«Дар освобождения», курс 5 «Обрести то, кем нам всегда суждено было стать», занятие 7

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 9:42)
Three features that make the Steps to the Path so cool. First one, that's a four. It includes every teaching of the book, sorry.

Second feature, easy to put into practice. Third feature, comes down through two great villages, okay. From the enlightened deities down to us, okay.

Now we're in the middle of the third feature. And they found out that Tsongkhapa showed this. Tsongkhapa also said, the teacher of this line is the first diagram, also said, Tsongkhapa showed this, he said, Then he said, there are, they were crowning jewels on all the stages here in the world.

They were people whose banners shone in glory of their fame in the world. They are Lulu and Tope. Who's that?

Are you going to do it? That's Master Somba. Okay, from the third and the fourth centuries in Spanish, okay.

So generation by generation, those two great teachers, teachings on emptiness and on compassion, have come down to us. It's a nice expression, means a pure lineage, unbroken, pure lineage. So that's been an unbroken and pure lineage for almost 2,000 years.

From those two great masters. Then last night we made a big deal about how the teachings that came down from Ayurveda kind of implied the teachings that came down from Master Somba. Meaning, if you understand emptiness, then you can really have bodhicitta.

Bodhicitta is a Buddhist idea that it's possible for any one person to contribute to saving the entire world. That you can have a vision of helping the entire world. So any one of us, with the correct ammunition, can make a difference in the entire planet.

That ammunition is understanding where the world really comes from. And it comes from us. Really comes from us.

So just, you know, my lovers challenged me after much fighting, struggle. They said, you go start a business in New York. You go help start a business in New York.

And I didn't want to go. And I struggled against it. I really didn't want to get involved in business.

They forced me. There's a newspaper article, there's a gossip column article that says I bought all these expensive suits. I was forced to wear a suit.

Literally. By my teacher. And we bought it at Goodwill.

Okay? It was a dead man's suit. Anyway.

So I was forced. And then, but we built a $200 million, a quarter billion dollar company. Just using these ideas.

With no other training. No other business training. Nothing.

No interest. If you understand where things come from, you can design your life. You can have everything you want happen in your life.

And then you can make big changes in the world. You see? For example, with money, if you understand where it comes from, you can have as much as you want to help other people.

Right? Then people will come to you and they'll say, why do you always have money? Do you always have enough money?

Say, because I give away money. And then they'll try it, right? And then you have to say, I give it away, but I give it away with a certain technique that you have to learn.

And then they say, teach me the technique. And you teach it to them. And it always involves giving help to others.

Making others successful. So what would help? You see?

Everybody in the world is trying to make a living, right? There's 7 billion people. Those who are not independent and wealthy, they are doing something to make money.

And they're all doing the wrong thing. They are worthless. And they're competing with other people.

But to make a living, 7 billion people are mistaken in the way they get their daily bread. And what would happen if you could begin to spread a philosophy that says the only way to make a living is to make sure others are well-trained and taken care of. You see?

Well, what has that got to be the viewpoint of people on the whole planet? The poor would be immediately comforted by everyone else. People would be rushing to Africa to help the poor.

You see what I mean? And the whole balance of suffering in the world would change. It would be like a mandala.

And that's Bodhicitta. And you cannot imagine it unless you understand where things come from. You can't talk about Bodhicitta and you can't claim you're going to help the world.

If you don't know that thing about what you want, you must first provide to someone else. If you don't know that rule, you cannot change the world. If you do know that rule, any individual can help to change the world.

Okay? Got it? That's why it's so cool that these two lineages are married in our Indian lineage, the Dalai Lama's lineage.

Those two ideas are married in this lineage. If you understand where the world is coming from, you can save the world. As an individual.

It's cool. Got it? Okay.

Stop saying that. These three features are not possessed even by such great texts as Maitreya's Ornament of Realizations of the Samaya Alankara. Have you seen that lately?

Like last Monday? This last Monday. We studied, okay?

Take that book that we studied on Monday for like eight hours. Everyone was into it. My eyes were playing around.

And then, or the Phelsanga Dukkha. Phelsanga Dukkha means the Guhyasamaja Tantra. One of the highest tantras.

You can take those two famous scriptures. One of the ultimate presentations on ideas. And one of the highest tantras in existence.

They don't have the three features that we just mentioned. Which one are they then? Number one.

Do they include all the teachings of the Buddha? Not really. Implicitly, it's implied, but it's not directly taught in those texts.

They are incomplete. Because they were meant for people to eat as dessert to the main course. Okay?

Tantra comes later. After you have the main course, right? And same with having teachings on everything.

Do they have the second feature of the Lamrim? Are they easily put into practice? No.

They're not. Do they possess the third feature of having in them those two great lineages? They do.

Okay? But they're not direct. They're not directly stated.

In the case of the Amitabha, they're not directly stated. In the case of the Guhyasamaja Tantra, also not directly stated. But implied.

You can't practice Tantra without those two ideas either. Because Tantra means that you also are coming from seeds. And you could become someone who changes the entire world.

You don't have to be a normal person. You are also... the reality of you is flexible.

[Говорящий 2] (9:43 - 9:44)
Okay?

[Говорящий 1] (9:44 - 28:44)
All right. In Nyingma Dharmakirti's Dzogchak Chatsang Dukkha Yantmeyla, those two words don't include all the teachings of the open and secret instructions of the Buddhas. Samdurwe Rinpoche's Tsongchak Anmedho, they don't directly treat the practice of taking your own mind.

