«Дар освобождения», курс 5 «Обрести то, кем нам всегда суждено было стать», занятие 6

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 47:23)
So we were going through four great qualities of the teachings on the Steps to the Path. The first one was you'll see that there's no inconsistency among all the teachings. Secondly, all the teachings will strike you as personal advice.

Thirdly, you'll understand what the Buddhists were thinking. And then fourthly, you will avoid the great mistake automatically. So around the great mistake.

,DE YANG PHYIR BA DANG PO GSUM GAL NA, ,GNYAD PA MA YIN NA, ,RGYAL BA'I RGA LA, ,THEG PA THOG MIN, If you understand the first three forms of greatness, you will automatically won't fall into the fourth problem. Because you'll see that all the teachings are consistent. They will seem like great personal advice to you.

And then, what's the third one? I'm like that presidential candidate. Yeah, and then you'll remember all that.

You'll understand the Buddha's true intent, right? So if you do all those, you're automatically not going to fall into the fourth problem. But the fourth problem, if you do, if you don't understand the first three, then you might start to think that there were higher and lower teachings among what the Buddha said.

You will begin to think there were higher and lower teachings among what the Buddha said. ,GZHAN PHYIR DANG, ,GYUR PA'I PHYIR SOGS, And then you will start to distinguish between theoretical teachings and teachings that you can put into practice, a false division. You will say, oh, that's philosophy.

Oh, and this is something I can use for my personal practice. You will start to make that division. Oh, that's just philosophy.

This is something I can use for my retreats. This is different, okay? You'll make that false distinction.

So, ,GUR PA BYED CHUNG, ,KHYAD PAR SDUG MA ZHIG BYED PAS, You will start to make many divisions among the teachings which don't exist there. And then you will, ,GUR PA BYED CHUNG, You will have degrees of respect, varying degrees of respect for the teachings. You will respect some teachings and not respect other teachings.

If you find yourself thinking that one teaching is better or higher or cooler than another, you have already fallen into the great mistake. They are all equally cool. And if you don't think so, you're making a big mistake.

,KHYAD PAR BYED PAS, ,CHOS PO NGIS LAS RTZA PO BYED, RTZA PO BYED is a very rare word that means humongous or terribly serious, extraordinarily serious mistake. RTZA PO BYED is a very rare word. It means unbelievably serious mistake.

CHOS PO NGIS LAS, the karma of rejecting the teachings. So apparently, to think that one teaching is cooler than another, is already to reject the teachings. ,GYUN MI BYED PAR CHUNG, For as long as you hold that opinion, you keep collecting that karma.

It's not like the first time you think that, you collect karma. Until you stop thinking that, you are continually collecting that karma. ,DE LTAR CHOS PO NGIS LAS NI, ,BRTZE PA BZHIN DU GCIG STE, The karmic obstacle created by picking and choosing among the teachings is extremely serious, he says.

Heavy. GCIG means heavy karma. ,NAM PAR THAG PA THAMS CAD DU PA'I RDO LAS, So there was a sutra called Collecting Together All That Was Crushed Into Pieces or something like that.

And that sutra said, ,BYAMS PA'I PHYUN PONG BA'I LAS KYI BRTZE PA NI PHRA BA'O, The Buddha is addressing Manjushri. And he says, Oh Manjushri, the obstacle to your spiritual progress created when you pick and choose among the dharma is extremely subtle. ,PHRA BA'O BYAMS PA'I PHYUN PO'I LAS KYI BRTZE PA NI PHRA BA'O, ,LA LA NI SANG BAR DU SHES, ,LA LA NI NYAN BAR DU SHES NI PHYIR PHONG BA'O, Then he says, Manjushri, what does it mean to give up the dharma?

He says, To think that some of them are better. That some of the teachings are more interesting or better. And some of the teachings are not so interesting and worse.

This is what it is to abandon the dharma. ,GANG PHYIR PHONG BA'I THEG PHYIR PHANGS PA'I, ,DE BZHIN BSHAD PA LA BKUR BA BDAG PA YIN, A person who picks and chooses among the dharma and considers certain teachings to be of less importance or of less interest is not just rejecting the teaching. They're rejecting the source of the teaching, which is the Buddha.

So essentially they are rejecting the Buddha. ,RGYEN DU LA NGAN DU SPYOD PA YIN NO, And then they are, they are, what do you call it? Hmm, sounds like praising, but it's the opposite.

