«Дар освобождения», курс 6 «Ретрит страсти», занятие 1

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 6:29)
I thought what we could do is we can do satsangama. Satsangama, if you want. Satsangama.

Now it does, it got shortened to satsang, right? The old word is satsangama. Sat means what?

Truth. Satsangama came into Greek as synagogue, adjoining together, coming together. So this is adjoining together for truth, which means, I went to Sri Patabhi Joyce's school one time and he was doing his satsangama.

It was very beautiful. So he just sat around at night with all his students and they asked him questions. So if you have any questions, let's do a little bit.

Do you have? If you have any. Yes.

For the present moment meditation. Yeah. When you get to the point where you put the wall in front of you, which you were the one walking up to in the past, should you anchor on something in the present, or do you kind of just let your mind wander around?

That would still be something specific, but I find that I'm the most successful when I just stay anchored in the breath. When I watch where it wanders to, they bring it back to the breath. I always want to have that as something to bring it back to.

I think that's fine. Did everybody hear the question okay? I think that's fine.

I don't know, for me it's just like the milieu of where I am. It's the room that I'm in, or the people I'm with. When I'm present, I'm aware of the room, the lights, the camp, the people.

Then I know I'm in the present. Only, I don't know, it differs for different people. You'll find a ratio.

A certain amount of your thoughts are wandering to the past or future, but a certain amount of your thoughts are wandering in the present. So then you got to deal with those. I think that's what you're getting at.

Then you got to deal with those. But you'll find that when you cut off the thoughts of past and future, 75% of work is finished. That's enough to make you feel quite different.

You feel like all aware and turned on and excited and you're able to be here. Like if you're playing music. If you try to play music and you're thinking of something else, if you try to perform music and think of something else, it's like a disaster.

If you learn to bring your mind to the present moment, it feels like you're playing music. You just feel happy and turned on about everything. Try it between sessions.

We're going to get into a thing in this text called DUN and DUN TZAM. DUN you know from Tundra, right? Succession.

DUN TZAM means between sessions. The goal of present moment meditation is that you learn it for the DUN. You learn it for the session.

Then it starts to affect your DUN TZAM. It starts to affect how you walk around the camp and how you drive a car and how you talk to somebody. It's really rare to be totally present when you're talking to somebody.

The Dalai Lama has it. People often remark on it that when you talk to him, he's like, he's there and he's interested and he's listening. That's a nice thing.

That's a really good application of the present moment, to be having a conversation with somebody and totally aware of what they're saying. See how it affects your other activities during the day. It's a very beautiful state of mind.

By the way, traditionally, watching your breath and being in the present moment are considered preliminaries to meditation. They are not goals in themselves. It's a heightened degree of awareness.

Then you have to turn that to the larger questions of life. Don't start some sect, Geshe Michael's present moment sect or something, where all you're doing is being here. Because then you'll get old and you'll be there.

You got to use it for something. You got to apply it for something. It's a kind of focus.

But it's wonderful. It changes your life. I'm trying to get you to do it for at least a few months, maybe.

At least four to six weeks. It's like medicines. There's some medicines.

We were in China, right? We went to Hangzhou. One of our hosts helped at a Chinese medical center.

The lady who drove us in the car. She was an assistant at a Chinese medical center. Then we asked her, do young Chinese people take Chinese medicine or do they believe in Western medicine?

She said, Western medicine. We said, but you're working in a clinic. She said, yeah, I know.

I work there. But if a young Chinese person gets sick, they just take Western medicine. I'm like, that's weird.

She said, no, it's not. She said, Chinese medicine you have to take before you get sick. When you start to feel something, you start on the Chinese medicine.

It's at low dosages. It works in your blood for a month or six weeks. Then you don't get sick.

Young people don't care about that. They're not going to eat anything until they get really sick. Then the Chinese medicine won't help.

So present moment meditation, if you do it daily, over a month or six weeks, it will start to change how you view the world. If you take less dosage than that, if you skip days, it won't do it. You see, it's interesting.

