«Дар освобождения», курс 5 «Обрести то, кем нам всегда суждено было стать», занятие 3

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 1:05:08)
So we've been talking about what makes this kind of teaching, this Steps on the Path teaching special, and what makes it so beautiful and powerful. And we reached a point where we talked about the idea of kadampa. Sometimes they call kadampa shalwa.

And it means that you reach a point in your life if you study well, if you meditate well, if you serve others well Mexican dinners, then you'll reach a point in your life where your heart is good enough that every scripture you open, wherever you open it, the line that you read, the line that you set your eyes upon seems to be meant for you personally. It seems to be a message from God or something like that. Okay, and then we said that you could grow further in that experience to where every time you listen to a song on the radio or every time you look at Time magazine or even the Arizona Republic, that it would strike you that God or somebody was talking to you through the radio songs or through the newspaper or something.

That's the phenomenon known as kadampa, okay? Kadampa shalwa. And it's a very beautiful place.

I imagine that if you went further from that, then all your interactions with people throughout the day would become kadampa shalwa, right? Whatever they said, whatever they did, would strike you as a personal, a beneficent message from divine being. And then I don't know how much that would differ from heaven, you see?

I think that's the point of the whole exercise, you see? I don't know, if you seem to be in the company of angels all day long, right? Then it seems like you made it there, you know?

That's it, thy kingdom come, there will be unearthed as it is in heaven, right? Then I think the distinction between earth and sky, earth and heaven would sort of disappear, maybe, okay? So that's the beauty of the idea of kadampa, okay?

So we're going to talk more about that. BYANG CHUB LAM GYI RIM PA DI LTA BU DANG BYANG RAG CHOS RIM PHANG BYAS DANG LAG TU MI CHAGS PAS DE YANG DANG LAG GI CHOG So unless you are able to meet up in your life with a particularly inspiring tradition, you might never get to kadampa, you see what I mean? Unless someone, it takes training to have magic happen, okay?

We like to think of magic as spontaneous, but magic happens more regularly with well-trained people, okay, and you can even train yourself to a point where magic is happening all the time, okay? So he says, you are more likely to have these beautiful experiences in your life if someone trains you in the spiritual arts, right? It could be dance, it could be meditation, it could be music, it could be study, it could be memorizing, right, yoga.

But if you have a teacher and they train you, you're more likely to have these beautiful experiences. The point is to try to make them happen all the time. I think all of us have moments of magic in our life, and then we would like to see if there were a way to make it happen all the time, and that takes training.

Moments of magic in your life can happen spontaneously. To have your whole life be magic takes training, okay? DE YANG DANG AGI CHOG NI RGYAL BA'I SON RAB DANG When we say GA DANG PA, we mean everything strikes us as personal advice.

Then he says, the ultimate personal advice is like scripture, right, holy words. DE YANG DE GONG RGYAL ZHUNG CHEN PO RNAM DE And the books that were written to explain those words. DE YANG JIG RTEN GYI NA DANG AGTENG PA'I NAMA ZHIG LA THUG PA SANGS RGYAS CHEN PO'I MDAN NAS LHAG PA MED CING In this world, we have examples of enlightened beings who have granted us DANG PA, right, instruction, personal instruction.

DANG AGYENG DE SON RAB NAM CHOG TU GYUR PA YIN TE And we are fortunate in our world. There are worlds where there have not come enlightened beings. And then in our world, we're fortunate, right?

There are many. There's sort of an enlightened being for everybody. If you follow Islam, Muhammad is there.

If you follow Christianity, Jesus is there. If you follow Buddhism, Buddha is there. Everybody has somebody.

We are lucky. No, there are worlds, there are planets where nobody shows up, okay? And we just kind of sort of have somebody showing up for everybody.

So we're lucky. So, GYU LAMA LENG. Do you know any quotes to Gyu Lama?

Anybody remember what Gyu Lama is? Yeah, Uttara Tantra, which is not a tantra, okay. So there's a famous book by the next Buddha, by the coming Buddha, called Gyu Lama, okay?

And we're going to be talking about that, okay? Quotation. GANG PHYIR RGYA LAS BYAS KA GAYANG CI TENG DE NA YON MIN TE MA BUR DE NYID TSOR GNYIS TSUL SHING GUNG KHYEN GYI YIN PHYIN ZHIN RUNG PA DE SPYIR THAMSOR RANG NYID KYIS ZHAG DO DE GANG YIN DE MA THUG THUG TSUL ZHIG KHYER DE YANG DAM PHYIR LA NI MOD PAR BYAS PAR DGOS So now he's off on the subject of, there have been enlightened beings who have appeared in our world, like Jesus or Muhammad or Buddha, right? They have come in our world.

They have given teachings. They have given high teachings. And then he quotes the Dilamit which says, CIG RTEN, CIG RTEN DIN NA YONG MIN TE There's nothing higher than those teachings in this world.

We have high teachings in this world. MA DUD DE NI CHOK NI TSU SHIN KUN KEN NI NI KEN SHIN MIN PA We have beings have come in this world who are KUN KEN. What's KUN KEN, do you know?

KUN KEN means they know everything. Mr. Know-it-all, okay? Literally, right?

They can see the future. They can see the past. They can see everyone's minds, everyone's thoughts.

There are people like that. Then they have given teachings, okay? They've given us teachings.

DE PHYI'I TRANG SOR RANG NYID KYI ZHAG DO DE KHA YIN MA DU Then he says, even if you're a pretty high yogi, if you're a pretty serious yogi, don't mess with the teachings, you know? Don't inject your own opinions or your own thoughts. Don't try to fix what has been spoken by a being who knows all things.

The person who spoke the scripture that you're studying, two and a half thousand years ago, know he knew we would be talking tonight. So we don't have to adjust anything. What he said, he said with the knowledge of what would happen tonight and a thousand years from now and a million years from now, okay?

So DE NYID MA THUG means don't try to improve on it with your own made-up stuff because you will mess it up. THUG means mess it up, okay? MRR, THUG THUG ZHIG GYUR In fact, you run the risk of destroying the teaching, right?