They are disparaging the community of enlightened beings and of realized beings. ,DI NI RIG PA'O, ,DI NI MI RIG PA'O ZHES SER NA CHOD PO'O, To say that this strikes me as something interesting or logical, and this doesn't seem so interesting or good to me, this is what it is. It says Buddha in a sutra to reject the dharma.

,DI NI BYANG CHUB SEMS PA RNAMS KYIS CHE DU GSUNGS PA'O, ,DI NI NYAN DU RNAMS KYIS CHE DU GSUNGS PA'O ZHES SER NA CHOD PO'O YIN NO, This is still the Buddha speaking. To say that, oh, those teachings were given only for bodhisattvas and those other teachings were given only for listeners, right? People who are not on the bodhisattva track, is to reject the dharma.

It's a very serious vow in your bodhisattva vows, right? ,DI NI RNAMS KYIS CHE DU GSUNGS PA'O ZHES SER NA CHOD PO'O YIN NO, That would be to, or to say this is for self-made buddhas, right? For the three tracks only, okay?

Only, right? What does it mean, the three tracks in Tibetan, right? People of lesser capacity, people of medium capacity, and people of highest capacity, bodhisattva, right?

The three teachings are technically not called lower teaching or medium teaching or higher teaching. The first two are referred to as those which we practice together with the lower track. And the second one is called that which we practice together with those of the medium path.

Meaning they're not practiced only by those of the first two tracks. They are practiced by all three, the highest track also. Bodhisattvas practice the first two tracks as a foundation.

So they don't reject or deny the truth of the first two tracks. They build upon them. And it's important for us to realize that any teaching in the scriptures that we feel is too simple for us or something like that, that we are meant to build on it and not reject it.

ZHES PO'O YIN NO, DE NI BYANG CHUB SEMS PAS RNAMS KYI BSLAB PA MA YIN NO ZHES SER NA CHOD PO'O YIN NO ZHES GSUNGS And then Lord Buddha said, anybody who says any teaching wasn't meant for the bodhisattvas is rejecting my teaching. Anybody who says that any teaching wasn't meant for the bodhisattvas is rejecting my teaching. YIN NO ZHES GSUNGS, end of quotation.

BCUG SPANG NA DE GNAS PA BZHIN DU CI BA NI, ,RTEN GYI RDZIN GYI RGYAL PO LAS, How serious is it if we reject the teachings in this way by picking and choosing? And then he quotes RTEN GYI RDZIN GYI RGYAL PO, Samadhi Raja Sutra, The King of Concentration Sutra. ,GANG GIS RDZAMS PA LING BDIR NI, ,CHOS RTEN THAMS CAD GCIG BYAS PA, GCIG BYAS PAS, ,GANG GIS RDO LAS DPONG BYAS PAS, ,DIG PA DE NI CHE KHYAD PARG, So he says, if you were to go around the world and actively destroy every place of worship, every church, every synagogue, every Buddhist temple, if you were to have the power to send somebody around the world for you, or you went yourself and destroyed every place of worship on this entire planet, ,DPONG BYAS PAS, ,DIG PA DE NI CHE KHYAD PARG, the karma of rejecting any of the teachings would be much more serious.

Any one of the teachings would be more serious. Then as I said, when was it? Tuesday night.

That was a nice day off. I don't know about you, I had a good time. Anyway, of course the Buddha is talking about criticizing and not about being critical.

The Buddha demanded that we should question his teachings. The Buddha demanded that we should think critically and that we should listen to a teaching, maybe try it, check it out a little bit. And if we find that we don't understand it or we cannot accept it, then we are required to set it aside for the time being.

In Buddhism you are required not to accept something which doesn't make sense to you yet. So critical thinking is required. Of course, if you're debating for three or four or five hours a day in the monastery, there must be questions and there must be issues that arise.

And if something comes up that you're not comfortable with, then the Buddha required that you not accept it and that you set it aside. But he also required that you not actively criticize it or disparage it, that you should respect it. You should say respectfully, I can't accept this teaching right now.

There must be some point to it or there must be some truth to it that I don't know about, maybe. But for now I'm just going to put it aside. We are encouraged to do that.

But not to actively say, that's a stupid teaching. I don't need that teaching. Okay, that's a big difference.