It doesn't work very well. So I think these meditations are more like Chinese medicine. They're not like some Western medicine that kills your liver and cures your cough.

Something like that. Like it works in three days and you're like, yay. Then you don't have a liver anymore.

Any other questions?

[Говорящий 2] (6:31 - 6:32)
How do you change the IQ?

[Говорящий 1] (6:33 - 7:36)
How do you change the IQ? Mainly teaching other people. Mainly teaching other people.

If you know Fong Jen, he took it very seriously. He started Diamond Cutter programs in 12 cities. He's to Singapore now.

He's overseas also. He took it very seriously. Part of the reason he did it was an exercise in increasing his IQ.

He did. It's very interesting. That's what he did.

But he took it so seriously. He went and started 12 programs in 12 Chinese cities and Singapore. We would say that changed his IQ because he was helping other people understand.

But he was doing all the four steps, the other four steps. He had technique. He understood the technique.

He wasn't just blindly helping other people. He was applying these four steps. If you don't know the four steps, talk to somebody in DCI because they were so bored they heard it so many times.

[Говорящий 2] (7:38 - 7:46)
Can you talk about the relationship between passion and discipline and maybe how to remove obstacles for discipline and how to integrate passion and discipline?

[Говорящий 1] (7:46 - 9:49)
I think nowadays I'm onto this thing where we go to so many countries and I meet thousands of new people every year. They're very sincere. They're really turned on by it and they want to know more.

They come to me with... We have a section in the DCI weekend where you spend, what is it, two hours in a breakout group? Hour and a half a day in a breakout group of hopefully 10 people with a single teacher.

Then each person goes around and you listen to each person. It's either a dream or a problem. You say, give me a dream or give me a problem.

What's the biggest thing in your life right now? Some people say, I want a new car. Some people say, my mother committed suicide last week and I'm trying to deal with it.

These are real things that I got. The challenge is to ask people to state in a single sentence what they want. That's half the problem.

That's half the, what do you call it? Challenge. Half the battle is to get them to say in a single sentence what it is they want.

It's a struggle for a lot of us. We have a vague feeling that we don't have what we want. But then if the Wizard of Oz came along and said, I can give you whatever you want, then you're like...

The first idea is to separate the vague desire. Do you want discipline or do you want creativity? Because there are separate seeds.

There are different seeds. We don't believe that discipline causes creativity. We believe that seeds cause discipline and different seeds cause creativity.

You can be a disciplined, uncreative person or you can be a creative, undisciplined person. Hopefully, you'd be both. You'd want to plant both.

[Говорящий 2] (9:50 - 9:51)
Can I choose discipline now?

[Говорящий 1] (9:51 - 21:48)
Well, that's what I'm saying. You've got to choose one. You can think carefully and choose the one which would, I call it fallout.

If you succeeded at one, could you get the other one automatically? That's true. I would go for it.

If someone said, you can only pick... What was that game? I don't know.

They had three curtains and the woman was queen for a day and she had to say, I want that. I want curtain number one. You can't say, I want one and two.

Say one thing. Decide one thing that you want and then work on those seeds. Then there's fallout.

Fallout means the discipline will come or whatever else you want will come. Partly because you're finally flowing with the Tao. You're flowing with the flow.

You're going with the flow. You finally understood. Dao, dao, fei zhang dao.

Mink, mink, fei zhang mink. You're finally flowing with the way the world works. If you succeed in gaining one of your goals by planting seeds, by taking care of someone else who wants a similar thing, if you get the system down, then suddenly everything else is easy.

To get wish number two, three, four, and five is nothing once you get number one by using seeds. The thing is, people's desires are so scattered that half the battle is decide what you want the most. Obtain that thing through using this system, the diamond cutter system.

Then that will flow over to everything else in your life. Because if you get the thing you most wanted, and I have this experience. This is my own experience.

If you get the thing you most wanted in your life by following this system, you will automatically continue to follow the system for other things you want. Pick one. Pick the thing you most want and go for it.

It's really nice. It's really cool. You can be anything you want.

