Занятие 5, часть 2

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 3:28)
Why did we mention LAM TZAM NAM TSUM, Three Principal Paths? Right, no. He went off on a tangent, right?

He said, if you have your heart Lama's blessing, you can understand the highest teachings of Buddhism. Did he mention the Chakrasamvara Root Tantra? Did he mention the 8,000 verses on the Prajnaparamita?

No, he said, my Lama, my own Lama, said those 14 verses were the highest ideas of Buddhism. And you got it already, and they said, of course, number one. All right, but we'll go over it a bit more.

DE NGES PAR YIN TE, YANG DAG PA'I THAG No, that's not it. Okay, so he's off on a tangent. If you go through the steps of the path, you will be able to understand high ideas.

And then he says, well, what would be the highest ideas? And he says the Three Principal Paths. The Three Principal Paths are very simple.

The first one is, you reach a point in your life where there's so many screw-ups that you decide it's enough. It's like an alcoholic. We're like alcoholics.

I have a friend who's an alcoholic. I mentioned him, I think. And he had to hit bottom before he would change, and he did.

He hit bottom and he changed, and I think he's got his six-year pin now or something. So the first of the Three Principal Paths is, you have to see enough mess-ups in your life that you want to do something different. And that's why we say disasters are not so bad.

For me personally, a lot of my reason to be on this path was that three people in my family died in quick succession when I was young. And then that just pushed me. So you have to come to a recognition of the pain of life.

Even if everything goes well, which is pretty much impossible, you will get old and die. Everything you've lived for, all the things you've built up, all the family, house, friends, job, career, possessions, experiences, love, you will lose all of them. Unless you do something, you will lose all of them.

Everybody does. That's the first Principal Path. Second Principal Path is quite easy.

Everyone else is in the same boat. And it's sort of bittersweet, right? We're all in it together and we're all going down together.

So we might as well be nice to each other on the way down. So that's number two. I wish I could help all of us.

You are also part of number two, right? You're in number two. Then number three is depending.

Understand where things are coming from. Because then you can do something. Then you can do something about it.

You're not interested in depending until you want to change enough and until you want to help others. So those are the three Principal Paths. And it's nothing more complicated than that.

I'm afraid once you write scriptures, then everything gets complicated, right?

[Говорящий 2] (3:28 - 3:28)
I don't know.

[Говорящий 1] (3:29 - 43:14)
So here we go. DE NGES PAR YIN TE YANG DAG PA'I MTHA'O LA RGYAL BA'I BSGOM PA THAR THUG DU BYED SONG KHA PA CHEN PO'I SROB PAR GSUNGS TE Then he sort of understood that he asked a question in here of well, among the three Principal Paths, which one is THAR THUG? Which one is the ultimate idea?

If I had to pick one of the three, if I was on a desert island, I could only have one of the three Principal Paths. Which one would you want? And it's obviously number three, which is the pen thing.

It is a trick question, but all questions aren't trick questions. So it's number three, right? The pen thing.

Because if you understand the pen, you can change anything. And if you don't, you can't change anything. Got it?

So Jetsun Kapa said, if the benefit of having your sweetheart teacher teach you these things is that you crack the ultimate intent of the highest beings of the universe, well, what would that intent be? What would those thoughts be? What are the highest thoughts of an enlightened being?

And it's just a pen thing. It's just a... Say, YAN DAG PA'I DAWA.

YAN DAG PA'I DAWA. Which means like a pure view, a correct view, accurate viewpoint of the world. I like to call it world view.

I like to call it world view. A new view of the world. Everything is coming from me and I can change anything.

I can change Iraq. I can change Afghanistan. I can change anything because it's all coming from me.

It all flows from me. Then he quotes the Three Principal Paths. LAM TSOR LAS LAM TSOR LAS SNGA BA'I RTEN DANG LUS BAR MED PA DANG RTOM PA SKYE LEN PHRAG BA'I GHO BAR NI JI ZHIG SO SO SNGA BA'I DE ZHIG TU DAG DU THUB PA'I RGOM PA RTOM PA MED Very famous.

These are the lines in the Three Principal Paths which teach the idea of the pen. Okay, ready? Here we go.

SNGA BA'I RTEN DANG LUS BAR MED PA DANG RTEN DANG means dependent origination, right? There's a code word for dependent origination which is everything around you. All the stuff around you.