All right. ,BCOM BSAD PAR GANG GIS RGANGS RGYAS BYAS NYES KYIS, ,DRA BCOM BSAD PAR GYUR PA'O BA'I, ,GANG GIS RDO DE'I SPONG BYAS PAS, ,DIG PA DE NI BYAS KHAS PAR, So an arhat is someone who has achieved nirvana, right? After billions of lifetimes of work, they have achieved nirvana.

They no longer have the capacity to get angry or jealous or to desire other people's girlfriends or stuff, wrong kinds of desire. They don't have, they're incapable of a negative emotion after billions of lifetimes of work. Enemy destroyer, arhat in Sanskrit.

If you took an arhat and killed them, and then he pauses and he says, not one arhat, but if you took the grains of sand in the whole Ganges River, and some scriptures say the drops of water in the whole Ganges River. If you've ever gone to the Ganges River, like I crossed the Ganges on a bridge in West Bengal, and it takes like, on a bridge, it takes like half an hour to cross the Ganges. It's big.

It's really big. If you take all the water drops in the Ganges River and you killed that many arhats, if you killed that many people who had already reached nirvana, it wouldn't be the same amount of bad karma that you collect when you criticize a teaching and say it's stupid or it's worthless or I don't need that or something like that. Or that one's not so interesting, Geshe Michael.

Could you teach something more interesting? Okay? Then you collect that karma.

DIPA DE NI CHE SKYES PAGS CHE GSUNGS He says, this is paks, by the way, you guys know pakpa, right? Pakpa means Arya or someone who has seen emptiness directly. It doesn't mean Nazi supremacist.

But in this scripture, it means even more serious. If you want to collect the superior bad deed, paks, then bad mouth the Dharma or pick and choose. CHE BA DANG PO GSUM LA NGES PA NYES NA RGYAL BA'I RGA LAS DOR RGYUD NA GCIG KYANG MED PAR Once you understand the first three qualities of the Lam Rim clearly, you wouldn't think to reject a single thing in the teachings.

It wouldn't even occur to you to reject anything. NYAMS SU LAM RANG DGUL PA TSUM PAR SKYE BA'I And you would have an equal regard or respect for all the teachings. SKYE PA'I SANG YIN DU DGE BA'I PHYIR PONG GI DGOS PHYIR BZHED DI RANG RGAGS SU ROL YIN So therefore we say, if you understand the first three qualities of the Lam Rim, you automatically avoid the fourth.

Automatically. Which is the most serious of all the mistakes you can make. GZHAN YANG GZHAN YIN BSTAN TSUL GZUL BZHIN BSAM NA DGE BA'I GZHAN YIN LA BSTAN PA'I DRIB RNAM DANG SNANG GI PHONG BZHIN GZHAN YANG Moreover, GZHAN YIN BSTAN TSUL GZUL BZHIN BSAM NA DGE BA'I GZHAN YIN LA BSTAN PA'I There are also another whole category of extremely serious karmas.

And this is actually more serious than rejecting the Dharma. He's going off on a little tangent. I said, if you want to collect some really bad karma, pick and choose among the Dharma.

Say, this is interesting, this is not. Or this is sexy and that's not sexy. Something like that.

But then he pauses and he says, hey, but if you wanted to collect an even more serious bad karma, there's something you could do. Disrespect your teacher. That's more serious.

GZHAN YIN BSTAN TSUL GZHIN BSAM NA DGE BA'I GZHAN YIN LA BSTAN PA'I LAS DRIB That will create an obstacle to your progress, which is more serious than the other one. He's like having a bad karma contest. Bad karma that you collect from disrespecting your teacher is more serious.

Especially your heart teacher. BRTAN ROL BDANG MI BTAB PAS GOR LTA BU NGES NA SEMS DIR BZHIN PA'I NYE'I PHYIR RANG RGAGS SU BRAL BA NAS If someone explains to you how lucky you are to be in the position you are and in the country you're in and to have the freedom of religion that you have, the freedom to practice what you want, you take it for granted. Like nobody here is watching the door to see if the Phoenix police come in and shoot anybody for talking about the Lam Rim.

But that hasn't been the case in most countries throughout the history of mankind. You could get shot for learning something that wasn't the mainstream beliefs. So you are in a very unusual, almost a unique situation in history to be able to practice as you please and to have the money and the food and the house and the teachings.