You take a perfectly good recipe and you throw in a few of your, you take Julia Child's, one of her recipes, and then you decide you're going to improve on it. And you insert a bunch of, what's that called? There's some spice, tarragon, where she said not to use it.

She didn't say to use tarragon. You thought tarragon might be nice. Tarragon in a dish that it's not supposed to be in is a disaster, right?

And then you start spreading it on the internet and suddenly you've ruined Julia Child, okay? All right, got it? Like the problem about messing with the recipe is that your version might get on the internet and everyone might start using it and you're going to ruin everybody's beef bourguignon.

CHOS LA NI GNOD PA CHE BA GYUR GNOD PA CHE BA GYUR means you will damage the Dharma. You will damage the teachings. So don't try to insert your own ideas.

The person, it strikes me as very funny, you know? People say, I'm a Buddhist teacher. I say, okay, you're a Buddhist teacher.

And then they say, I need to, this stuff's not so good. I got to fix it. I say, you're a Buddhist teacher, right?

Yeah, what do you follow? Buddhism. Who spoke the Buddhist teachings?

Buddha. What's Buddha mean? What's Buddha mean?

Buddha means woke up. Buddha means, you know, omniscient. Oh, so you're fixing something written by a guy who knew all things in all times in the whole universe?

Yeah, yeah. I'm fixing, when he spoke and he knew we would be here tonight, okay? You don't need to say there's something wrong with it or he wasn't hip enough or something like that.

He was as hip as he needed to be. Because he saw you, he saw you when he said it. He said it for you, got it?

Two and a half thousand years ago. You don't have to fix it, okay? You can update it.

You can make the presentation fresh, okay? You can bring the information to people in a new way. But the information is perfect.

But of course, it won't be perfect if you don't update it. If you don't present it in an interesting, engaging way for people in the modern world, then you've corrupted it. Got it?

That's interesting. If you try to teach it the way they taught it in 1920 to people in 2000, what's it, 11, then you run the risk of alienating people. Then you've corrupted the teaching by not updating it.

Got it? Okay, so it's a delicate balance. Don't change the information.

Make it interesting for your generation. You have to, okay? If you have to get up and play jazz songs or something, you have to do it.

DE NA TEN SANGYAL LASUM RAB GANGYUR RINPOCHE LTA BU LA RINPOCHE PA'I DUS KHO BA TZAM ME So now, there's the Kangyur, right? These are the scriptures of Buddhism. These are the Bible of Buddhism, right?

There are 1,500 teachings by the Buddha in the Kangyur, okay? But in Tibet, a weird thing happened, all right? The Kangyur became an object of veneration.

The books became an object of veneration and nobody read them, okay? When I started the Input Project 24 years ago, we wanted to input the Kangyur in Tengyur. Nobody had a copy.

The Tengyur, there was no copy in India. You couldn't find a copy in India, okay? We smuggled it out of Tibet.

We had it printed in Tibet. We sent $8,000 to a bank account. Just all we had was a number.

We didn't have the guy's name. We slipped $8,000 into a bank account in China and we waited. And 250 volumes showed up like three years later.

And they printed a new copy from the 1750 blocks, you know, and they didn't have a copy in India, okay? Everybody just thought these are the old, beautiful, ancient books and no one read them, you know? So that happened.

That happens, right? Dukkho Atthambay, he says, don't think these ancient scriptures, like what Nyingbo's going to teach, Venerable Nyingbo's going to teach something on Friday. So it's a very difficult subject and the book is very difficult, okay?

And he's going to, and a lot of people would think, I don't need to learn that. It's too complicated, right? Just teach me something simple, right?

Teach me something simple and don't overdo it, you know? And then the great classics come to be not taught because no one understands them anymore. The great, the difficult classics, no one starts to teach, okay?

Then you miss the beauty and you miss the knowledge that's contained within. So Nyingbo, you know, he's, frankly, he's going to take a very difficult text and hit you on the head with it. And you're lucky there's someone alive who can do it, right?

Okay, so anyway, Pabongkha Rinpoche is ragging on people who, they just use the Kangyur for ceremonies. They take the book, they don't even open it up. They take that wrapped up book and they do ceremony with it and nobody reads it, okay?

Chögyam, because they think this is not, they think this is not a practical book. This is not a book I can practice every morning, okay? Like, okay, I appreciate this big philosophy thing, but there's philosophy books and then there are little books about how to practice, right?

How to do your meditation at home, how to do your yoga. There are little books. And then there's big books.

And for my personal practice, all I need is a little book, okay? And he's ragging on people who think like that, because everything is kathampa, got it? The classics are also kathampa.

You don't have to avoid the great commentaries because for a person who's in the right state of mind, they become personal advice, okay? There's no distinction between a great classic and a little book that tells you how to meditate or something like that, okay? DE GONG GYEL ZHING DAG CHEN PO'I ZHUNG NON NAM LA'ANG THOB PA DANG TSOS PA'I TSE KO BA TZAM MA TOG Then there got to be this attitude in the monasteries in Tibet.

When we debate in the monastery or when we have programs in the monastery, we can use the great classics of Buddhism. But then when we go out and meet common people, we should just teach them Om Mani Padme Hum mantra or something like that. They didn't think that normal people could take the classics and learn to use them in their own life, okay?

And I'm proud of the DCI. I'm proud of the Diamond Cutter Institute because really the whole point of it is that we take the real classics, we take the great teachings, and then we just give it to people in a way that everyone can understand. I don't know, 800 people came to the talk in Taipei.

700 people came in Singapore, right? And they're all business people or they're all housewives or they're all career managers, diplomats. The ambassador of Ireland came, huh?

And we found a way to give them these things without even calling it Buddhism. We didn't call it Buddhism. Nobody, we didn't say Buddhism, you know?

And they just got a practice they could use from the great books, okay? Dhamma kadampa, okay? So learn the, what he's saying is that learn the great classics, you know?

Take the time, struggle. You know, I'm sitting up here teaching you. It took me 30 years.

It took 30 years, right? Learn it, take the trouble to learn it. And then sit down at Shimbuka, what's Shimbuka?