In Tibetan it's called SNGA BA. SNGA BA means the appearance of things around you. It means the seeds ripening in your mind and creating a pot like we talked about.

When was that? Yesterday. Yesterday we spoke about how karmic seeds ripen in your mind.

A seed cracks open in your mind. A small image comes out of that seed and it is thrown by the mind outside and you see things. Bella is singing right now.

It's coming from you. Your mind is throwing those sounds over there. That's called SNGA BA.

What you see around you. RTEN DANG means dependent origination. It's a big word, I hate it.

Dependent origination. Eight syllables, oh my God. It's like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

I mean, it's kind of bad. It just means things are coming from seeds. Somebody says dependent origination.

If you think things are coming from seeds, you got it down. It's really almost like a bad karma that it's such a clumsy word. And that it turns off so many people and they misunderstand it.

It should be just things are coming from your seeds. That's all it means and it doesn't mean anything more than that. In his Three Principal Paths, in the part where he gets to emptiness, he says, consider all the things around you.

LUG PA MED PA LUG PA MED PA means it works. No problem. LUG PA here means problem.

Usually LUG PA means to deceive you. But LUG PA MED PA here means it all works. No problem.

Is Gunnar empty? Yes. Can he still kiss Rebecca whenever?

I don't know when it is or where. I'm assuming. Maybe it's too much.

Anyway, does he function? Yes. Is he coming from her mind?

Yes. Is there any problem there? No, it's still saliva.

It's still... Am I embarrassing you guys? It's kind of cute to see him blush.

Anyway. Is he coming from her mind? Yes.

Can she still kiss him? Yes. No problem.

LUG PA MED PA means there's no problem there. If he wasn't coming from her mind, he'd be hard to kiss. You got to chew on that.

All right. STONG PA SKYE LEN PHRA BA'I SGO BA'I GNYIS STONG PA SKYE LEN PHRA BA means emptiness, which is beyond all... SKYE LEN means a position that you could take philosophically.

He says, you could say inexpressible. Emptiness, which is beyond all expression or conversation. Emptiness which could never be expressed in a conversation.

Is it true that you can't talk about emptiness and understanding? It's not true. Why do they call it beyond any position or beyond any description or anything like that?

The actual direct experience, as a realized being has experienced it, cannot be exactly described to another person. You can't describe the direct perception of emptiness with words in such a way that the person listening to you will have that experience right then and there. It's not possible.

That's all it means. It's not indescribable because all these books were written to describe it. Obviously.

I mean, that's pretty dumb. STONG PA SKYE LEN PHRA BA'I SGO BA'I GNYIS But these two... SGO BA'I GNYIS means these two understandings.

What two understandings? Gunnar's coming from Rebecca, and yet he's still empty. He's empty means the way she sees him is coming from her and not from anything else.

That's what emptiness means. The pen on the seat and we all left the room. Is there any disconnect between those two ideas?

He's not Gunnar from his own side. A, that's emptiness. B, what she sees is coming from her.

Is there any contradiction or problem between those two ideas? No. If you understand what emptiness is clearly, and if you understand what dependent origination is clearly, then they not only not disconnect, they are in total harmony.

Her image that's popping out of her karmic seeds according to how she's treated probably her boyfriends when she was in grade school or something, is popping out of her mind and responsible for how she sees Gunnar. Those images have to have a place to land and that's emptiness. The images in her mind are like a movie and they need a white screen to be projected on.

If Gunnar was already the way Gunnar is from his side, there wouldn't be any room for her impressions of him to go. He has to be a blank white screen. I don't like the word emptiness.

Sometimes I think they should say blank. But if I call Gunnar blank, he might punch me later. He has to be available, empty, and then she can have an idea pop in her mind because of her own karmic seeds and she will see him in a certain way.

So those two concepts are perfectly compatible. In fact, one requires the other really. You can't have a perception of Gunnar unless he's available and he can't be available.

There's no reason for him to be available if there were no perception to lay on him. Got it? So Je Tsongkapa, his big breakthrough in the understanding of emptiness was to say the idea that the pen is nothing when it's sitting here and there's no people or dogs in the room.