To have someone come out of Tibet and walk over the Himalayas, which Rinpoche did, to bring you these teachings at the risk of his life, then you're lucky. You're very lucky. And mitakpa, it won't last forever.

That kind of freedom doesn't last. That kind of comfort doesn't last. Oil supplies don't last.

I was telling everybody 20 years. A banker told me yesterday it's seven years. If you factor in the precious metals and the other necessary materials for our current level of comfort and technology, those metals will...

If you factor those in with oil, then you've got seven years left. So it's mitakpa. It ain't going to last forever.

The materials required to make an iPhone will be finished in the world in seven or eight years. Okay. mitakpay kor tabu ngepa'i tse dir shenpa'i nechu ranggak su druwa na So then if you understood those facts, you would automatically...

He's trying to get us sensitized to the idea automatically. Then you would automatically be cured of being too attached to your current way of life. Because it's not going to last.

sem gye gyi mikor kyang na rang chen dzin la tenpay nye chu dang And if, for example, you study bodhichitta, the desire or the vision to save the world, then you won't get the disease of rang chen. Rang chen dzin. Rang chen dzin means the habit of only thinking about what you want.

Or the habit of only thinking about what's of interest to you. Okay. And if you start to think on a greater level, then your plans and your wishes and your thoughts during the day, they won't degenerate into just thinking about what you want or what's interesting to you.

dak me kyi mikor la jang na dang dzin gyi par dak dzin gyi par mikor re re shing gyu la kye ne And if you study the pen, if you come to understand emptiness, then you won't misunderstand your world. It automatically, your tendency of misunderstanding your world will drop away. He's giving different examples for automatic, the word automatic.

If you understand that your husband, when he criticizes you, is popping out of a tiny seed that was put in your own mind when you criticized someone at work last week, then it's not possible to be angry at your husband. You would rather correct yourself. mikor shing gyu la kye na mikor re re shing gyu la kye na de dang de mi tun chok gi nye chu chenpur rang gak su dro ba yin So in general, the great mistake of rejecting the Dharma will fall away from you automatically, if you understand the first three greatnesses of the Dharma.

But as you go through each step of this teaching, the steps on the path to enlightenment, then as you learn each step, then the corresponding tendency to think wrong will fall away. If someone sensitizes you to the fact that your current political circumstances cannot last and your material circumstances are very, very fragile, much more fragile than you imagine, then you're not going to be too attached to the way you're living right now. You'll be ready to change when the poop hits the fan.

You'll be ready. Your mind won't go crazy or get all sad. You will work steadily in the time you have now, because it's not going to last.

If someone explains it to you clearly, then you don't get so freaked out when they tell you there's no more oil. All right. re re shing la kye nye gya su la de tabu chewa de dak gi rimpe go ne shi na So now he's described the four greatnesses of the teachings on the path.

The first greatness is that you would see that there are no contradictions in all the thousands of teachings given by the Buddha. Secondly, they would appear to you as personal advice. Thirdly, you would grasp their deepest meaning.

And fourthly, you would protect yourself automatically from ever rejecting any of them. Then he's going to give an example to illustrate those four. Okay?

A metaphor. He's going to give a metaphor. pe na hla tripa shik gi thang kha triwa la de la go nge kyi re shi dang tsun dang pir la sopa cha tsang ru ruk che gu So there's a beautiful word in Tibetan.

It's called hla tripa. Say hla. hla tripa And in colloquial, it's called hla ripa.

Hla ripa. Hla means what? Hla means like a deity, like a beautiful goddess or god, angel, okay?

The beautiful form of an angel. Tripa means a drawer. Hla tripa is a painter of thangkas.

Okay? But they don't call them painter. They call them god drawers.

I like it. I like the word god. Drawers of god.

Okay? I like it. Hla ripa, hla ripa.

So a hla ripa, who wants to paint a painting of their favorite angel, first they're going to have to get together all the materials they need for the painting. You don't start a painting until you get a re shi, the canvas. Tsun, you get together your paints.

Pir means a paintbrush, et cetera. Cha tsang ru ruk che gu You got to go out and get all the things you need to do the painting, okay? den dre lak chak dang yor che tam che thangka de driway chak kyen du gyur pa shak dar ma tok gyel kyen du gyur pa chung se kyang mey par Then if someone came to you and said, don't get a paintbrush for your painting, it would be contradictory to your purpose of painting.