Starbucks, okay? In Taiwan, or I forget, they call it Shimbuka or Singapore. They call Starbucks Shimbuka.

And they say, take someone to Starbucks and teach them this in your own words and make it digestible to them. And they don't have to know it's Buddhism because who cares, you know? If it helps their life, who cares what picture they have up at home?

You know, people say to me, I'm going to put a big picture up in my home. What? I want a 12-armed Yamantaka in my house, you know?

I said, come on. This Irish guy told me that. I said, when your daughter gets married, you're going to marry her in front of a 12-armed blue guy?

He says, no, no, Geshe Michael, I'm taking her to the cathedral with some organ music. I said, are you going to bang on the cymbals? And you know, no, no, we're going to the cathedral.

So let it be, you know? Just go ahead, be a good Irish Catholic and then practice this. And you know, be kind to other people, be good to other people, do good things for others.

And that's enough. It doesn't matter what your family, whatever your mother was, keep it up. It's okay.

You know, you're not going to marry your daughter in a basement somewhere with a 12-armed blue guy on the wall. You know, go get married in the church. And it's okay.

And then learn these things and share it with people. It doesn't matter what they are, okay? It really doesn't matter.

Kadampa, okay? Kadampa. All right.

Ksitigarbha, Superset. So some people got the idea that you only need these books for when we're debating or when we're studying in the monastery. Only Geshes need these books.

Loknyar Tharchenbe Tseghyang Dasa Nyamana Chirenpanna Ranggimitse Sripur Tso Sam Kyi Khantang Lhapapate Nyamantujyumishepa So he's complaining about people who spend their whole life in the monastery, right? They go through the whole Geshe course. Then they finish their Geshe and they say, now I'm going to do a retreat.

Now I'm going into a three-year retreat. Then they go to some Lama and they say, what should I practice in three-year retreat? And then Pabongka was just like throwing rocks at them.

My God, you just spent 20 years during your Geshe. You don't have an idea about what to practice? Maybe you could pull something out of your 20 years of study and meditate on that.

He gets really upset. They go to some Lama and they say, okay, now I'm ready for a long retreat. What should I do?

You've been studying for 20 years. Meditate on that. That's the whole point.

He gets really upset. Nyamantujyumishepa Kayamishepa Kayamishepa gomchen dupapa They are, kayamishepa means know nothings. They are fools.

They are yogi fools. Big yogi fools. Gomchen means big yogi.

Kayamishepa means idiot. They are idiot big yogis. They're going to go to a cave and then after 20 years of study, they're asking somebody, what should I do?

What should I meditate about, Geshe Michael? Trung du chhi ne, chaya duktak dang sem lo sok So they go around asking for some tantric thing. Give me some deity, Geshe Michael.

People trade deities like baseball cards. I don't feel so good about yamantaka, I'm thinking about white tar, but I'm kind of tending towards bio, but Chakrasam was okay. I'm like, you don't have to buy and sell tantric deities, okay?

So sem lo means do some weird practice. Like somebody, you spend 10 years in an ACI courses, then you go do a retreat and you run into somebody in a yoga class who tells you some weird thing like, what was this? I was in Flagstaff at the Barnes and Nobles, right?

It was a really bad snowstorm. And this couple came in and they looked super down. They looked really down and sad, you know?

And then I, you know, I felt so bad. They just looked, they was crying, the lady was crying. So I like took them some tea and all, and I said, you know, what's your names?

And you know, where are you from? And they said, we're from New Mexico. I'm like, well, why you look so upset?

They said, the road is closed. The highway is closed to West. You can't get to California today unless you're in a helicopter or something.

Nobody can go. All the trucks have stopped. There's a huge line, a hundred miles of cars.

It's snowed out, you know? So I said, well, what's the problem? And they said, we have vegetables in the car.

You know, we grow vegetables on our little garden and we're taking them to sell out there. What do you call it? Farmer's market in California.

So I'm like, well, they said, we don't have any money for a motel or something like that. So I gave them a hundred bucks. I just gave them a hundred bucks.

I thought maybe they are special people or something. And then I'm like, wow, man, thank you so much. And then they said, we have stuff in the car.

We can give you some of the vegetables. And I'm like, well, what do you got? I thought maybe cucumbers or carrots.

They said we got, what is it called? Hiawaska. I thought they meant, what's that little white radish thing called?

Jicama. I thought they meant jicama, you know? And I said, well, you know, I kind of like Hiawaska, but you know, I'm not crazy about it.

Like I'll take two or three of them, you know? And then they're like, no, this is not jicama. This is Hiawaska.

Hiawaska is something like that. You know, I said, what's Hiawaska? You know, they said, man, you take that, you know, you see James, you know?

That's Semlo here, okay? That's Semlo. Semlo means somebody comes up to you and tells you some weird thing, you know?

You've been studying for 10 years. You've gone through 12 ACI courses. If you want to have a mystical experience, just meditate on kindness.

You don't need to take some weird thing, okay? Then these people, they go through a whole course. They go through a 10-year course.

They have countless things in their head that they can use to have a mystical experience. And then they're what? They're taking jicama.

He's criticizing that kind of people, okay? Semlo. So, lao na, nyam sum len, kul chepa.

Then they pretend to practice this new, weird thing, okay? Jatrungkabba chenpo. Jatrungkabba himself said, right?

The teacher of his holiness, the first dharma said, mang du thak kyang chukyipomba ni. There are people who have spent years in study and their dharma broke, okay? They've spent years in study and they are in a state of poverty as far as the dharma.

Chukyipomba means they've spent years studying and they don't have anything to show for it. Nothing, okay? Chukyipomba.

Sunap dampa sharwa me pen nom. The reason is they didn't realize that the plain old ACI courses that they were taught were a divine message from the tantric gods, okay? They didn't get it.

They thought it was just, I have to answer these three questions on the homework. Okay, it is that. It is three questions on the homework.

And it's also a message from the tantric deities, okay? It's both. And then he's really upset.

He gets really upset here. It's like, you give people this highest thing. You give them the ultimate ayahuasca and they don't realize they got it.