And he said, Daluo, right? Daluo means to tame your mind, control your mind. And I gave the example of?

A banana? A horse. It was a banana.

The horse might have eaten a banana, I don't know. I was talking about being at the coffee shop and, you know, I had a banana because I knew I was, I took a banana to buy it. Then I was hoping that I would break down and eat something else.

So I was standing there with the banana, and I'm looking at all the other things which I'm not allowed to eat, you know. And the lady kept asking me, are you going to buy the banana, sir? Are you going to buy the banana, sir?

And I'm like... Try to find some rationale to eat something else. But I couldn't, kind of.

That was a kind of self-control. That's not the kind of self-control we're talking about here. It's love.

This self-control of the mind means... We gave the example of your husband criticizing you. And that when your husband comes home in a nasty mood and says something mean to you, at that moment, you need self-control of the mind.

What form does it take? Do you call like a Zen monk? No.

Look at your husband criticizing you, and think about where he's coming from. Why is he criticizing you? And then remember that he is coming from seeds in your own mind, which were planted by you when you were critical of someone else last week.

Then you don't have to control your emotions. You can't get angry if you know it's your fault. Right?

So there's no control. The mind doesn't mean don't get angry when someone punches you. It means look at them and understand where they're coming from.

And you can't get angry. It's not controlling anger. It just cannot come.

And that's the only way to ever stop anger. The teachings on the steps of the path treat that subject directly. Those other two books don't.

You won't see the Gurya Samantabhadra talking about a husband who complains. Nor will you see Maitreya's text on emptiness talking about the husband directly. But in this book, you will.

All right. The Gurya Samantabhadra says, So right now, you have a chance. We are about to step onto the teachings on the steps of the path.

It possesses those four high qualities. The first of which, massive turn of energy. And it also possesses the other three qualities.

So some of you are confused. There's four in this thing. We covered the four a while back.

Now we're on this thing. But anyway, they have all seven. This teaching has all seven qualities.

So it really is a fantastic source, resource for us. We have a chance. We have a chance to Say So sometimes, Sarah, Mae, it's not called Sarah Mae.

It's called A jeweled island where you may undertake the practices of What are they? Let's tell. Studying.

Sitting in this class right now is Tö. Tö means listening. You can Shuddhi.

To listen. Some, go home and sing a song. Or go to a nice cafe with your TA, which you should be doing, because it's under home there.

And talk it over with your friends. That's contemplation. Thinking about what you heard.

You can do it on the way home in the car. You can do it on your throne at home. And then, go.

Go means Meditate on what you come up with in your contemplation. You have to meditate on that. Internalize it.

Make it part of your being. Tö, Sam, Go. Tö means Tö means Tö means It's very How do you say it?

Golden days. These are the golden days. We have a chance.

All of us here, we have a chance to talk about this scripture. We have a chance to try it out. We have a chance to practise it.

These are golden days of our life. These are precious times of our life. And you will appreciate it when I used to sit in Battle Mountain and tell them this ain't going to last forever anymore.

And they're like, yeah, yeah, yes, they are. Not everybody's waiting. And I tell you, too, about this, the 10 years will pass in a flash.

And you will regret every class you didn't come to. This is a unique opportunity to hear the whole language. And it will pass.

And karma will suffer in us. So when we're together, learn. And now we come, pranam, pranam, rei.

Chokwein sang, rei, tsumne. Don't be satisfied with something less than this. Don't go looking in the New Age newspaper for some shaman's hibiscus.

Come on. Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca.

Don't waste your time. This is complete. Everything you need is here.

It's not as fast or as sexy as ayahuasca, but it's more, what do you call it? It lasts longer. It's something you can have for the rest of your life.

The other thing wears off after a few hours. And you have a really bad headache, I guess. And you're like, I got that one.

Don't be satisfied with anything less. Go for it. It's going to take a commitment.

It's time. And it's going to take some mental stretching, right? And it's uncomfortable to think you're in this.

But it's worth it. It's worth your time. It's worth 10 years of your life.

And you're lucky to get to do it. It's in Nangbier. Tse-man-tse-bu-ju, shin-kyo-kyo, shin-kyo-kyo.

So it's god-damn important that you listen carefully. And you concentrate. And come.

Don't listen to anything. Shin-kyo-kyo-tse-bu-du-go. Du-go.

End of section. We're moving on to the new section. De-sa-che-ni-pa-kyo-kyu-kya-wa-so-me.

So we have completed demonstrating how wonderful this teaching is and why you should be so excited to learn it. Sa-che-tsu-pa. That brings us to the third topic, the third great topic of this scripture, which is che-wa-ni-ne-hi-chu-la-nyen-shin-ji-ka-cha-wa.

So the very nyen-shin-ji-ka-cha-wa means, how should you learn this scripture? And she, how should you teach it? As a student, what is the proper way to learn it?

And as a teacher, what is the proper way to teach it? So I sent out an email, I don't know, last week, 10 days ago. I sent it to everybody I knew that I could remember was teaching these ACI courses and the BAU courses.

Because, you know, and I wrote in the letter, I said, look, I don't know, when I started teaching, I had already been living with Kendrick J for 10 years or something, right? And he had an etiquette, and he stuck to it. He was very old-fashioned.