Okay, got it? The idea that the pen is nothing when there's no dogs or humans in the room. And the idea that when you see a pen, it's coming from your seeds.

Those two are completely compatible, no problem. The pen and origination and emptiness, to put it into those clumsy, what do you call? Clunky?

Clunky Buddhist expressions, they're not incompatible. They're friendly. There are two sides of the same coin.

GZI SOGSO RNAM BAR DE'I SRIDDHU But if you think there's any disconnect between them, or if Gunnar is coming from me, he can't function or something like that. Okay? If my impression of my partner is coming from me, then how can I kiss it?

Got it? If you have that problem, if you think that's a problem, DAG DUNG THUB PAS BSGOM PA RTOG PA MED You didn't get the big idea of the Buddhas. Okay?

You didn't get the big idea of the Buddhas. Why is that a good quotation for us in discussing the third beautiful quality of the steps to the path? Because the third beautiful quality of the steps of the path is that if you study it well, you can easily grasp the highest ideas of the enlightened beings.

And he, Je Tsongkhapa, he quoted Je Tsongkhapa saying, you didn't get the highest idea if you think seeds and emptiness are in any way incompatible. Got it? So in a negative way, he's saying, here's the highest idea of the Buddhas, which is what?

Gunnar's coming from her, but that's why she can have a relationship with him. Okay? If you think there's some problem with that statement, then you didn't get it yet.

Which means, you didn't have enough blessings from your heart teacher explaining the panther. Got it? Okay?

That cool? All right. Okay, here we go.

,CHE YANG DAG PA'I LTA BA MA STONG NA, ,RGYAL BA'I DGONG BA MI STOB PAR, ,BLO SU GSUNGS PA'I, Okay, so here Je Tsongkhapa has directly said, if you don't understand the view of emptiness and seeds, then you didn't get the Buddha's big idea. Okay? You haven't yet got the Buddha's big idea.

,ZHUGS LA DE STONG NA, ,RGYAL BA'I DGONG BA NYE PAR GSUNGS PA DANG, When Je Tsongkhapa says, if you don't get that gunner coming from Rebecca's mind is completely consistent with someone to kiss. Got it? If you don't get it, you didn't get the Buddha's idea.

You don't understand what the Buddha wanted you to understand. ,ZHUGS LA means, that implies that if you did understand that, you would get the Buddha's highest thought. Got it?

By saying you haven't got it, if you haven't, then he's saying you would have if you did, or something like that. ,RGYAL BA'I GSUNGS RAB KUN GYI, Now he's going to quote it again. ,RGYAL BA'I GSUNGS RAB KUN GYI, ,NYONG PA'I DUNG, ,RGYAL ZAD DANG DBANG RGAGS KYI, ,SNGAGS PA'I LAM, ,MA YIN GZHUNG YANG NYONG BA LA, Okay, he's throwing in the other two principal paths.

Okay? After that. He wants to get them all in.

Probably get in trouble with somebody in the audience if he said there was only one principal path. ,RGYAL BA'I GSUNGS RAB KUN GYI, ,NYONG PA'I DUNG, The essence of everything the Buddha ever spoke about is a code word in this tradition for understanding that life, there's a problem with life. Renunciation, okay?

The essence of all the Buddha's speech is a code word for Lord Buddha describing at the beginning of his career the four truths, right? Everything is suffering. Okay, got it?

What do you call it? ,GUS BYED MED DAG, I like the Chinese, it's very short. ,GUS BYED MED DAG, ,RGYAL ZAD DANG DBANG RGAGS KYI, ,SNGAGS PA'I LAM, Then he says, and there's that other line in the three principal paths that talks about the path which has been praised by all the Buddhas, sorry, the high bodhisattvas.

What's the path? That's a code word for, there's only one principal path left, let's guess, bodhicitta, okay? The vision that if we, I'll say it again.

I probably said it three times, but I don't mind. People tell me I repeat stories to them. I'm sorry, I just forget who I told them to.

So we're in Guangzhou, Southern China. We just finished like five days of presentations to a very tough business crowd about these ideas. And then I said, okay, so where does money come from?

And they say, by giving money to others, right? And then I just popped something on them. Suddenly I said, well, what would happen if everybody thought that?

What would happen globally if everybody thought that was true? And then I, it would, I can't describe the feeling that I felt. I felt a wave of feeling go through the room.