And they go look for something to eat. You see? A guy in Ireland, one of our students, his daughter died, okay?

She died. She went to Africa. She did some initiation.

There's a film of it. There's photos of it. And she took some stuff and it killed her.

And her heart stopped. And you don't need that thing, okay? You have, you've got the best mescaline.

It's in the ACI courses, okay? You don't need more. If you think you need more than that, then dhamma marshalwe nong.

Nong means it's the fault that you didn't get it. You didn't get that those homeworks and those quizzes and those translations were already a message from Chakrasambhava, okay? And if it didn't strike you that way, you have a problem.

And you have to work on it, okay? I get all these people, they say, I don't want to do the ACI courses. I want to do the Tantric courses.

You think they're different? If you think there's something different, then you have a real serious problem, okay? They are a message from Vajrayogini, okay?

Okay? All right. That's what Tsongkhapa is saying, okay?

You have it in your hands already. You've got the ayahuasca, whatever it is, already. CHE GSUM PA LTAR TSUL RAB DANG LHAG TU MAR SHAL WE KHYEN DE LTA BU CHUNG BA RE That's what it means to not be kadampa, okay?

If you think any one of the ACI course materials is not a message from a Tantric deity, you don't have kadampa. You're not kadampa, okay? Okay.

RANG RE DRAG SE GYE SHE SHIG GI KHAM SU PA YOD DU CHIN NI There was a geshe in our monastery. Which monastery did Pabongka Rinpoche come from? Sarame, which proves it's the best monastery, okay?

Which house, which college was he from? Gyero, which proves that's the best house in all of Sarame, in the world. Okay, it happens to be your house now, okay?

You are Gyero's house. He's the treasurer of our college, okay? He's considered the treasurer.

We got Pabongka Rinpoche. And now you are Gyero, because your teacher is Gyero. So you own Pabongka Rinpoche, okay?

All right. KHAM SU PA YOD DU CHIN NI So anyway, there was a guy from our monastery. So he's probably talking about Sarame.

A geshe, he went back to Kham, East Tibet. His payu, where he grew up, where he grew up as a kid. A lot of people from East Tibet walk to Central Tibet to do their geshe degree.

It takes like six months. They walk to their fasa, and they enroll. Gyero means a district which is on the Chinese border.

And if you were from there, when you get to fasa, you get free food and a bed. It's like Colorado house, Kansas house, okay? So you are Gyero.

How Khen Rinpoche got into Gyero growing up in fasa is another story, which we'll tell someday. GNYEN MED NA MA ZHIG TUNG DU Then he went to some local little shaman type guy. GNYEN MED NA MA ZHIG TUNG DU And he said, can you give me something to practice?

Can you give me a practice, okay? ZHUG NAS MED NA CHUNG CHUNG DRAG BSGOM PA'I Then the little shaman guy gave him a little thing he could do, just a little thing he could do. YOD DE MI RNAM NAS SKYE LUGS PA LA ZHIG CHUD TZAM MA'I Then the local people thought, look, this guy went to Sarame.

He studied for 20 years. What are they teaching people? What do they do?

What do they teach the Geshes? If he has to come back home and ask a shaman for a half hour practice, what did he do those 20 years while he was at Sarame? DANG LAG TUG PAS ZHIG CHUD TZAM MA'I GNYEN MED CHE GYUR CHUD MED THAG CHOD YIN PA RE Then all the people got confused.

RE CHE TZAM MA YID LOG PA CHUNG DUG PA DE NI And they started to have doubt about what was happening in the big monasteries. What are they just debating philosophy? They don't teach them how to do meditation or how to do a retreat or something like that?

DUG PA DE NI BRTEN PA'I GAM GYING BRTEN PO CHUNG DUG NYAM He says, that guy was a disgrace. Like he spent 20 years, he got all these precious teachings and he didn't get it that this was a message from a tantric deity and that that was what he could take into retreat and practice. He didn't get it.

It went over his head. 20 years of study, Geshe degree went over his head and he didn't get it. And he's upset.

He's really upset. NYAM NYAM means what? Ningbo, do you know NYAM?

NYAM? Huh? Yeah.

I think. He says, I think. What's that?

Why did he put that in there? Who knows? We can't.

NGAG DANG NGAG DRAG MA YIN PAR SHENG GI TSO SONG BAR MI RGYUR TE NYAM PAR RGYUR TA RE If you're not an enlightened being, you can't make a final judgment about what other people are doing. NYAM means, I think so. It looks to me like it went over his head, but he can't say for sure, right?

If you're a real Buddhist, you can't say, oh, this guy's wasting his time doing this practice or this shaman doesn't know anything or ayahuasca is not useful. Who knows? You just have to say NYAM.

Seems to me. I think so. So it's very beautiful that he put NYAM.

NYAM. NYAM SHIN DU YI MOK PA CHUNG In any case, the guy, after doing those practices, just seemed very confused and disoriented. All that happened was he was disoriented.

You know, you talk to him, he's like, blah, blah, blah. Didn't seem to help him. And that's my experience with jikama or whatever it is.

Treat it to somebody for a few years and they're all just like, blah, blah, blah. Like marijuana. If you want to get regular use of wine or anything, it just makes you dumb.

You can observe in real life cases. All right. GANG THUR SAMGYI BRTEN LA BAPA DE NYAM NENG DU KHYER DGOS He's very upset that someone would spend time studying certain deep ideas and then not think that they could use that, for example, in a tantric retreat.

You know, that somehow there was some contradiction there. You know, can you go through ACI course one and then say you have nothing to do your tantric retreat on, or you don't have material to do your tantric retreat? To study a course, to go through a course of study, learn it, do all the homeworks, do the quizzes, and then come to the teacher and say, do you have anything I could use for my retreat?

It's a joke. It means you didn't get it. Then he says, he gives an example, okay?

It's kind of cute. You ready? We still got some time.

RGYUD DAG RGYUD BYED PA'I TSE RGYUD SA GZHAN DU DE NAS RGYUD SA GZHAN DU BYED PA DANG BRAL LAM MIM CHEN MO SUNG SHING The Lam Mim Chen Mo is the great Lam Mim text written by Tse Tsongkhapa around 1409, give or take a few months. And he said, that's like showing one race course and driving on another. And then we have to explain that, right?