He ran things the old way. We were in Washington, D.C. Someone gave him the money to study English at Georgetown University. So we went down there, and we stayed at a Sri Lankan temple.

And I would drive him every morning to Georgetown. He was broken down both on a wheel. And then I would drive him home, and I would wait for him.

So then I took him to class one morning. He was this little, you know, month, red-brown, going into the classroom, and all that. English as a foreign language student.

It was very cute, because they were all like 20. He was like 60 already. And they had a good time with him.

They had a whole, like, fun time going on in this class. It was very funny to them. And it was very strange to them, of course.

And then the first night, he came home, and he said, I said, how did it go? And he said, I loved it. Everyone's really fun.

We had a good time. And then he hands me all these books and papers. And he says, here, they gave me homework to do.

And I said, well, Rinpoche, in America, I don't know about that, but in America, the students should be doing the homework. He says, no, no, you do it for me. And I'm like, well, Rinpoche, that's not how it's done.

And he looks at me. He levels those eyes on me. See your gray eyes.

He says, I'm your teacher. And to him, that was all you had to say. He couldn't understand why a disciple would never say no to their teacher.

Pardon? And to him, that's just three words, right? And that was the end of the conversation.

I got him to do the homework eventually. OK. But I grew up with that.

I grew up with that. And I got used to it. And then I came to love it, this honor, this code of honor between the teacher and the disciple.

I came to really cherish it, because it's a bond. It's a heavy bond. And it's an iron tie between two people.

And the whole etiquette with which you attend the teaching and the propriety of the teacher's actions and words. So etiquette from the disciple's side and propriety from the teacher's side, it was beautiful. And I didn't grow up with it.

I learned it from him. It was imposed on me at first unwillingly. And then later, I came to love it.

It's honorable. And it's beautiful. And it's proper.

And it's pure. You see, I finally got whipped into this code of behavior in a class. Then I went to teach in New York.

The Ivy Reverend was on the Upper West Side. And I walk in. And these people are all sitting around.

Two of them are laying down like this. And I'm chewing gum. And they don't get up when I come in.

They don't even look at me. I'm like, OK, everybody repeat. Sunday.

They're all like this. And then somebody's looking out the window. Nowadays, I guess they would be texting in the class or emailing in the class.

And I didn't know what to do. You see? I was really, I didn't know what to do.

Because it felt like if I explained the proper etiquette in class, it would be self-serving. They would say, oh, he just loves people bowing down to him. He thinks he's a big shot.

And Americans don't like that kind of thing. They don't like, they want people to be informal and sort of happy-go-lucky. And you can chew gum.

It's OK. And like that. But I thought I didn't know how to tell them how hard it was to be honorable in class or to be, you know what I mean?

To maintain a certain conduct and etiquette in class. And how beautiful it would be to teach that way also. With certain self-imposed standards of excellence.

You see what I mean? And I didn't. I gave up.

I didn't even try. So for, I don't know, eight years in New York, 19 years, I just taught the courses. And people did all kinds of strange stuff.

And somebody threw a glass of stuff at me one time. You know, I just, I didn't say anything. But in my heart, I said, if I ever have students who become teachers, then I'm going to volunteer to go tell their students how to act.

Because granddad can come and tell their kids. It's kind of self-serving if the teacher tells them, right? The teacher tells them, you have to talk about how to come to class.

It sounds like you're trying to give a big shot. But if I'm like granddad who only shows up once a year, then I feel like I have to, you know? It's OK if I yell at their students and tell them what the score is.

So I wrote to all my students who have students. And I said, let them at least two years. They don't come.

They should come. But if they don't want to come, if they're too busy, then ask them to tune in this week. And I'll teach them the proper way to take classes from you.

And then they won't feel like you're taking advantage of them. It was a half of a trick. It was half of a trick.

Because the second half of these instructions is the proper conduct for a teacher. OK? So I tricked them.

I said, your students may want to watch this. I'm assuming they'll also want to get their students to the seminar. But there's also a protocol for a correct way of teaching.

There's a code of honor for teachers also. There's a code of honor for reciters. And there's a code of honor for teachers.

And it is always taught first. You don't start teaching until the students know it. So in the long run, you don't start teaching until the students know the proper code of honor in the class, and until you as a teacher have reviewed the proper comportment for a teacher, proper behavior of a teacher.

So this is something I think is very valuable for our group. Because so many people are becoming teachers. And you have your own students.

So I'll cover this. And then you can pull out the audio and leave it on in your center after you leave. Or something like that.

You know? And so I'm going to go through. They say that if you follow the etiquette of the protocol properly, then when you get to the steps of the path, they will stick in your heart.

And if you don't, they won't. So you have to teach people how to listen properly and how to teach in an honorable way. These things are necessary.

Because if you don't cover it and you don't follow it, these steps won't stick in your heart. You can hear them. You won't be able to practice them.

So it's considered very, very important to cover it from the beginning. So as a teacher, if you start out with some new priorities somewhere, you've got to find some excuse to teach them the protocol when it's ready, when they are ready, when it's comfortable. If you start too soon, they'll think you're just trying to, you know, get them to, they'll think it's a cult or something like that.

And then when they're ready, you should find a way to teach them how to listen to a teaching properly and how to give a teaching with honor. OK? So here we go.

Mm. Beiyang. Beiyang.