These are tough factory owners. They are not new age Buddhists or something. But this wave went through the room and it was silent for like, I don't know, a minute.

And I felt their minds working on that idea. And then I felt a vision come into their head of a world where every single person was taking care of every other person. These tough guys.

I felt that vision come into their head. That's bodhichitta. They got bodhichitta in that moment.

Don't think it's some kind of weird thing you have to take. What's that stuff? Soma.

Drink a cup of soma and then go into a trance and then you're going to get bodhichitta or something like that. It's not like that. What would happen?

You see, it's all flowing from the one great idea. It's all flowing from the one great idea. The pen.

What would happen if everybody understood that you can only get a pen if you give a pen? See, I felt it go through the room. It went through the room.

Then half the world would be giving stuff to the other half of the world. People would be lining up to help other people. And everyone would have enough.

There would be a miracle. Some solar power breakthrough. 17.3% solar efficiency. Now, you think it's a mistake or an accident? It's on schedule to replace fossil fuels, okay? If you work on it, if you provide panels to the poor, it will replace fossil fuels in your lifetime and there will be no more pollution.

And there'll be no more oil well drilling and things like that. It's very interesting. No more pipelines going through forests and stuff like that, okay?

It's on schedule. You just have to make it happen, got it? But that means you have to supply them to the poor or it's not going to happen.

And then you'll have a world war. And it won't be a big war between two countries. It'll be massive social unrest as people can't live.

You cannot transport food without oil. You can't preserve food without oil. You can't package food without oil.

You can't fix a road without oil. Forget the cars. You can't eat without oil.

So, we have to give them, okay? Got it? Alright.

,MNGAL NGAN GZHAN GYI NGAN BYUNG NA, ,DAN NA NI SHES SEMS KYI DANG, ,SKYANG LDAN THAR DGANG DUN RNAM GYI BYUNG NGO BAS, There's a part in the Three Principal Paths which talks about the entry point for those lucky ones who think they need liberation. GAL MED PA'I What would the entry point be? The pen.

Understand the pen, everything else is possible. Understand that things are coming from your seeds, all other things are possible. So it's called DBYUNG RNGOGS.

Say DBYUNG RNGOGS. DBYUNG RNGOGS DBYUNG RNGOGS means the entry point. DBYUNG RNGOGS means in Tibet.

Tibet is the source of the four greatest rivers in the world. What is it? The Mekong, the Ganges, the Yangtze, and I don't remember the other one.

The one that goes down to Iran, Afghanistan. What is that? Indus?

Euphrates? I don't know. Anyway, it's the source for all four because it's like a high point and they all flow down from there.

So you can't cross Tibet without crossing a lot of rivers. And they didn't have bridges. There were no bridges.

So basically, if you want to see your grandmother in the next county, you have to walk through like 12 rivers. And we're talking pretty tough rivers, pretty nasty rivers. So you go up and downstream and you look for a DBYUNG RNGOG.

You look for a shallow, wide spot where you and your horse can walk across and not get too wet because that's the story of Tibet until recently. You would have to walk through the water. So you look for a point where it's easy to enter and that's called a DBYUNG RNGOG.

What's an easy segue into the enlightened realm is the pen. GAL DANG THAR DANG RNAM GYI DBYUNG RNGOG DE Got it? All right.

GZHAN GSUM NGAN CUNG BYANG SEMS KYANG SHAR LA PHANGS PA YIN NO SHAR LA PHANGS PA means... SHAR LA is a very useful word. SHAR LA means...

SHAR LA means... Let's say I want to send you to Paradise Cafe to get me a hot chocolate, which could never happen. So you got to go down to Shea and Tatum.

Let's suppose I said, I need a hot chocolate. Can you go get me a hot chocolate at Paradise Cafe? And then SHAR LA means...

By the way, could you pick up some flowers at the nursery across the street? You see? SHAR LA means by the way.

SHAR LA PHANGS PA means when you discuss... Get this, it's beautiful. When you discuss the pen thing, you are already discussing saving the world.

You can't discuss the pen thing without in the end talking about saving the world because if everybody thought that the only way to get a pen was to give away a pen, then everybody would be giving away everything they had to everybody else. And that would save the world. Got it?