So Pabongka Rinpoche goes off to explain that. You ready? DENG NYID DAG RGYUD BYED PA'I TSE When you're holding a horse race, okay?

So we're talking not about a horse race in the United States. We're talking about a horse race in Tibet, okay? So there are no, what do you call them?

Horse tracks. Everybody, like tonight's dinner would have been a daytime picnic and we would have taken all the enchiladas, the good ones and the better ones out. We would have taken them all out in the field and we all would have sat down and had enchiladas on the grass.

And then they would have had a horse race. And some guy walks around the meadow and puts stakes. He just nails stakes in the ground and puts little red pieces of cloth on them.

And then the riders have to race around those. And maybe he says, you have to go around that boulder over there and you have to ride around that tree and that's the course. So it's not like a, what do you call?

It's not like an oval, it's just kind of random. You race to that tree, turn it, run to that boulder, turn that and then come home. And whoever wins, wins.

Then usually they will tell the riders the day before. They'll stake out the course the day before. So the good riders sneak over there in the evening the night before and they run their horse through it a few times.

Why? The horse will get used to it. The horse will know where to turn and stuff like that.

Then he said, wouldn't it be odd if a person took their horse to a different meadow? And ran them around different trees. And then the next morning ran them around the court.

You see, you're like a Geshe or you're like somebody who goes to the ACI courses and you're spending all your time studying and you're spending all your time doing all those homeworks, right? And then when it comes time to run the race, which is what? Your retreats or your meditation at home.

Then you do something else. Then you come to the Lama and say, do you have anything I can meditate upon? Or do you have anything I can do my retreats about?

And the Lama's like tearing their hair out. That's what happened. No, they're like, duh.

Do your retreat on ACI course one, homework three or something, you know? I mean, come on. That's what it's for, all right?

Okay. Care group. Otherwise you're like taking the horse to a different meadow, got it?

It's called taking the horse to a different meadow. Mm, am I supposed to take a break? You don't need a break.

Can we go like another 15, 20 minutes? Okay. And then you can roll home.

Okay. And then we get to go have dinner. That's why I'm, no.

What time, what time am I supposed to stop? 9.30? Okay, let's go to nine.

Do you mind just to go straight through to 9.30? It's another 45 minutes. Is that okay?

Okay, if you need a nice full tummy rest, I mean a nap, you can take one then. I won't say anything. How do you switch?

SANG NYID NGO MA RGYUD DU DE NGON PA ZHIG TU RGYUD PA DANG BRAL BAR GSUNG PAR DEG So he's explaining the horse race thing. DE LTAR GSUNG RANG NANG DANG RAG TU CHAR NI THUB PA NI CHAR GYUR LAM GYI RIN PA LA GO BA MA CHAG PA'I RGYUN YIN A person who's unable to reach the point where everything they bump into seems like magical instruction to them from the divine realm has not studied the Lam Rim yet. If you study the Lam Rim well, you will have mystical experiences.

Just trust. Study it well and you will have magical experiences. If you're not having magical experiences, you have to study more of this.

DE LA GO BA CHAG NA RGYEL BA'I GSUNG RAB GSOG GSUNG CHEN PO THAMS CAD LAM RIM DU DUS NAS If you do study the Lam Rim well, and you go study those huge classics, the ones that take 20 years to finish, you will see that they fit nicely into the Lam Rim. All of those great classics fit into the Lam Rim. DU DUS NAS NYAM LENG DU ZHUGS KYI GYUR ZHES PA ZHIG OM And then you'll be able to take all that and practice it in a retreat or at home.

It will become your tantric practice. All right. ZHES PA OM SNGA PHYI CHEN SNGA DBANG CHUNG LDAN GYI BRTA SA LOB NYUR DRUB NAS There was a great Lama called Chichen.

Chichen normally means, Chichen means throne holder. And it normally refers to the Gandantipa. Gandantipa means the person who holds Tsongkhapa's throne.

And that's actually the highest position in our lineage. And then His Holiness is sort of over all the lineages. CHI CHEN SNGA DBANG CHUNG LDAN GYI BRTA SA LOB NYUR DRUB NAS He finished all his studies, his monastic studies.

He finished like a Geshe. BYAS BYAM YANG SHES PA'I DRUNG DU Then he went to a class by BYAM YANG SHES PA. Who's BYAM YANG SHES PA?

Have you ever heard of BYAM YANG SHES PA? What book did he write that you might have seen? He wrote the Tsongkhapa book.

The big red one in the back. There's a whole life story of Tsongkhapa. He wrote that.

He also wrote like 500 other great textbooks. He's from Debo, which is a mistake, but it's okay. DRUNG DU LAM SONG NAM SUM GYI SHES PA He gave an explanation of LAM SONG NAM SUM.

How long is LAM SONG NAM SUM? The Three Principal Paths. 14 verses, okay?

It fits on a half a page. He went to a teaching by BYAM YANG SHES PA. BYAM YANG SHES PA taught LAM SONG NAM SUM.

GYIS SHES PA SOGS DANG PO'I MANG TU SEMS NAS KHAG MDOG RGYU MA LUS PA'I BSGOM PA RTEN TOG CI DU NYAM SUM DANG TSUL NGO PHRAD PA'I Then he said, in one sitting, I heard the entire teachings of the Buddha today. I heard the entire teachings of the Buddha today in one sitting, because of the way he taught those 14 verses. And His Holiness, that's his favorite text to teach.

When he teaches anywhere, like 50% of the time, he teaches those 14 verses. Usually he only gets to verse three, something like that, and it's enough. NYAM SUM LEN TSUL NGO PHRAD PA'I SNGAR ZHUNG LUS RAM BRJANG SLOB NYER RGYAL PA THA DAG CAN GCOD LA'ANG GI RIG PA LUS SLOB NYER RGYAL PA YIN DU NYAM DU DGO BA ZHIG CHUNG Today I understood that those 14 verses, any teaching on the Lam Rim, contains all the classics.