Sate. Di. Shindu.

Shindu. There's that shindu again. What's that shindu?

Very. Really? OK.

This particular subject is crucial if someone's going to learn from that.

[Говорящий 2] (28:45 - 28:45)
OK?

[Говорящий 1] (28:45 - 39:46)
Mm. Dapo gongchen nao drapa. There's a mama named Dapo gongchen nao drapa.

He said, shen yin lam tong wei te, ma nun dang pan chok yin che par sung. People of our lineage must learn to treasure and cherish the instructions on how to listen to a class with correct behavior and how to give a class with great and honor going. But people of our lineage should consider this one of the most precious things they have, This code of karma.

Why? It is the, it is the ne. What's ne?

A crucial point. Ne means like a crucial point. In the study of tantra, in the study of yoga in tantra, it's a teaching on marma khata.

Marma means, marma comes from the word murder, which means to kill, right? Like mortuary or murder or mortal. Marma is the Sanskrit for ne.

Ne means, marma means the, what do you call it? If you stab a guy there, he'll die in 10 seconds. The, what do you call it?

It's a word. It's like, I don't know. It's a word in English.

Like if you hit it, the guy, you press, James Bond presses here. Crucial point. Crucial point.

It's one like, it's also a place where you stab a guy. Mortal, fatal, I don't know. Vital point.

Anyway, marma means that. For the study of the, for the study of spiritual things, this is the killing point. Whether or not you succeed turns upon whether you follow proper etiquette in the class.

On the subject of killing, different kind of killing, the line yesterday night that I didn't know, okay, right? I said it had something to do with yaks. It said, I have slaughtered the yak of the donkey.

And it was so weird, I thought it was a mistake or something. Okay, it says, I have slaughtered the yak of the donkey. It means the entire karma is a huge thing, right?

But if you study the Lam Rim well, once, then you can slaughter the whole yak of the donkey, right? It's like, all the teachings of the Buddha, hundreds of thousands of books, aren't as big as a yak. But you can, you can beat the whole thing if you just learn this one book.

You can kill the big yak of the donkey, okay? Anyway, back to this text. Whether or not all of the steps we're going to learn for the next ten years stick in your heart depends on this subject.

So in Buddhist countries like Japan, the calendar is mostly lunar. And there are times of the month which are more auspicious and times of the month which are less auspicious. The time of the waxing of the moon, which is from the new moon in the dark sky up to the full moon, which is called Yang-ho, is considered a very auspicious time to do anything.

Because the moon is expanding. And from the 60s on to the end of the dark moon is considered an undesirable time to do anything. Generally.

And there's also a big emphasis in Tibet on ten-do. Ten-do can mean, those of you who are studying Tibetan, ten-do can mean dependent origination. But it has a completely different meaning, which is like an auspicious start to something.

So you know, if you're going to build a building in Tibet, you wait until the first of the month. Because that's the best day to start. All things are started on the first of the month.

Important things. If something goes wrong during the consecration of a building on the first of the month, all the rest of the two weeks to the full moon are considered polluted. And then you shouldn't start the building.

You should wait for the next first of the month. If you screw up the first 24 hours of the month, then it's going to be a bad month. So what he said here was, everybody knows if you mess up the ceremony on the first, it's going to be screwy till the 15th.

Meaning what? Don't study how to study. Don't study the proper etiquette for taking a teaching.

And don't study the proper conduct for a teaching. And you've messed up the beginning of the study for ten years. And it's going to go bad for the whole ten years.

Get the first part down smoothly. Cover the first part carefully. And then the whole ten years will go smoothly.

Got it? It's difficult to have a marma about the whole process of the whole ten years if you screw up the first subject. Marma meaning like vital spot.

It's not going to go well if you mess up. You've got to get the beginning down smoothly. Therefore, we shall now begin the instructions on the proper way to take a class and the proper way to teach a class.

We will cover how to listen to a teaching. We will cover how to give a teaching. And then...

There are certain things that the disciple and the teacher should do together when the class is finished. And we'll cover that. What do you guess that is?

You did it already. You know about that. Now hold on a second.

How to take a class properly has three divisions. So... Chant up in pain somewhere.

Before Pabongka Rinpoche can teach you the proper etiquette for taking spiritual study. By the way, spiritual study and geography in high school are different. This is a whole different thing.

It looks like a class, but it's not a class. It is a transmission. Of the secrets of the universe.

Okay? It's not a regular class. This is aimed at helping you from the moment you die on.

Its greatest benefits kick in as you die. And get bigger after that. So it's not like your 6th grade geography class.

This is a different ball game. Okay? Chant up in pain somewhere.

How to honor a teacher and the teachings properly. And then actually how you take a class. What is the method to take a class.

So you're going to start out with why formal study is useful. Formal spiritual study is useful. And you know, in our...

I don't know. In America, there could be a school of thought that says just take me into a cave and meditate with me. Don't say anything.

I can get it. I don't need 10 years of book study. Book study.

You call it book study and you think it's not the same as going on retreat and closing your eyes for 4 hours. And you think somehow this is less than that. Right?

Or somehow this is too... What do you call it? It's too scholarly.

This is a scholarly exercise and it's not a spiritual exercise. So he wants to correct that impression. Formal spiritual study.

I... In my 3-year retreat, I started ballet. I started to study ballet.