SHAR LA So SHAR LA, once you mention the pen thing, you are already speaking about saving the world. Got it? And that implies renunciation also because what do you have to save the world from?

All right, here we go. PHANGS PA YIN We got another 15 minutes, so hang in there. I know it's late.

I don't know. Somebody told me Lama Maru's really beautiful programs in Cape Anne are six days long. And I thought, I don't know, maybe he's smarter because 10 days really tires people out maybe.

But I don't know. Anyway. Okay, okay, no, no, no, no.

Okay, okay. DE NA LA RIN GYI LA BRTEN NAS GZHUNG CHEN PO NAM GYI GYUR GYUR LAM GYI TSOR BA'ANG NAM SUNG GYI RLA SKYE MTSUG KYI GNAS NAM DE LAG TU NYES CHING So when we say that by understanding the steps of the path you will be able to understand the ultimate ideas of the enlightened ones, all we're saying is is that you will be able to grasp the Three Principal Paths. Okay, got it?

He's wrapping up. Now he's probably going somewhere else, I would guess. NYES PA LTAR RGA TSEG LA MA THOB PAR GYUR LA SKYE PA NA RGYAL BA'I BSGOM PA DE LAG TU NYES PA YIN Now technically the Tibetan says RGYAL BA'I BSGOM PA DE LAG TU NYES PA RGYAL BA'I BSGOM PA means the deep ideas of the enlightened ones.

DE LAG TU means easily and NYES PA means to find. NYES PA means to find. But he goes a step further.

He says you will understand them and you will develop them within yourself. So it's not just that you gain access to the ideas of the enlightened ones. You steal them.

Like you open the vault, you see them. And he doesn't stop there. He says you open the vault, you see them and then you make them yours.

They flow into you if you understand the path. Got it? I'm sorry I keep saying got it.

It's just to see if you will nod or give me some indication that you're alive. DE YANG PHRAD NA ZHUNG CHEN PO NAM NI RGYAL TSUL Now he goes off on a very beautiful metaphor and somebody can keep track of it. You can put this one equals that and this one equals that.

He's going to give a metaphor for each component in this discussion. For example, ZHUNG CHEN PO NAM NI RGYAL TSUL LTA BU The great classics of Buddhism are like the ocean. You have to understand that for Tibetans the ocean was a great and vast and mysterious thing because they didn't have an ocean.

They just heard about the ocean. So to them the ocean was probably like the Milky Way or something. LAM SOGS NAM SUM GAL BA'I BSGOM PA DE'I NANG DU NOR BU LTA BU The Tibetans had a tradition which said that all jewels in the world came from the bottom of the sea.

Emeralds, rubies, diamonds, the most important two gemstones in Tibet, turquoise and coral. Coral, true, right? But they figured, well, then everything must come from the bottom of the sea.

So the three principal paths are like the jewels lying on the bottom of the sea. The sea is what? All the great classics of Buddhism.

The three principal paths are like the jewels lying at the bottom of the sea. BYANG CHUB LAM GYI RIM PA NI DRU ZING LTA BU These teachings on the steps of the path are like a ship. They are like a boat for going upon the sea.

If you study this presentation, it's a boat and you can cross the sea of the great classics. By the way, my strategy, my 30-year strategy was to teach you the classics first. And that's why it's called ACI, Asian Classics.

So my strategy was teach you the 18 courses. That's the five great classics of Buddhism. And then we did all the tantras.

And then I thought, let's wrap up with the lamrim. You see what I mean? So you've already been on the ocean.

And the first course had the jewels at the bottom. And now you're getting the boat. Got it?

That's an easier way to remember, right? DE'I STON PA'I LAMA NI DE BON LTA BU RE The lama who teaches you these steps on the path is like the ship captain, the captain of the ship. RGYA TSUN NANG DU NO BO YOD KYANG DRU ZING LAMA BSTAN PAR ZHUGS NA NO BO MI LON PA'I KHAR SOGS CHOR BA LAS DGOS MED Even if there are jewels at the bottom of the ocean, if you don't have a boat and you try to jump in and swim down and get those jewels, what?

NO BO MI LON PA'I Not only will you not get the jewels, KHAR, but furthermore, SOGS CHOR BA LAS DGOS MED you could only lose your life. There's nothing else could happen but that you would lose your life. DE BZHIN DU LAM RIM LAMA BSTAN PAR It's the same here.