All the classics are there. CHUNG DE DE'I GSUNG RAB DANG RA TU BYA BA'I LTA YIN That's a sign that he reached Kadampa. He got to Kadampa.

He understood that 14 verses could express the whole teachings of the Buddha, including Tantra. DE BZHIN DU GRUB CHOG LO SANG SNAM RGYAL GYIS RGYAS STONG PA'I LUNG ZHIG SNANG BA NA SKABS KHABS SU AP TSIS, say AP TSIS. AP TSIS means, oh my gosh.

AP TSIS LUNG LO NA GE'I PA'I MA STONG NYAM LEN CHE GYU ZHIG RANG DI NA DU So there was a Lama named Lo Sang Namgyal. He was giving a lung on the Getoma. What's the Getoma?

The 8,000 verses on the perfection of wisdom. It's about a thousand pages long in the Kangyur carving. 8,000 verses spoken by Lord Buddha about the perfection of wisdom.

And he was giving a lung. What's lung mean? Lung means just an oral transmission.

He wasn't teaching it. He was just going like, SANG NYID NGOS MA YOD DU NI LEN PAR ZHIG TU YOD PA DANG BRTA BA GSUNGS PA RE DE LTAR GSOL RANG RNAMS DANG RAG TU BYA LA MI DUG PA NI BYA CHU RANG RGYAS RE MA LA GO BA MA BYA PA'I KHYUNG YIN And the Lama drones on and everybody kind of falls asleep. And the thousand pages takes a couple days.

And you just recite it to people. And there's a lineage for it. I mean, you're not allowed to give a lung normally on it unless someone has given it to you.

So people go looking for anyone who got it. And then they say, I'll give you like 300 bucks if you recite it to me for three days. And they say, okay.

And like that, okay? So anyway, he was just giving a lung. He wasn't teaching the 8,000 verses.

But he kept stopping in the middle of the 8,000 verses, which is a huge, difficult classic from 2,500 years ago. It's not even a commentary. It's Lord Buddha on a psychedelic trip.

It's like, no, you can't understand anything in this poem. It's unbelievable. It's a psychedelic trip.

It's unbelievable. You wouldn't believe it. It's like a science fiction novel with all the pages mixed up, okay?

No, really, it's beautiful. I love it. I really like it.

But he kept stopping and saying, Atsi. Atsi means damn. Atsi means damn.

Means, Lona Gepi Matok. Except for the fact that I'm an old man now, okay? But for the fact that I'm an old man now, there's lots of stuff in here I could do retreats on.

You see? He's reading an ancient classic of difficult philosophy. And then he's stopping every few lines and saying, damn, I could have done a retreat on that.

Except now I'm too old. I got too old. Nyamadina Deva is saying, U SHAB THAMS CAD DU YANG YANG GSUNGS PA DE He repeated this over and over to his disciples in the teaching.

LAM RIM LA DGOS BA CHAG NA PHYIR DAG TSOS PA GOS GCIG TZAM BYAS NA YANG THAMS CAD LAM RIM DU DUS TE So there's a, you know, we spend in the monastery, I don't know, three hours a day, sometimes six hours a day debating, okay? So we stand there and scream at each other for three hours a day. You lose your voice after the first 45 minutes and they're just croaking at each other.

It's like 800 guys croaking at each other. And then you have to do it for three hours every evening and some days you have to do it in the morning also. So then, you know, there's a KHYAB DGOS.

KHYAB DGOS means, you know, somebody says, I don't know, SNGON DOG RGYEN BDAG PO MA YIN PA'I PHYIR SNGON DOG RGYEN BDAG PO MA YIN PA'I PHYIR The classic text by Maitreya is not a personal instruction text for my next retreat, okay? He makes that statement, right? And the other guy says, BDAG MA GDUG You're wrong.

And then he says, SNGON DOG RGYEN GYI BSLAB PA'I PHYIR SNGAR RGYEN GNYAMS SU NEN GYI YIN PA'I PHYIR Are you telling me that this is a text which I should, that I could use for my next retreat? DGOS If you're really disgusted with the guy, you go, DGOS Okay, DGOS ends with a D, right? Right, Nimo?

DGOS ends with a DGOS So you can say, DGOS And the DGOS means period, okay? DGOS Then the guy says, Okay, so that was an exchange. That was an exchange.

I said two things, the other guy said two things. It took what? 20 seconds, 30 seconds, right?

And you debate six hours a day, okay? So that was one exchange, 20 second exchange in a six hour debate, okay? Then what Pabongka Rinpoche says here, you take one exchange like that, okay?

You just take one exchange like that, 20 seconds in a six hour debating session, okay? You take a 20 second exchange between two people, and that food was a bad idea. Those eyelids are droopy.

Okay, anyway, it was good, right? LAM RIM DU DE DANG SNGAGS TU CHAR Even one 20 second exchange on the debate ground, you can insert it into a LAM RIM somewhere. It fits into the LAM RIM somewhere.

Okay, even a 20 second exchange on the debate ground. If you are good at it, you can fit it into the LAM RIM, okay? So I'm going to go off on a tangent, okay?

Which I didn't already. PHEN NAS ZIN GYIS No, he's about to go there. Okay, let's let him go there.

PHEN NAS ZIN GYIS TSOS PA'I TSE SKYE BA'I CHEN PO'I BYANG CHUB LAM SBYONG BA'I SKABS DANG BYAR I am going to take a break at nine o'clock because I promised somebody I would. Okay, we'll take a little break. We'll take a mini break at nine o'clock.

Okay, we got five more minutes. TSOS PA'I TSE SKYE BA'I CHEN PO'I BYANG CHUB LAM SBYONG BA'I SKABS DANG BYAR So if you were having a debate about bodhicitta, that would fit into the LAM RIM at which of the three capacities? Greatest capacity, okay?

If you had a debate about bodhicitta, you could insert that into the LAM RIM at greatest capacity. RTEN DAL TSOS PA'I TSE If you were debating dependent origination, which is a fancy way of saying things come from seeds. I got this complaint not from Guadalajara, but another part of Mexico.