You can have anything you want. Using this system to get the thing that you most want in the world is the best way you can help other people. Wouldn't that be the case if the system were ultimate?

That using it to gain your own wishes is the kindest thing you can do for others. Isn't that cool? That's something extraordinary.

That's amazing. You see? Obtaining your own happiness by serving others is the best thing you can do for the world also.

So you're like, you're constantly having your cake and eating it. It's an amazing system. By saving the world, you get everything you wanted.

And I'm not saying metaphorically. People say, oh, be noble and don't worry if you don't get a car. I don't say that.

I say, be noble and you will get the car. And you'll save the world. And the girl.

I mean, it's like Transformers. This nerdy guy, because he wants to save the world, he gets the girl and the Camaro. That's not really a Camaro, right?

It's a cool system. Any other questions? Mr. Eddie. I'll tell you something cute. Nowadays, I'm never sure what's being taped for web. So I'm not allowed to teach religion in certain countries.

But I am allowed to teach success seminars in which I teach people that if you want money, you should help someone else get money. And if you want health, you should help the sick and then do yoga. And if you want a partner, then you should go to a nursing home and serve an elderly person.

Help someone who's lonely. And that will put a seed in you that you will find a partner. Partner, you will create a partner.

And then you can tweak the partner. It's cool. You can say, I want handsome.

I want smart. I want loyal. I want affectionate.

I want considerate. I want a dishwasher. No, I mean, each thing has its own karmic seeds, really.

You can design them consciously. If you grasp that system well, including the four steps of the technique, GZHI BSAM PA SBYOR BA THAG TU If you don't know, you have to ask somebody. GZHI BSAM PA SBYOR BA THAG TU If you grasp the system clearly, that is taking refuge.

If you grasp that system clearly, that is what it is to take refuge in it. What does the word refuge mean? It's a Buddhist ceremony similar to baptism.

It's what makes you a Buddhist. You take vows of refuge and you become a Buddhist. That's what makes you a Buddhist.

If you want to know if you're a Buddhist or not, have you taken refuge? Then there's a joke in Tibet. A monk was sitting at Sarah one day and he looked up at the abbot and he said, he ain't a Buddhist.

He's not a Buddhist. His friend is like, what are you talking about? The abbot's not a Buddhist.

They said, what do you mean? Is the abbot of Sarah? He said, no, he doesn't have refuge.

They said, no, no, he has refuge. He has all these pictures of Buddha in his room and he wears Buddhist robes. They said, that's not refuge.

Taking refuge means to shelter yourself. To take care of yourself. To go for shelter.

Refuge means go for shelter. What's a classic example of refuge? Someone yells at you.

Someone called Jeff Eddy, you're stupid. Jeff Eddy, you did something wrong. Then if you've studied these things, you say, this person's coming for me.

I must have made an accusation to someone else in the past and that's why this person is accusing me wrongly. Then I shouldn't attack them because that will, what do you call it? Perpetuate the same thing.

Like in this system, someone attacks you. It's wrong. They shouldn't attack you.

It's false. The accusation is false. You look at them and you say, they're coming for me because I attacked someone in the past.

Now if I attack them back, what's going to happen? Then another person is going to attack me next week. So I choose to stop the wheel.

I choose to get off. That's refuge. Why?

You have protected yourself. You just plopped up an umbrella. It's raining and you just did this.

That's refuge. That's the meaning of refuge. Refuge is to understand where stuff is coming from.

Once you understand where stuff is coming from and you use the seeds to better your life and your world, then you're a Buddhist. There are more Buddhists than all these people in the Buddhist groups in the West who don't understand these things. It's interesting.

It's very interesting. Between refuge and what was the other thing? Yeah, some renunciation.

To the most intelligent disciples, Lord Buddha said, what's renunciation? Give up the world of suffering. Does that mean, where is the world of suffering?

Is it in Prescott or does it extend to Kansas? Does it reach all the way to Manhattan? By the way, nowadays if you travel, some people say, where are you from?

You don't say America because nobody likes America. You say, I'm from Manhattan. Then they say, where's that?