If you don't have the ship, which is the teachings on the steps of the path, LAM RIM, ZHUNG CHEN PAR ZHUGS KYANG and you try to enter the ocean, which is the great classics, RGYAL BA'I RGOMS PA NYES KYANG it will be difficult for you to find the ultimate ideas of the Buddhas. And DE BOS KHAS PA LTA BU LAMA LA BSTAN NAS CHAG CHUD LAM GYI RIM PA'I CHOS GSUNG NAS ZHUGS NA BZHIN DU DGAR TSUL CHEN PO'I NANG NAS RGYAL BA'I RGOMS PA THAR THUB KHYI NOR BO DE LAG TU NIR BAR OM But if rather you find a sage, a master, who is your own personal Lama, and they guide you in the steps on the path. By the way, the Lama is the ship captain.

If they guide you in the steps of the path, meaning they help you undertake the journey in the boat. What's the boat? Three pencil path.

Was it? No. ZHUGS NA DGAR TSUL CHEN PO'I NANG You will be able to cross or to venture into the ocean of the classics.

And RGYAL BA'I RGOMS PA THAR THUB GNYIS And the jewels of the ultimate ideas of the Enlightened Ones, which is what? The pen thing. Okay.

DE LAG TU NIR BAR You'll get it. Easily. DBONG GSUM Said my Lama.

He's finishing the reference to what his Lama said was the ultimate ideas of the Buddha. GSUM Which brings us to SHIPA. I like to start a new subject at the end of the class.

I think it's good luck. Buddhism... I'll give you a clue about shamatha.

When you get close to shamatha, you don't wrap things up when they wrap up. You wrap things up when you want to wrap up. Meaning, you start a new subject at the end.

Activities in your day are not... their beginning and end is not determined by the activities but by your state of mind. Chew on it.

It has something to do with shamatha. SHIPA NYES SPYOD CHEN PO RANG RGAGS SUGDRO BA'I PHYIR BA NI The fourth great quality, the final great quality of these teachings is that you will be able to avoid automatically the great mistake. The two crucial terms here, automatically and the great mistake.

DE YANG RANG RIM CHEN MO SOGS SU MOD RTEN LA CHU PHUNG GI LAS RANG RIM CHEN MO SOGS SU MOD RTEN LA CHU PHUNG GI LAS There are lots of bad karmas. There are supposed to be 84,000 bad karmas. One of the most serious is to reject or criticize a high teaching.

Is to reject out of hand or to criticize a high teaching. Every lama who teaches this subject at this point will pause and say, there's a difference between criticizing and critical thinking. There's a big difference between criticizing and critical thinking.

The Buddha required critical thinking of his disciples. What did he say? Don't take my words.

Don't believe what I say just because I said. You should treat it like a piece of gold. And you know the whole story.

He encouraged his students to think critically about what he said and he encouraged his disciples not to accept anything he said until they could thrash it out and come to a conclusion that it was correct. But he forbade, he didn't allow his disciples to accept anything he said without tearing it apart. That's why in a monastery you debate for three to six hours a day.

You take your lessons, you take them to the debate ground and you rip it apart. And you think critically. That's different from saying that's BS or that's ridiculous.

Don't ever reject a teaching. You can say, it doesn't seem right to me right now. I'll put it on the shelf.

I'll shelve that one. I enjoy these classes. I get a lot out of these classes.

I find a lot of ideas that I can use in my life. There's a few things I can't buy. Then don't waste your time on those.

Don't go around saying, Geshe Michael said, if I prostrated wrong in class I'd be born as a hoofed animal. No, I heard a student complain about that. Then don't go around, don't go to Starbucks and meet your friends and say, I went to a teaching the other night and you can't believe what they said about hoofed animals.

And then you're repeating a 30 second problem you had in a three hour teaching. When all the rest of the teaching was explaining to them how they could get anything to happen in their life that they want. And you're obsessed with the thing about the hoofed animal thing.

So be careful. Don't waste your time. If there's something you don't buy, nobody on this side of the scripture is asking you to buy it.

Just relax. The hoofed animal thing, Geshe-la, I'm going to put on hold for a while. I'll come back to it in a year or two.