He said, Geshe-la, you're not teaching anything difficult. I'm teaching dependent origination. No, you're not, you're just talking about seeds.

Duh! I didn't call it dependent origination because nobody in the hell can understand what that means. It just means seeds, okay?

You plant seeds in your mind and they come out, and that's dependent origination. That's what it means, okay? Where does that teaching come from?

Which of the three levels of the LAM RIM? Medium, it comes from the medium level, okay? It comes from the people of medium capacity.

And then there's a TSAM GZUGS TSOS PA'I ZHIG NE Then there's a huge debate you can do about the higher levels of the form and formless realm. Where would that fit into there? How do you get to those levels?

How do you get reborn in a semi-divine realm? You get shamatha in this life, okay? Different levels of shamatha.

So that fits into the LAM RIM teachings on shamatha, okay? What he's saying is, everything that two Buddhist people ever discussed in the, what do you call that place in Diamond Mountain? The kitchen, kitchen yurt.

Yeah, any conversation, any 20 seconds of any conversation in the kitchen yurt, assuming that you're not wasting your time and talking about something else, but can fit somewhere in the LAM RIM. It has its place in the LAM RIM. If you study the LAM RIM carefully, you could sit in the kitchen yurt and hear two people talking and trace their path through the LAM RIM in your mind.

You could say, oh, they reached level four. Oh, now they're talking about the first part of level eight. Oh, they just skipped to level nine.

You can think like, you can follow it in your head. You can do that. So now we're going to do an exercise, okay?

He has mentioned three of the LAM RIMs, okay? He has mentioned bodhichitta. And he has mentioned dependent origination.

And then he has mentioned shamatha, okay? Three of the important sections. They're all important, the LAM RIM.

So I thought on the homework, I gave you a little question. If you were having a normal day at work, right? How would you fit those three into a normal...

How could a normal day at work cut DAM PA to the practice of the LAM RIM? We were having this conversation earlier, me and Nick. Okay, so let's take the first one, which is bodhichitta, right?

Somebody want to give me the definition of bodhichitta by the next Buddha? Yeah, go. Yeah, say SEMS SKYES PA NI.

SHIN DON CHER YANG DAG RDZOGS PA'I BYANG CHUB DROD I want to get enlightened so that I can help every living creature. That's the definition of bodhichitta, okay? In a company or in a job where you're like the foreman of a small crew, let's say you're a foreman of a crew of six people.

What would it be like to have the vision of bodhichitta for that group? Could you practice the LAM RIM at work foremanning a group of say 10 or 15 people? And what it is, you see, if you grasp, if you've studied well enough, you can go to a group of people and imagine that every one of them understands about the seeds.

You see? And you can imagine what would happen among the people of that group if they were all acting in accordance with that understanding. I was in Guangzhou, South China, Hong Kong's factories.

They don't have factories in Hong Kong, it's too small. So they do all their production in Guangzhou. They produce every object in the world right now.

They produce 60% of all the objects, the carpet here, the fans, the electronics, the lot of the materials in the walls, the insulation. It was all produced in Guangzhou, trust me. Because I'm sitting there in Guangzhou, just like 150 crazy factory owners, because that's the only kind of people who live in Guangzhou.

And we're going through the DCI course, right? And they learn about seeds and they all got it. They all got it.

They're all like, yeah, yeah. We got it. So we're almost ready to go home.

And I say, there's like all these capitalists. The only place you can find capitalists now is in communist China, okay? So I'm like, so let me ask you guys a question.

They're like, yeah, yeah, Geshe Michael. I said, what would happen if everybody in the world understood what you understand now? Then they're like, what do you mean?

And I said, what would happen if everybody in the world believed that the only way to become wealthy is to make other people wealthy? Then this beautiful silence descended on 300 Guangzhou factory owners. This beautiful silence.

There was a pause of like a whole minute of silence. And you felt this wave of understanding pass through the room. And 300 high-powered capitalist factory owners had a vision in that moment of a world where everybody was taking care of everybody else.

And they couldn't escape it. And they all got it. People started crying.

People started like, in these big tough guys. And it was so beautiful. They got bodhichitta right then, okay?

Because that's what bodhichitta is. It's an understanding that if everyone understood about the seeds, then this place would be paradise. Then the world would be a paradise.

And they got it. Like it went to the room like a wave. It was very beautiful, like a sea wave, like a huge sea wave.

And it was so moving and so beautiful, okay? What I'm saying is that if you get good at the scriptures, if you get good at your practice, then, and you're the foreman of a small group of people, then the section on bodhichitta would be, can I get everyone in this group to have that realization at work? And I did, pretty much in my diamond business, okay?

800 people. You know, not everybody, but a lot. Enough to make the place really extraordinary, like a mandala.

You're talking a mandala, you see? Can you take the teachings on the Lamrim, bodhichitta, and can you turn a group of people, without calling it Buddhism? Because I didn't call it that in Guangzhou.

And can you get them all thinking like that? And that's bodhichitta on that scale. That's bodhichitta on that group of people.

And then you're practicing Lamrim, got it? What about the next thing he mentioned? What about tendrel?

So what bodhichitta means, bodhichitta means as the foreman of a group of people, you get a vision of a group of workers who all understand. And you have a vision of a perfect group of employees. It's a mandala, it's a paradise, okay?

That's the first example he mentioned. Second example he mentioned was tendrel, dependent origination. What would that look like?

I like to do it with someone who irritates you, okay? I like to go to the example of somebody who irritates you. In your work, it could be a worker who's irritating.

They don't do what they're supposed to do. They're always causing you trouble. They're supposed to be helping you, and instead they're just kind of causing you trouble all the time.

They're like flirting with getting fired all the time. And then if you know about the seeds, how can you practice the Lamrim on the seeds with this employee? I'll give you a choice, okay?

You fire them, or you have a long conversation with them. Bad choice, bad answer, okay? Bad choices.

Both choices are wrong. Why not fire them? Sometimes they sue you.

I had it happen. They bring you a racial discrimination. They say, you know, I'm Polish.