Okay? If someone came to you and said, the paint's okay and the canvas is okay, but don't get a paintbrush. It'll ruin your painting.

Okay? Got it? What's that a metaphor for?

The first of the four greatnesses. If you think any teaching of the Buddha contradicts any other teaching of the Buddha, you are as much a fool as a person who says, don't get a paintbrush when you want to paint something. It'll get in your way.

Okay? Or don't buy paints. It'll ruin the painting.

Okay? They are wrong for a person who wants to paint. Got it?

They would be silly as saying that, all right? ,GZHAN PA'I RGYAL MED DU LTAGS RTOGS PA'I PAS, Of course, there's no contradiction at all. A paintbrush is not only not contradictory to the goal of making a painting, it's a necessity.

And it's a tung khyen. What's a tung khyen? It's something that you need when you're undertaking a painting.

,RGYAL MED DU LTAGS RTOGS PA'I PAS, ,DE LTAR ZHES NAS LAG CHAG DANG YOD CHE DE DAG LA BSTAN NAS, ,THANG RGYAL GYIS ZHES PA LTA BU DE, ,ZHUS RAB DANG SNGAG TU ZHAR BA'I PAS, So we had an example now of the first of the four greatnesses. If someone tells you a paintbrush is going to be a problem when you're painting, you should set them straight. If somebody tells you some part of the Buddhist teaching contradicts some other part of the Buddhist teaching, you should say, ,'A KHRAMS KHRER, Quite the opposite.

You need, each piece fits into the other pieces. ,DE LTAR ZHES NAS Then when you use all those instruments and you know how to use the canvas and you know how to use the paintbrush and you know how to use the paints to make the paintings, you could call that a metaphor for all the instructions, kadampa, for number two. That's like kadampa.

Oh, I know how to use that. Yeah, yeah, he was talking about that. Kadampa means every single word you hear during the whole evening to night, it strikes you that you could take that home and use it on your husband or your boss or your kid.

Like, yeah, yeah, I could use that. Yeah, I like that. I'm going to use that tomorrow.

Got it? You know how to use each point in the scripture the way a painter knows how to use each paint and the canvas and the brush. Okay, got it?

We still got the example going in your head? Okay, there must be coming an example of the third one, I hope. DE LA BSTAN NAS THANG KA LAS PAR GRUB PA DE RGYAL BA'I BSGOM PA DE LAG TU NAS PAS PA'I YIN NO Then if you use those paints and the brush and the canvas and your knowledge of how they all fit together perfectly to actually execute a beautiful thangka, then it's as if you had grasped the deepest thoughts of the Buddha.

Got it? You painted the beautiful painting, which is number three, right? You grasped the...

What's number four? DE LTAR BYAS PA'I SHES PA DE LA BRJOD RJE TSIG GI BYAS PA He doesn't tie in the fourth to the example. How would we do it?

The fourth one is... And you wouldn't give up any of the... You'd have to burn the painting or something.

Okay, he doesn't even mention it. DE LTAR BYAS PA'I SHES PA DE LA BRJOD RJE GYI TSIG GI BYAS PA SHES DANG BRJOD RJE BRJOD BYA STONG GI BYAS PA SHES THA GNYAS THOB CING BRJOD RJE TSIG GI BYAS PA SHES RGYEN CHOS KHOR RANG LA BRDAN MOD BRJOD BYA STONG GI BYAS PA SHES GANG SA RAG NYID LA BRDAN PA GAL CHE SU Then, Pabongka Rinpoche made a distinction between the four greatnesses as a quality of the book, as a quality of the books, and the four greatnesses as a concept within your own mind. Okay, he distinguished between the words used to describe the four greatnesses, which are called BRJOD RJE. And then he said, really, these are just words describing four states of mind.

And that's what you really want. You don't want the words that describe the four greatnesses. You want them to be ideas within your own mind.

You want to find them. You want to develop them within your own mind and not on paper. Okay, right?

Got it? Okay. DE BYAS PA SHES SONG NAS BYANG CHUB LAM GYI RIM PA DE NYID CHE BA'I ZHIG PO DE DAG BRTAN PAR MA ZAD KHYAD CHOS CHEN PO GSUM DANG YANG BRTAN TE So there's a tradition that we cover not only the four greatnesses of the Lamrim teaching, but three, it's called the three special features of the teaching, okay?