And that's fine with everybody. It's fine with Lord Buddha. It's fine with Pabongka Rinpoche.

By the way, I thought I would introduce all the lamas. But you know, right? The one closest to Jared's head is Pabongka Rinpoche.

That's my teacher's, he taught my teacher when my teacher was quite young. He taught my teacher as a teenager. But mainly he was the heart lama of Trijang Rinpoche, who's the next photo over, right?

Second from the left. Who was the personal tutor of the current Dalai Lama. He trained the current Dalai Lama from childhood.

And I think he did a good job. No, I mean it says something about the teacher when the student comes out like that. In the monastery, there's a beautiful thing.

You can debate a guy from another monastery and you can identify his teacher from how he debates. It's like swordplay or something. You can tell from his style who his teacher is.

I think he did a pretty good job. So his main teacher was Pabongka Rinpoche, who wrote the book you're studying. And Pabongka Rinpoche trained Trijang Rinpoche, who's the second picture.

And then he trained my teacher, who's I think the second from the right, is it? Ken Rinpoche, Geshe Losantachi. Who's at the end?

Oh, His Holiness. Yeah, you know him. By the way, that was when he came here.

I think it's a picture in front of a saguaro cactus at the botanical gardens, I think, or something. I forget what year it was. It was in the 90s.

He taught in Tucson. He taught Master Shantideva. It was very beautiful.

So anyway. So this fourth quality is to, the fourth thing is that if you learn the steps, it will protect you from rejecting outright any teaching that you hear, which is called the great mistake. It's a very, very serious karma.

So why not just avoid it? If you have a problem with some idea that is presented here, you are encouraged to question it and ask about it and delve deeper into it. Or if you so choose, to ignore it and just let it go.

But there are so many beautiful ideas which are so useful. Why spend a lot of time on the ones you have a problem with? The little things.

Just move on. And you protect yourself from a very serious bad karma. We got like one more minute.

Let's see. DE YANG LA RIM CHEN PO SOGS SU MNGON TE LA GCOD PONG GI NA NA NA DE YANG CHE BA DANG PO GSUM LA NGES PA MA NYID LA Now there comes a question. I want to talk about the word automatically and then we'll stop.

If you study the teachings on the steps of the path well, it will automatically prevent you from making the great mistake. So I want to talk about the great mistake, now you have a feeling for it, which is really to disparage a teaching or to diss a teaching. Like you can disagree with it and you cannot accept it and you are encouraged to do that.

If you accept a teaching which doesn't make sense to you, you will destroy the rest of the teachings because you will mix into them every other crazy teaching you ever hear that doesn't make sense. See what I mean? Don't follow teachings which don't make sense to you because once you start on that road, you will follow some guy who tells you it's a spiritual path to kill anyone who doesn't believe in our religion.

You know what I mean? If you get in the habit of accepting ideas, spiritual ideas that don't feel comfortable to you or don't make sense to you, then you're really in trouble. If you don't think critically, then you will accept really terrible spiritual advice and you might end up doing a holy war.

You see what I mean? Like that. We beg you not to accept anything that doesn't make sense to you because if you get in that habit, it will hurt everybody.

But don't diss it. Don't diss it. Now about the automatic part.

If you understand that a body of ideas is completely consistent internally, if you have a personal experience where every time you hear those teachings, it feels like personal advice to you yourself, and if hearing those teachings suddenly opens your mind and you're able to understand almost any idea that anyone ever presents to you, then would you reject those teachings? See, if the first three greatnesses became evident to you, it would automatically stop the great mistake. Why would you reject them?

Why would you diss them? I'm talking diss, okay? You can shelve teachings, but don't diss them.

You wouldn't diss them if you had those deep experiences of them. So the first three greatnesses automatically prevent you from the great mistake, which is itself the fourth greatness of the Lam Rim teachings. Got it?

Stop saying got it Geshe Michael, we get it. Okay, I'm sorry. We'll do a final prayer.

[Говорящий 2] (43:15 - 44:11)
PURKIR YOR SHIN ME DOR DRAM RIG RAB RING SHI NYEN DE YAM PA DI SANG GE SHIN TU ME DE HU WA GI DROGON NAMDAR SHIN NA CHOD PA SHOK YI DANG DROG RAB DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG D