Занятие 5, часть 2

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 48:42)
Okay, we'll start. Somebody asked me a question about disposing of the offerings. I think he'll cover it, but just to say, the rice you can keep around for a long time, it doesn't get old, it's uncooked, okay?

The saffron water you change every day, the other waters you change every day, the flour you can change. If you have a dried flour, you can fill that one with rice. Other things like the cookie or the water itself or the flour.

It's a tradition not to throw those articles away, and it's a tantric vow also. You're not allowed to throw those articles away where someone might tread on them, where someone might step on them, because they're considered sacred and it would be wrong to have. So, you wouldn't throw the water down the sink or in the toilet.

It's a tradition to take it out, you could pour it into a pitcher and take it outside and throw it on. It's considered auspicious to put it into lakes or to oceans or to rivers or throw it in the forest or you could put it on your garden plants. And that's considered sort of like holy and it will spread to other people.

But not in the sink or the toilet. The other offerings, don't throw in the garbage. They're considered still very karmically powerful and you don't throw them in the garbage.

You take the flour outside, put it somewhere. Like to put it at the base of a tree is considered good luck or on a stone or in a meadow or like that. Somebody asked me about compost.

That's fine. Because then that's going to be material for more plants and flowers and that's fine. So, okay, here we go.

Marame Puwe Pinyin. Okay, so I'm going really slow and I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry because I like to go slow. Slow and careful.

So you're not even going to hit homework three much. Sorry, I know you're upset about that. DE BZHIN ZHES PA'I PHYIR BRTEN LA MARME PUWE PINYIN PHYIR BRTEN There are 10 benefits to offering a butter lamp on an altar.

PHYIR GANG ZHES NA What are the 10? Number one. JI BSTAN LA MARME LTAG PA'I RGYUR BA DANG You become a light for the world.

You become a light for the world. So I think Jesus talked about that, right? Don't hide your, you don't put a lamp in a basket and cover it.

You should, if your practice is good, if your meditation is good and it makes you more calm and it makes you more kind, then as you walk through the day, even among strangers and people you don't know, they will take your presence in their day, and it will bring them comfort and happiness. If you're a good practitioner, then you're just rubbing off on everybody you meet. Like you go into a store, you have an interaction with somebody in the store and you leave, and somehow their day is brighter.

That's what he means. You will be like a butter lamp yourself in the world. Number two.

LHA'I MIG RNAM PAR BHAG PA THOB PA Say LHA'I MIG. H-L-A, LHA'I MIG. LHA means what?

Angel or deity or something. LHA SA means what? Los Angeles.

It's the same, the land of the angels. LHA SA means the same as Los Angeles. So LHA'I MIG, what's MIG mean?

MIG, the eye. So LHA'I MIG means, the honorific form is LHA'I CHEN. You might hear it as LHA'I CHEN.

LHA'I CHEN means the eye of a god. It refers to the capacity to see things going on at a great distance. If you offer a lamp whose traditional function is to allow people to see things, the karma of that, if you have a good motivation, a compassionate motivation, you could, for example, see a car accident a few miles from your house and take off and go help those people quickly.

You see what I mean? You gain the clairvoyance of the eye faculty and you're able to see things going on at a great distance. We had a LHA'I CHEN incident recently with a handful of dust.

Geshe Ben Hungyel threw dirt on his altar and Khatampa Sangye was off in Dingri, another state, and he said, oh, somebody just made a great mandala offering. They threw dirt on their altar. Got it?

He had LHA'I CHEN, LHA'I MIG. Okay, LHA'I MIG. DGE BA DANG MI DGE BA'I CHEN NAM SHES RAB CHUNG BAR DGE BA You will be able, you will gain an extraordinary capacity to distinguish between what is a wrong thing to do and what is a right thing to do.

You will have a moral conscience and a sense of moral discrimination. You can say, this thing's going to hurt people. And you can say, this thing's going to help people.

And you gain a capacity for making fine ethical distinctions in your life. I have a garden, right? I spent most of the last two days gardening or much of the last two days gardening.

And if you have a working garden that you spend maybe a couple hours a day on, you begin to appreciate, it's a very nice Buddhist practice to have a garden. And I have sticker plants, right? So if I let them grow, if I don't go out there and dig them up, they go to seed, they make flowers first.

Then they go to seed. And then they spread thorns all over the garden. And they stick my feet, right?

So if I see one, I have to dig it up quickly. And karma's the same, you see? You have to avoid even small bad karmas because they grow.

And you have to go to your garden. And there's a big weed and there's a little tiny weed. Which one do you go for?

