avoid them and nothing bad will happen after you die. ,DEN ZHIG SBYUNG RDOG, ,STAM LHAG PA GSUM SOGS, ,GNYIS LAG THAR PA THOB BYED RNAMS, ,SKYE BU DRING Then we move up to people of medium capacity.

They are studying subjects like DEN GZHI, what's DEN GZHI, DEN PA GZHI? The four truths, which we've been through twice already. The four truths.

Suffering, why it's happening, that you can stop it, and then how you stop it. Those four. DEN GZHI SBYUNG RDOG SBYUNG RDOG means how you get into trouble and how you get out of trouble by using the four.

So number one and number two are trouble. Number three and number four are how you get out of trouble. SBYUNG RDOG Then LHAG PA GSUM and the three trainings which we'll talk about later.

These are subjects for people of medium capacity. They not only prevent you from having something bad happen after you die, but they allow you to achieve nirvana. Your own personal freedom from suffering.

Which doesn't help other people. Just that. Those people of medium capacity.

SEMS SKYES CING RDZUGS SOGS NYES LAS THAMS CAD KHYEN PA THOB CAD RNAMS SKYES BU CHEN PO Then there's the teachings for people of great capacity, which you can say the desire to reach enlightenment, to help all beings, and the six activities, the six perfections that you undertake to help the people. Those are the subjects of the people of greater capacity. That summarizes the whole book.

The whole ten years, it just got summarized. THOB CAD RNAMS SKYES BU CHEN PO RNAMS DU GZUN NAS GZOD BYA DE THAMS CAD GANG ZAG GCIG TZAM RGYAL BA'I NYAMS RNAMS DU ZHIG THON PA LAS All of those are one huge, beautiful structure which allows any particular human being to achieve enlightenment. It doesn't matter who you are.

Contained in those is everything you need. So to say that those three levels are somehow contradictory is a mistake, right? They build on each other.

GO BA'I THOB PA CHUNG TSE TZAM YANG MED PAR GO BA DE THOB PA'I BRTAN PA THAMS CAD RGYAL MA'I DU THOB PA'I TSUL YIN So if you appreciate that fact, then you have comprehended the first greatness of the Lamrim teachings. And that in itself is a Lamrim. Be careful about the word Lamrim.

Lamrim means a kind of book which teaches all the steps to enlightenment. But each step is also called a Lamrim. So when the Lama says Lamrim, you got to ask him, are you talking about all the Lamrims together or are you talking about any particular Lamrim?

All right.