You say, it's an island off the coast of America. Anyway, renunciation is to give up pain, right? To give up those things which cause pain.

Then all these Buddhist people, they misunderstand it. They say, oh, I shouldn't have a nice car because then I wouldn't have renunciation. I shouldn't have a nice dinner in Guadalajara in this impossible to find restaurant that has the two stories.

What was that place called? Durango. They serve Durango food, right?

If I eat there, I don't have renunciation. That's just bullshit. Renunciation means stop doing things which hurt you.

To refuse to answer the person who attacks you is renunciation. To refuse to try to get money by cheating people. To refuse to get a partner by trying to take someone else's partner.

That's renunciation. Because you are rejecting this old system. Let me compete for my business.

Let me compete for my partner or something like that. Just relax and plant the seeds by serving someone in a nursing home. The partner will come and they will stay.

That's renunciation. I reject the old way of getting a partner. Like fighting on the market for a partner.

I reject. I reject that. That's renunciation.

That's a higher renunciation. I reject that old system. Are you going to the bar tonight to pick up a girl?

No. Where are you going to get a girl? The nursing home.

It's not some new kind of fetish thing. No, what I'm saying is that... No, you laugh because it seems strange to you.

You laugh because you really don't believe it. You wouldn't laugh if you understand. You'd say, of course.

That makes sense. So renunciation is to reject the old way of getting things that you would like. Yeah, don't they?

They come down to very similar things. Renunciation is to reject an old system which hurts you. Refuge is an understanding which protects you from the things you used to do that hurt you.

So I guess they're very similar in the end. Refuge is not a ceremony that you take with some Lama and they hit you on the head and you're a Buddhist. Renunciation is not the search of things that don't make you pleasant.

The search of unpleasant things. The rejection of everything nice. Come on.

You can have a nice Mexican dinner. If you got it through wisdom, then that's a Buddhist practice. Then everybody should have nice dinner.

Why not?

[Говорящий 2] (21:52 - 22:00)
Is there a difference between a normal person and an Aryan person?

[Говорящий 1] (22:00 - 25:43)
Oh boy. So he's asking about Arya. Arya means...

Hitler took the word... It's a Sanskrit word that means superior, higher. In Buddhism, an Arya means someone who has perceived ultimate reality directly in a deep state of meditation.

Then that person is called an Arya. When they plant a seed, it's infinitely different from the seeds that other people plant. There's no comparison at all.

Because they have a direct experience that this thing works on the highest level. Then that's all. So what we're talking about is planting seeds through understanding, through intellectual understanding.

I talk you into going to the nursing home for your next boyfriend. I talk and talk and talk and talk and finally you go try. And it works.

Then you do more. But in Arya, they have this... They perceive the guts of that system directly.

In fact, they can't happily engage in any other activity. You see? They can't do the things that normal people do to get things because they just don't believe in them anymore.

Because they've seen directly that they don't work. To compete with other companies will get you more money. To hurt someone else's relationship would get you a nice boy.

You know? Like that. They just wouldn't...

They are getting further and further into a world where they... They wouldn't consider trying those things because they don't work. But that's all.

Their evolution is much faster and their world changes much faster. So you got to try to see emptiness directly. That's it.

The meditation will help. The present moment meditation will help. But also intellectually struggling with these ideas.

The nursing home thing. Just the nursing home thing. Struggle with it.

And then try it. And then they call shrava. You ready?

You ready for shrava? Here you go. That's called shrava.

The fabric of reality is torn. You go to the nursing home. You try it.

You get a really nice boy. And then shrava. The fabric of your old reality is forever torn.

And you can't go back. You will never go back. You won't engage in the normal things that people do to get things because they don't work.

And you can't go back after that. So the intellectual struggle, which is what classes are all about, triggers the direct perception of reality also. So you have to be struggling through the ideas in classes and you have to be meditating and doing your yoga.

And serving people and serving your teacher. Five things maybe. It's a very powerful cocktail.

Spiritual cocktail. And then you make this breakthrough. You see emptiness directly.

I'm going to go back to the text because I want to leave that at that.