So we have four great qualities, and then we have three special features of the teachings. So now we're going to do the three special features. KHYAD CHOS CHEN PO YANG BRTAN KHYAD CHOS GSUM NI SDONG SNGAGS KYI GSUNG RAB THAMS CAD KYI BRJOD BYA'I DUS NAS BRTAN PA'I BRJOD BYA'I MA TZAL BA MED PA You can, the first feature of the Lamrim is that it includes every topic found in the entire Buddhist scriptures.

Hundreds of thousands of scriptures. Each topic can be found in the Lamrim, okay? MA TZAL BA MED PA means, and not a single one left out, right?

SEMS DU BA'I RIM PA MTSOR BA BYAS NAS BRTAN PA'I LHAG TU LANG BDE BA LHAG TU LANG BDE BA means easily put into practice. Feature number two, easily put into practice. Why?

Why? All of the steps of the Lamrim are aimed at only one subject, at one being, which is your mind, okay? It's not like you have to go to Chicago to practice the Lamrim, okay?

Every subject of the Lamrim is applied only as far as the quarter inch from the front of your head to the back, okay? It's easy to practice. All you do is hear it and close your eyes and start working on your own mind, okay?

It's not like you have to do anything else. You hear it, close your eyes, start working on your own mind. It's easy.

I mean, you don't have to go anywhere to practice the Lamrim, okay? You can do it in your own head, all right? You don't have to go to a cave or something like that.

You can sit on your couch and turn off the television and start working on the Lamrim as soon as you hear it, okay? DE BA ZHING DAG CHEN PO NYID KYIS LUGS LA SKAD PA'I BLA MA NYID KYIS DAM PAS RGYEN PA'I LUGS GZHAN LAS SKAD PA DU BAG PA The third feature of the Lamrim teachings is that it includes the thought of two very high beings. As those two thoughts have come down to us through two famous Lamas.

Okay, I'll say it again. The third feature of the Lamrim is that it covers the deepest thoughts of two very high beings as those thoughts have been passed down to us through two very high Lamas, okay? Who he's talking about, we'll find out later, okay?

Now he's going to cover the three in a little bit more detail. Not much detail, okay? DE DANG PO NYID Here's the first one.

GSUNG RAB GONG BRAL DANG BYAS PA'I GCIG TU MI NUS KYANG SDUG BSNGAL NAS THA DAG MA TSA BA MED PAR BRAL DUS NAS BSTAN PA YIN This is interesting. He says, in attempt to abbreviate the wording of the sutras and somehow include all the words there would be doomed to failure, okay? You can't, you could never write a book that included all the descriptions in the sutras and tantras.

It's not possible. It would be as long as the sutras and tantras. It would be 4,500 and something works.

It'd be eight million pages long, okay? If you tried to get all the wording of the sutras and tantras into a single book, it would be just one very fat book, okay? But the ideas can be abbreviated into a single small book.

It's possible to take all the ideas of all the Buddhist teachings and abbreviate them into 14 verses, right? It's possible. So when we say in the first feature that you can abbreviate the Buddhist teachings into the Lam Rim, they're not talking about the phraseology, which would be impossible.

They're talking about the ideas. The ideas can be boiled down to three main ideas, okay? MA TZAM BA MED PA'I DIR DUR PA BSTAN PA YIN GSUNG RAB DGONG BRAL DANG BYAS PA'I DRON THA LTA SKYES BU GSUM GYI LAM GYI RIM PAR BDOD You can abbreviate all the thinking or ideas of all the enlightened beings into the three tracts for people of three capacities, right?

Lesser, medium, and greater capacity. The Lam Rim. DE'I DGE'UR LA RIM NYON MU ZHIG GI NANG DU DUS NAS BRTEN PA'I And you can abbreviate all those into 14 verses, into three pages, okay?

All the eight million pages of Buddhist learning, traditional, ancient learning, can be summarized in three pages without anything missing. Okay? MED PA'I DUR DUR NAS BRTEN PA'I YIN As far as subject matter.

DE'ANG RJES SUNGS SKABS PA CHEN PO'I LAM MA DUNG MA RPA'I PHU BA'I CHABS SHOG This is a very famous quotation. It's part of a letter that Je Tsongkapa wrote to his teacher, okay? He had a teacher named Lama Dung Ma Rpa, which means Lama Middleway.