So I got very interested in ballet. I was 50. And I read a lot of books about ballet.

Mostly by Russians. And there's a good teacher in Moscow. In Moscow.

He said... He was talking about Boris Nikolov and Jinsky. These guys.

He said they must be highly talented to start with. They must be extraordinarily talented people when they walk in the door. They must be 1 out of 10,000.

He glanced at some guy. I think it was... Who's in the Miami Valley?

Now he's the director. A boxer. A former boxer.

Spanish. Edward... He was a child when...

And he glanced at him and said, His left leg is a quarter inch shorter than his right. He glanced at him.

[Говорящий 2] (39:47 - 39:50)
And said his left leg is a quarter inch shorter.

[Говорящий 1] (39:51 - 1:00:08)
Like that. So he wouldn't be like Boris Nikolov, but he turned out okay. And so when they walk into the studio for the first time, they should be already extraordinary material.

And then they need formal training. Or they'll never be great. Then they need thousands of hours of formal training.

And it's the same with spiritual things. You can have a great aptitude for spiritual things. You can be great material.

But then you've got to take that material and train it. And then you can get it right. Then you're unbelievable.

Then you're extraordinary. You can be a person who is naturally drawn to spiritual things, and who has a high talent for it. After that, you need formal training.

And then you will be extraordinary. But you need both. You need formal training.

Here we go. At the beginning of a course of spiritual instruction, you should explain to your disciples why learning is useful, why formal training is useful. PENG YI LEI PA SANG NGON, CHEN PO DANG SHIN TU, ZHOU SHU GYI WEI If you are careful to explain to your disciples why formal training is so cool, then they will have a deep inkling.

They'll be excited to do it. They'll want to do it. They'll be turned on to go through a formal course of study.

PENG YI LEI PA SANG NGON, CHEN PO DANG SHIN TU, ZHOU SHU GYI WEI Therefore, you must do a sales job on learning, on formal spiritual study. And you know the difference. Those of you who've been to Diamond Mountain, those of you who've been to the ACI courses, I think now you know the difference.

I mean, you meet a person who's good and who has a good heart and is a nice person and has not had training, especially in the pandemic. And then you sit with them for 20 minutes and you're just feeling like they're blind. You feel like you're sitting with a nice, blind person.

Because you can see their future. They won't be able to go where they want to go because they don't understand the basic things. They have good instincts, but it's not enough.

And you need to train those instincts. Then you're incredible. Then you can help the world.

There's a book called A Collection of Teachings on Spiritual Learning, The Process of Spiritual Learning. And you can hear it's part of me, okay? It says, if you engage in formal spiritual learning, you will learn what actions you should avoid if you want to reach your goal.

Formal course of spiritual instruction can help you learn the traps to avoid. With formal learning, you learn to eliminate the things in your life which are not going to help you spiritually. And we'll talk more.

If you engage in a course of formal study, spiritual study, you will reach the goal. Then you can reach the goal. If you engage in spiritual learning, you will learn lung tor.

Say lung. Tor. Lung.

Tor. Lung means the things which you should do and tor means the things which you shouldn't do. I grew up in a Christian church, not tor.

And what was it they said? I have done those things which we are not good at. And I have failed those things which we ought to have done.

And there is no helping this. It's a very beautiful confession verse. And it's like, I did the things which I shouldn't have done and I didn't do the things which I should have done.

And that's lung tor. In a nutshell, that's lung tor. If you train with a good teacher, you learn what you should be doing and what you shouldn't be doing.

Lung tor. You may come to a shift. Doi deng nyon ki deng shi ne.

When you begin to not do this, then we'll take a break. All of the Buddhist trainings can be divided into three great groups of trainings, of scriptures. They are called Bhaskas or Vipaka.

There's three of them. So it's called Dren Pindaka, or Dren the Barker, okay? Dren Pindaka, the three fascists.

These are three great groups of Buddha's teachings. All the Buddha's teachings are divided into those three roughly, because there are three trainings, right? There are three things you need to learn.

Here we go. Dren Pindaka, Dren Srila, if you study Vinaya, Vinaya means the art of vowel morality, okay? Ethical lifestyle, which is taken in the form of vows, is called Vinaya.

It could be monks and nuns, it could be lay people, you don't have to, Vinaya is not restricted to monks and nuns, okay? If you learn that subject, you will learn how to live an ethical life, how to make good karma, what are the things I should do, what are ethical, and what is not ethical, Dren Srila, then you will be able to avoid mistakes in your behavior, which will hurt you, because they hurt others, alright? So that's the first great division of the Buddha's teachings, Vinaya, ethics.

Second division, Dorbe Venati Dren Srila, there's a group of scriptures called the Sutra Bhaskara, the Sutra Vithika. Generally speaking, any teaching given by an enlightened being, which is not Tantra, is Sutra, open teachings. But when you talk about the Sutra Bhaskara, it refers to a smaller group of Vedical teachings called Sutra.

The Bhaskara Sutra is one part of all the Sutras and Tantras, okay? If you study that, you can learn Ting and Zen, what's Ting and Zen? Meditation, okay?

Deep meditation, single-minded meditation. If you learn the Bhaskara Sutra, you will learn how to meditate properly. Concentration.

And you will be able to eliminate things which have no value. He's using the quotation that I gave before, which said, By learning, you learn which things have value and which things do not have value. That's a reference to meditation.