You know what? The suit was raised. I fired somebody, they raised a suit.

We took it to court. I said, look, you come to my office. They came to my office.

I said, this is United Nations. There's no Americans in this room. You know, we got people from every other country.

What are you talking? Discrimination. You know, I got 18 different people in this room alone from 18 different countries.

You know, what are you talking about? You know, like that. Sometimes firing them doesn't work.

Does talking to them always work? So it ain't the answer. If something doesn't work, sometimes it doesn't work at all.

Got it? Would you buy a car that works sometimes? Is a car that works every other day a working car?

No, don't buy it. You know, it's weird. You guys are weird.

You know, go buy aspirin. Why? I got a headache.

Does it work? No. How often does it work?

Half the time. Okay, so take half the bottle back to the drugstore and get your money back. Are you crazy?

Stop doing that. Do something that works all the time. What do you want me to do?

What's your suggestion? Plant a seed. Just plant a seed.

That's all. And then relax. The guy will have a heart attack or something.

Now, I told you you can't predict what will happen. Didn't I say that? Something cool will happen that you can't predict.

Now, I'm telling you the truth. I don't mean that. I mean, take your dependent origination to work and use it with someone who irritates you at work.

How would you use it at work? How do you use dependent origination on an irritating person? Tell me that, you can go home.

Almost. Stop being irritating. Check your life for the last three weeks.

Find every instance that you are irritating. And stop it. And take the seed out.

And then the guy will stop. Maybe he'll quit on his own. Maybe he'll change.

You can't guess, right? I said that yesterday. You can't guess what's going to happen.

But if you take the seed out, something will happen. You can practice dependent origination at work with a group of guys. And it's better than reading about it or meditating about it because you're doing it.

I'm trying to get you to... The Lam Rim is your place of work. That is the Lam Rim.

If you think it's separate, you have a problem. You're not Kadampa. Kadampa means, God, I could use this at work.

Geshe Michael teaches about dependent origination. You're like, God, I'm going to use that on that guy at work tomorrow. I'll get rid of him.

And he won't come back. Okay, got it? Okay, last one.

What about shi ne, shamatha? How are you going to use shamatha on the job? It's obvious, okay?

Shamatha means what? Single-pointed concentration. Deep single-pointed concentration on the nature of reality.

Because just single-pointed concentration is level nine, right? That's not shamatha yet. Right?

So, shamatha, the third example in the scripture, how are you going to use that at work? Okay, when the guy is irritating. Okay?

When the guy comes to me and says something like, you're a jerk. When my employee comes to me and says, you're a jerk. Then I have to maintain shi ne.

I have to maintain shamatha. What do I mean? What's that mean?

Yeah, hold your worldview, sinsam. Hold your worldview. Don't let it slip.

Don't let your worldview slip. Your employee comes to their supervisor and says, you're a jerk. Right?

Then you need shamatha. You got to focus or you're going to lose it. You're going to lose your hard-won worldview that you did all those homeworks to get.

You know? Okay? What's your worldview?

He's coming from me. You know? Every disgusting thing that comes out of his mouth is coming from me.

And I'm not going to lose that line. I'm going to focus. And that just becomes a matter of focus, right?

It becomes a matter of self-control of your mind. I will not lose the understanding that this guy is coming from me. I will hold it.

That's shamatha. I will hold it. I will keep it.

I won't lose it. And then you don't get angry. You just start examining your own life.

What did I do last week? How did I create this guy? Boy, that was a real weird one.

Then you start exploring your own life and finding out you're doing that to other people all the time. You're doing the same thing to other people all the time. And then there's this big revelation.

It's probably just about enlightenment. You know, like, I'm getting exactly what I did to everybody else last week. Duh.

Wow, that's so amazing. All the people around me are an exact mirror of my own behavior. Wow.

But then you can do something about it. Then you can do something about it. So what I'm saying is, and I went over it slowly because it's a homework question.

So when you get to that homework question, you can stop. It says, how would you use those three attitudes in a real workplace situation? Because there's no separation, you see.

What, you're going to go into a cave and practice this? You're going to master patience in a cave? There's no irritating people in a cave, except yourself.

Okay, so this whole dhammakti charma, kadampa, the whole subject tonight, and then I promise I'll stop. Kadampa means, take what you learn and then take it to your life and for goodness sake, use it. And that becomes your spiritual practice.

People tell me, they come up to me, I had a baby. Okay, you had a baby, congratulations. Now I can't practice.

You got a 20-year package of practice right there. You don't need anything else now. You got sometimes 50-year practice.

You're so lucky. No, I mean, what did you think it was for? What did you think the meditation and the retreats were for?

They're for your life. I get this sad feeling, I meet some students that I trained and they're like off in this, you know, called Wonderland thing, Alice in Wonderland thing. And I'm like, how are you doing?

And they're like, oh, I think I got to level three, but I'm not sure, it's three and a half. And I'm like, yeah, well, how's your life going? Oh yeah, and I was meditating on patience for six months.

And I'm like, yeah, well, how's stuff going with your family? And they're like, yeah, and I also read this book. And I'm like, wait a minute, how's your life going?

And they're like, that's life, I'm practicing. And then I'm like, not really, okay? The whole point of tonight's talk, the whole point of this part of the Lam Rim is like, join it.

Bring the horse to the same track that you trained on. Okay, don't go somewhere else. Bring the teaching to your life because that's where it belongs, all right?

It doesn't belong somewhere else. It belongs in your normal life. And it belongs in your interactions with everybody all day.

And that's where you're going to get enlightened. It's not somewhere else, right? Okay, it's very beautiful.

And it's very high. It's very, what do you call, elevated thinking. You become a yogi at work.

And work becomes your yoga. And it's very beautiful because then you become a whole person. Then your whole life is your spiritual practice.

Everything you do is your spiritual practice. And there's nothing that isn't your spiritual practice. Then you can go anywhere.

You can have a kid. You can have a family. You can work at a job.

It doesn't matter, it all becomes practice. It is Buddhism. Okay, all right.

[Говорящий 2] (1:05:10 - 1:06:07)
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