Mr. Middleway, okay? He was a sheep herder, okay? And he was not a Geshe or anything like that.

He was a sheep herder. Well, I find it very beautiful. It means a lot to me.

And Lama Ma Rpa, while he was out, you have to get your sheep to a certain meadow and then you have to sit under a tree for four hours and do nothing. That's why I guess David played a flute or whatever. They don't have anything to do.

So Lama Ma Rpa, as a young man, would pray to Manjushri for wisdom. And then he reached Manjushri, right? SADHANA, DRUG THUB.

He reached Manjushri. He reached a personal communication with Manjushri. He could see and talk to Manjushri directly, okay?

And then he became Je Tsongkapa's mentor in getting Tantric deities to appear to you, okay? And he did. He trained him how to get a Tantric deity to come and appear, all right?

That was his job, teaching Je Tsongkapa. Okay, so here's a letter. Here's a piece out of a letter that Je Tsongkapa, as a mature Lama, later sent to his teacher, Lama Ma Rpa, okay?

DE'O MAR MED ZAD YES SHES KYI DAM PA BYANG CHUB LAM GYI RIM PA'I MAN NGAG DI Sometimes I think about these steps to the path which have come down to us through the glorious Mar Med Zad, maker of lamps, Dipamkara, which is the monk's name of Lord Atisha, okay? Who invented that little lam rim, okay? So sometimes I think about him.

And I think about the lam rim tradition that he has granted us. RIM PA'I MAN NGAG GI TSUL RAB I'm sorry. Yeah.

RIM PA'I MAN NGAG TSUL RAB GONG BRAL GYI BRTAN BYIN MAN NGAG THAG DAG LA NAM GYI RIM PA GCIG TU BRJEN NAS And it strikes me, I grasp, that Lord Atisha was able to put the entire subject matter of all the Buddhist scriptures into those three pages. I think about it sometimes. And it amazes me, okay?

LAM GYI GCIG TU BRJEN NAS BRTAN PA SNANG BA'I That's how it looks to me. It looks like he has succeeded in three pages to capture the entire teachings of Buddhism. Eight, nine pages, okay?

BYAS SHES DANG NGAN SHES PA'I GNYIS KYIS SHES CING NYAMS SU BLANGS NA MED NGAG MED NGAG TSE CHUNG BA MA ZAD TSUL RAB THAR DAG GIS GONG GCIG NAS DBANG BAR SNANG BA'I BYAS SHES PA'I NGAN SHES PA'I GNYIS KYIS SHES CING NYAMS SU BLANGS NA If you know how to study the Lam Rim, and if you know how to teach it, and then you practice it, then you could talk about versions of the Lam Rim that are longer. Or versions of the Lam Rim which are shorter. But in either case, TSUL RAB THAR DAG GIS GONG GCIG NAS They include the...

I don't want to say guts. It's not very proper. They include the...

Essence is a little too general. It means guts, but he wouldn't say that. Yeah, pith is good.

They include the pith of all the scriptures. SNANG BA'I GCIG GI RNAM DAG MANG PO BSTOD PAR MA BYAS As such, I have not found it necessary to use any other book in teaching my disciples. It seems enough to me.

It seems enough. So that's Je Tsongkapa who ended up writing 10,000 pages of scripture. Very difficult scripture.

But he said in the end, it seems to me that was enough. DE NA GRUB THAG GZHAN DU RGYAM ROL SOGS DNGOS GRUB PHYI CHEN ZHIG DANG DNGOS ZHIG SOGS PHYI GYIS RNAM DANG GI DAG NAS SO SO NAS YOD KYANG RANG RE DKA' DAM SA NING GI LUGS DIR PHYI GYIS RNAM DANG MANG PO MI DGOS PAR THAMS CAD LAM GYI RIM GYIS RNAM DU SDU NAS RTEN PA YIN There are other traditions or lineages in Tibet, like Nyingma and Kagyu and Sakyapa. These three main other lineages.

And then there's the Gelugpa, which is the lineage of the Dalai Lama. So we are the Gelugpa. We belong to the Gelugpa.

Each lineage is beautiful. Each lineage has its own flavor and attracts people of a different need. Each lineage is really beautiful.