It went in another form. Rinpoche then, he did the third Bhaskara Buddhist knowledge. It's called Abhidharma.

Abhidharma, higher knowledge. Here, he just said Abhi. Don't yawn very big in the class, because it's hard for you to concentrate.

You can, like, pretend you yawned something and yawned it back. Okay. From the Abhidharma section of the teachings given by Lord Buddha, you can learn where the world really comes from.

Wisdom. The training of wisdom. Where the world really comes from.

This is not the same as the lowest of the four great schools of ancient India, which is also called Abhidharma. And the Abhidharma Kosha is their main scripture. And it is the only scripture principally used in the southern Buddhist countries.

Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand. He's not talking about that Abhidharma. He's talking about all of the ancient teachings of the Buddha, which mainly treat where the world is coming from.

That basket is called the Abhidharma basket. Higher knowledge. Based on that knowledge, you can yoga apart.

And you can reach Nyan-men. You can get rid of your negative emotions. And then automatically that is to reach Nirvana.

Cepayim. So he's... So we'll talk about that and then we'll take a break.

There's a flow here. There's a flow here. Ethics, meditation, and understanding Nyan-men.

There's a flow here. You need to start with ethical living. You have to live a clean life.

You have to live a good life. You have to be kind to others. You have to make good karma.

The whole path begins with kindness. When you are super kind to other people, you make incredible seeds in your mind. And then you are able to meditate.

People say, what's the key to meditation? Don't hurt other people. Be kind to people.

That creates seeds in your mind. They create peace of mind inside of meditation. It's cool, right?

But training on the basket of ethics leads to training on the basket, in the basket of meditation, right? Sutra. Denial leads to sutra.

Ethical living leads to the ability to concentrate and meditate. If you see a person who is being naughty in the Buddhist religion or any other religion, they can't be prayed successfully. It's not possible.

Or meditate. They can sit there. And they can close their eyes.

But if there's something on your conscience, you can't meditate. It's not possible. They can say whatever they want.

Or they can look like whatever they want. But if they are being mean to other people, they don't have the karma to concentrate. If you're ethical, living a nice, clean life, a healthy life to others, and then that helps you meditate, then you can turn that big god of reality where the world comes from.

And you reach the third basket, which is the understanding of where things are coming from. For example, your husband. Don't ever take all this stuff as philosophy.

Cut it down to science. Cut it down to science. Apply it immediately to your kids or your husband or your job or your boss.

Don't ever let it stay in this room. Don't be shy when you're teaching people, saying, you know, you gotta follow ethical living. At home, with the kids, no more yelling.

Like that. Then you can meditate, which I'm sure you're doing every morning from 9 to 9.15. And that will enable you to have that focus of mind to deal with your husband. When you came home last night and complained about this man, you shouldn't just get up and teach, oh, Vinaya, Abhijanma, Samadhi, Sutra, Tripitaka.

That drives me crazy. Study Vinaya, Sutra, Abhijanma, Tripitaka, then you'll reach a shambha and Vipashyana. And they haven't said a single word of English.

You know. Okay. Like, talk about spaghetti and the husband and the kids.

Because that's what it's for. The book was meant to be used for the rest of your life, for other things in your life. It wasn't meant to be what you do.

You don't study your whole life and then don't do anything. It's just a guidebook to how to live. But if you spend all your time studying and you don't live, then that's a point.

You're supposed to apply it to something called your life, your relationships, in your work. And it's just looking at books all day and it's like, it's like, I don't know, it's like reading Julia Child and then a movie. It's just weird, right?

What do you do? I read Julia Child. So, questions.

Do you have a question? There's a microphone. If you don't, just keep going.

I was wondering what seems to be the point at which I use English? Good question. It's a combination of answers.

What is that? We should understand that a lot of the people in the monastery don't understand what we've been talking about. So that's one thing.

I mean, Rinpoche studied at Yerong Concent within Yerong College and had 500 monks. Only two of them could write. So, it wasn't the case that anyone really understood about the seeds.

They may not have gotten a teaching even better than you've gotten. Which happens with things when they get old. Also it happens with the Christian church or the Jewish faith.

Things solidify, things freeze. They become creeds. People don't remember how it works.

So, there's a lot of monks who don't understand these things. Then, there was a lot of abuse in Japan. The government abused people.

The monks abused people. The monasteries abused people. The monasteries honored most of the men.

The lay people were tenant farmers mostly on monastic lands. If it was a benign monastery, you were a benign serf on your own land. If it was a nasty monastic authority, there was abuse.

There was abuse. The criminal system was abusive. The prison system was abhorrent.

There was a lot of torture. And like that. There were bad things going on in Japan.

It wasn't all happening to each other, I think. Even given those problems in Japan, I would say that the monastic system of learning and practice is the highest institution in this planet. Even with the abuses done by some people, I believe that any Tibetan monastery was the highest spiritual institution of this planet.

With the occasional abuses. But even then, they were and continue to be shining lights in this world. If you live in a monastery and you study in a monastery, it's the happiest place in the world.

It's the most beautiful place in the world. So both are there. You have to be honest about it.

And lastly, some people will say, you know, there's a joke in Tibet that wanted to save Buddhism by killing millions of Tibetans. He pushed Buddhism out of the world. And you and I wouldn't be here if there had not been an invasion of Tibet.

Dalai Lama was seen in public once a year for a few minutes in a parade that went to Tuscany, okay? He spent the rest of the time in the palace and no one ever saw him. So to have a Dalai Lama circling the world and teaching constantly is unprecedented in history.

And that's because of the monster in Tibet, okay? That's a popular view to express. I don't adhere to it.

I think it's deceit. This is the make a path out of a disaster. And I don't like that idea.

I would rather have the path happen without the disaster. You see what I mean? I would rather, you know, that there had been some, I don't know, Tibet started to export Dharma along with turquoise and so on.

You know what I mean? Like, just some happy event that brought Tibetans into the world. Dalai Lama's coming to the world.

I believe that it's a fallacy to say it's a good thing that many people died because it got all the Dalai Lamas out of the world. Chronically, if the seeds had been planted differently, the Dalai Lamas would have come out in the world through some happy event. You see what I mean?

I don't buy the make a disaster into a nice thing. In the end, it's a fallacy. If you know, if you play your seeds right, there's no reason why you need to have a break up to find your true partner.

So, you see what I mean? He would have found them anyway through some positive things. So, lastly, of course, any violence which we see in the world is ultimately a reflection of our own partner.

[Говорящий 2] (1:00:11 - 1:00:14)
The violence that we saw in Tibet and being there, right?

[Говорящий 1] (1:00:15 - 1:00:55)
Eight or nine months I burned myself in the hospital. It's coming from us. It's coming from us.

You can't blame a certain country or a certain people. Ultimately, it's coming from my Chinese friends, which I have many now because I went I was scared to go to my home. Now I have many, many Chinese friends.

And they look at me when I talk about Tibet and they say, Will you give? I heard your house is in I'm like, yes. I heard you live on a mesa.

I said, yes. What's the name of the mesa?

[Говорящий 2] (1:00:57 - 1:01:05)
Who owned it before? The Apache. So, will you give their land back?

And then maybe we'll take a walk together.

[Говорящий 1] (1:01:06 - 1:01:32)
Then it's, you know, then we just have to Anyway, those are all things to think about. How would you describe the difference between merit and karma? I'm sorry, merit?

Is merit a part of karma or is it something else? Merit is normally a translation of the Thai word called sunam. And then karma is merit.

[Говорящий 2] (1:01:34 - 1:01:41)
Karma can be divided into sunam, sunamayiva and dandam.

[Говорящий 1] (1:01:44 - 1:03:52)
Sunam means good karma. When we say merit, we mean good karma. The interesting thing is the definition of good karma.

Who wants to take a shot? What makes a thing good karma? If it produces for you personally, it was good karma.

That's an interesting yardstick benchmark for morality. Any action which results over time in happiness for you is good. And anything which over time hurts you is wrong.

It's an interesting definition of morality. So yeah, sunamayiva is you can call it non-merit or something you do to hurt someone else. It's also a form of karma.

So karma can be in the Yoga Sutra it says karma, ashram, karma, akarsana, myogya, there's three Vedas in the first chapter. Three kinds of karma, right? One is shukra like sunamayiva and one is ashram karma which is black, not white.

There's a third kind which is you can say there's a kind of karma which is sort of neutral. So there's good karma, there's bad karma and there's kind of neutral karma. Neutral karma means you know, how do you feel about the rock?

Powdered on the rock today. It doesn't irritate me personally and I don't like it much either. But to tell you the truth, I didn't think about it.

But it's there. So it must be coming from my karma. Rub is there, carpet's there.

I don't feel much either way about that design. I don't hate it and I don't like it. So that's a result of neutral karma.

[Говорящий 2] (1:03:53 - 1:04:06)
So there's three forms of karma and various kinds of karma. And that's the whole story. Fourth chapter, I think I have a question.

It's been a year and two, I mean.

[Говорящий 1] (1:04:08 - 1:10:09)
I have a question about how to present the teachings if you wholeheartedly wish to present some very simple teachings considering what seeds and potential for example, to people who you really believe are going to be perhaps offended or really believe there will be a negative result to the point where there might be I can't remember the way it was described yesterday but a strong reaction against the teachings that I know could harm their karma. Do you think it would be more beneficial to give them what you feel is an appropriate teaching at the right time and with skillful means and risk the possibility that they may then in turn create some very serious harm for themselves by dissing it. I'm talking about some family that is very very strict in the Catholic tradition and has a lot of fear around what I'm doing for example.

But I still want to proceed in a way that could help them. I think the first thing to say is that in the Buddhist tradition we're not allowed to proselytize so you cannot that's why we do this prayer at the beginning of the class that's a formal request from every member of the audience that I teach. You're not allowed to teach unless someone asks you In the Buddhist tradition you're not allowed to teach unless someone asks you.

And then there's a tradition to refuse to come say I don't know anything I don't know why you're asking me and then the third time they ask you're allowed to teach. Traditionally. Then there's a small flag print at the bottom of that contract the scripture that says if you believe a person would be well exposed towards what you say and would benefit and if you believe that they would be interested even though they don't know enough to ask you to teach you can initiate a conversation in which you teach them.

So I'm starting from that foundation. Generally don't teach people who are not ready and I think you know who they are. It's like I try to turn somebody on to a song I say listen to this song and then they start talking after 20 seconds and I'm like they don't deserve my song you know.