But he says, in other Tibetan traditions, they make a big deal about what we call the four great preliminaries. Like they'll say, have you done your mundo? Have you done your 100,000 mandala offerings?

And have you done your 100,000 prostrations? Etc. And they make a big deal about, there's a separate group of literature that's dedicated to that practice.

,MU ZHIG SROG PHRAD KYI RNAM DANG GI THA GNAS SU, Then there are other scriptures which treat, after you've done your mundos, maybe they take you four or five years. It's a tradition, for example, at Shambhala. What do you know?

What do they call it? The place in Naropa. So the founders of Naropa were following a lama who required them, and they still do it.

If you go there and you become a student at the Dharma side of that institution, then they encourage you to spend the first few years on doing 100,000 prostrations and 100,000 mandala offerings, etc. ,MU ZHIG SROG PHRAD KYI RNAM DANG GI THA GNAS SU, And then later you get separate teachings on your actual practice. Then he says, here in our tradition, which is called Kadam Sarning.

Say, Kadam Sarning. Kadam Sarning. Kadam means Kadampa.

The tradition that started a thousand years ago in Tibet called Kadampa. Kadampa, we were talking about it in terms of everything appearing to you as personal advice, right? But it's also the name of the forefathers of our immediate tradition.

Then the new Kadampas are, sorry, the old Kadampas are from Lord Atisha up to Jatsangkapa. Jatsangkapa begins the new Kadampas. And we are new Kadampas.

So Kadam Sarning. He looked there, here in the tradition of the older and the newer Kadampas, PHYI GYI RNAM DANG MANG PO MI DGOS PAR You don't really need anything else. It's enough to get a good lamrim.

If you got a hold of a good lamrim, it would be a complete teaching. You wouldn't need a lot of separate classes of literature. Just one would have everything in it.

Of course, it's better if you go through the ACI courses, which are the TSE GNYIS PA. TSE GNYIS PA means, I don't know, let me think. People who can spend the time to go deeper.

Let's say that. If you can go deeper, it's good, but you don't have to. You could do the lamrim, and in theory it would be enough.

It's good to do the TSE GNYIS PA path before you go through the lamrim, because the lamrim was drawn from the TSE GNYIS PA path. The lamrim is an abbreviation of the ACI 18 courses. It's better if you go through the 18 courses and then you can appreciate the lamrim.

Lamrim is for people who don't have time to go through the 18 courses. I say you should do both because you're going to teach and you need a big toolbox. Somebody might need something that was in Course 6.

Somebody might need something that's in here. And you should know both. There's a subject that pops into my mind.

People tell me, I don't feel like learning that, Geshe-la. I appreciate that the ACI courses are important, but they don't really interest me. I'm not real interested in them.

They don't call to me. Or they say the lamrim doesn't call to me. I like the ACI courses.

Or I like the tantric courses. I'm not so interested in the ACI courses. They don't strike me as so interesting, Geshe-la.

I would propose a distinction between what's interesting to you and what will help other people. I would propose a distinction between what you find interesting or personally compelling or fun and what you have a responsibility to learn if you're going to serve others. It may not be the sexiest thing to you or the most interesting thing to you, but it may save somebody else's life.

We had a rancher, the guy who allowed us to do the first three-year retreat. He had a 5,000 acre ranch. Actually, there were two partners and one of them was a little crazy.

I won't explain how, but they allowed us to be in a corner of the ranch for three years without even talking to us. But the one guy used to accuse the other guy of, he said, you know, John, when he puts his pants on, he thinks the whole world is dressed. Meaning he can only think as far as his own interests and he can't think of what might be interesting or necessary for other people.

Sometimes reflect, I don't feel like doing my six times book today. That's okay, that's true. You don't feel like doing it.

But what would be most help to others? You see? You have a responsibility to do some things that are not fun because they might save somebody else's life.

You learn a skill that might save somebody else's life even though it's not so interesting to you. You should, you have to. Then it becomes interesting.

If you look at it that way, it all becomes interesting. All scripture, all teachings become interesting in the context of something you might have to pull out on your next trip to Bulgaria to save somebody's life. So think of it that way.

You have a responsibility to master all these things. It's not a question of what's fun for you. Once you get into saving lives, it's not like, oh, this surgeon doesn't like to do kidneys.

Okay, but what if somebody has a bad kidney? You have to learn.