I'm like they're not really listening to the song and I just stop but I want to share my music with them but I just don't they just start talking or they don't listen or they start texting so I'm like for me it was a beautiful song I wanted to share a quiet moment with them but I don't you know like yell at them and say we didn't listen to the young rascals play good luck so that's one thing I think it's worth the risk okay I think it's worth the risk and I believe if you are well trained you can present these ideas to anyone in a normal conversation without them knowing it like in the DCI tours we have spoken in Indonesia to groups of Muslims we have gone to Tel Aviv in the Geshe theater in Jaffa 900 people came and we have spoken to members of the communist party in China we've given talks to you know mafiosos in Ukraine you know I haven't found anybody who if you tread carefully and with great experience and knowledge that isn't that doesn't start to think about how they can use it to make themselves happier and more successful so I think it's very rare nowadays that I find someone it takes experience right it takes years of teaching but then you can come to a language which is acceptable to anybody and you must make the effort to speak in their language we went out today with some representatives of the government of the city one of them was into football and he was just interested about football so you know I like kick him under the table and start talking about lacrosse and then we're all okay and we spend like 20 minutes talking about lacrosse and all the records and did you know the most successful lacrosse player in history is Jim Brown he's a football half-man anyway so you know we spoke his language and he was comfortable and we went on to deeper stuff later so I think it's just a matter of but never force it it's it's counterproductive so in case you're forcing them to think something they will exert them like a dog I used to work I used to not own dogs but we used to use dogs in our long hikes

[Говорящий 2] (1:10:09 - 1:10:12)
and once you

[Говорящий 1] (1:10:12 - 1:10:22)
start pointing like this they will go the other way and they won't stop you can beat them you can scream at them it doesn't matter

[Говорящий 2] (1:10:22 - 1:10:54)
they will go the opposite because you're screaming people are like that if you're skillful you can help anyone I take one more question can you create seeds to see that the world wants to divide us does that make it possible it's a principle of seeds

[Говорящий 1] (1:10:54 - 1:15:00)
that no one can plant a seed for someone else it's not possible so you can love someone deeply and you can want them to not die and you want them to live but you can't give them a single minute of life it's not possible you can't plant a seed it can only be planted by the person you cannot share a seed that you have with someone else, it's not possible good or bad, you can't share a good seed you can't share a bad seed so no it's not what happens to any individual is only due to themselves and it kind of seems just, right, like justice that happens to be the way it is what's the Buddhist proof for that is that I went to the dentist last week the Buddhist proof that you cannot share a seed is the fact that I went to the dentist last week, it bloomed a seed and it hurt so you need no more proofs than that to establish that it's not possible to share your seed with another person, you must plant your own seed, all you can do is teach all you can do is explain that person must take action themselves you cannot do it for them and what does it mean about the dentist I mean the argument in Buddhism is that there have been countless holy beings have been produced by the teachings and by other teachings like Jesus and Moses or or Muhammad countless high beings have come on into this world if it were possible to take seeds away from me in their love and compassion they certainly would have done so already and I wouldn't have ever gone to a dentist and it's not like they were holding out on me and when you're trying to follow a Christian in a certain from a certain angle it's very it's very difficult to explain why God would make people suffer, you see if God could take away my pain then why would they, that's what got me struggling with this fact I couldn't live with it you know, I was signed up for the school of theological center in Boston I left, I never went I just couldn't reconcile my mother's death extraordinarily painful death with someone who could have made it not happen and he chose not to even with the, I'm going to test you argument so just create people that they don't need testing from the beginning why make them fall, we didn't test them and then we killed them you know, when they failed and I just couldn't deal with it it's like in this tradition we say that no one can give you seeds the only thing they can do is teach you how to do it yourself go to Starbucks identify what you're learning find someone else and help them go home and rejoice in the good you've done afterwards they do have to go to Starbucks I can't go I will if you want you buy those little cards no you have to go I don't want little cards I have dozens I take a shuttle sometimes to the airport and I hand them out there so if they stop on the way Starbucks but you can you have to encourage people they have to do the work themselves and somehow that seems more right to me they have to

[Говорящий 2] (1:15:01 - 1:15:05)
they have to earn their own motivation

[Говорящий 1] (1:15:06 - 1:16:13)
we have friends Hindu friends in the Bahamas we go there and teach once a year we teach each other and they always come back with what about God's grace what about the question of grace is there no grace in your system you have to do it all yourself and there's no such thing as grace and then I said no it's not like that get this if you have a heart teacher, if you have a heart mom and you serve them properly as you are trained that's why you need to study if you serve them properly and with your whole heart and if you believe they are enlightened beings then the karma of the belief is that they will be able to grant you grace and miracles can happen but that also comes from

[Говорящий 2] (1:16:13 - 1:16:17)
planet earth miracles are

[Говорящий 1] (1:16:17 - 1:16:32)
possible and grace and the grace of a holy being is possible so such an extraordinary grace that it can short circuit and bypass all karmas

[Говорящий 2] (1:16:32 - 1:18:07)
there is such a thing you can call it the grace of God when you have a planet got it? it's cool miracles will happen mama can bring you back to earth it will happen you must practice it through your service and devotion to it okay?

that's a nice place to stop I'm not denying and counting on alright get it the kids are singing all the time they are in shape and they are happy some cares and they are happy the poor are marching up to school cause the world will never be a whole and nobody cares as much as me and I believe that I am a link Thank you.