Both. But the little one is only this high and you're like, well, why should I bother? But it's as dangerous as a big one, you see?

It will hurt the garden as much as a big one. And then small beautiful flowers, they're called, do you know what a volunteer is in a garden? Volunteer means a plant that seeds itself.

Like a Mexican primrose throws a seed across the whole garden and one starts on the other side of the garden next to you by accident. A bird takes the seed over there. Or the wind takes a seed over there.

So if you see a volunteer, then you just leave it alone, right? You have to treat it with respect. You're so brave, you know?

You jumped the whole garden. I'm going to water you and give you fruit. You're like a really cool plant, you know?

And you have to encourage the little ones. And karma is like that. Even if you could offer someone a cup of tea or a piece of zucchini bread, you should do it, right?

Because then those karmas grow. And the next year you have volunteers everywhere. It's really nice.

All right. So to be able to distinguish between a weed when it's small is a great skill. I smell something burning, but I don't know what it is.

It's a great skill to be able to tell a weed in the first half inch or so. To get to know them and take them out fast. He's talking about that kind of discrimination.

In Sanskrit, it's called viveka. Viveka. Vivekananda means the joy of discrimination.

The first yogi in the United States, I think. 1879, Chicago World's Fair or something like that. Anyway, here we go.

What number are we on? We just finished four. Number five.

,MA RIG PA DANG, ,DI MO GYI MUN PA ZAL BA, You will be able to, ,MUN ZAL NING PO, dispel the darkness. That's the name of the text he's translating for the next 30 years. MUN ZAL is a famous book.

MUN ZAL means to clear away the darkness. You will be able to clear away the darkness of your own ignorance. What is ignorance?

Is it some philosophical thing? No. Someone yells at you.

Someone criticizes you in the press, for example. Somebody says bad things about you, which are maybe true or maybe completely false. But the wise reaction to that, the reaction of a wise person, is to realize that that is coming from a seed in my own mind.

I was critical. Maybe even silently, I was judgmental of many other people. Oh, I'm so smart.

They don't know anything. You know, like that, for a long time. Then that seed will grow in your mind.

Then it will create some criticism. Then if you are criticized and you criticize back, you plant new criticism for the future. It becomes a cycle.

If you offer a butter lamp regularly, subtly, it has a karmic effect on your own intelligence. The next time you're criticized, you avoid criticizing back. You say, that's not going to help anything.

You just be positive and say sweet things. See what I mean? It will change.

The capacity to do that is increased if you offer butter lamps on your altar. It's very interesting. Your wisdom will increase.

How is it? ,GZHAN RAG GI SNO BA THOB PA RGYUR BA DANG, You will attain the illumination of wisdom. Informed state of mind.

You want to find a new boyfriend, you should change your lipstick. Right? No, it doesn't help.

You should help a lonely person. You should find a... I prefer elderly people.

Find an elderly person, help them. I got the same one for how long? I don't know, 20 years.

Help an elderly person. That karma, the karma will create strong relationships in your life. To understand that and not to go wandering around the Sephoras of the world.

What's a Sephora? These are the expensive cosmetic shops. I think there's one in Arizona.

Scottsdale or something. Anyway, GZHAN RAG GI SNO BA THOB PA. You gain the light of wisdom.

You don't go searching for new cosmetics. You go searching for more nursing homes. That's the light of wisdom.

Don't think of it as philosophy. Think of it as a guideline for your life, your real life. DE'I KHOR BA NA KHOR BA'I TSE RNAM DU'I YANG RMONG PAR GNAS PA RGYUR BA DANG There are people who live in places which are more dark and overcast than other places.

For example, Beijing or Shanghai. We go there, we teach there. We go pretty frequently.

It's very rare to see the sun in the sky in those two cities. It's really sad. I think that's why Chinese people's skin color is as it is in the basin of the Yangtze or something like that.

There's no light. It's very, in Beijing right now, the pollution is so bad that, and Mexico City is similar, and Lima and some other places, but the pollution is so bad. And in the Shanghai area, it's partly because of fog.

I mean, it's always been that way. But now the pollution and the fog are mixed together. You can stay in Shanghai or Beijing for a month and not see the sun.

You're not even sure if it's out. You see this dull red thing up in the sky. That's a karma.

That's a karmic result. And it says here, if you offer light to others with a pure motivation, you will live in sunny Arizona where you can get skin cancer. Yeah.

No, anyway, you can put on the S, what do you call it? Anyway, what do you call that stuff? SPF stuff.

What I mean is you will live in a, and that changes your mood, right? You feel more bright and happy. The divorce rate in Arizona is one of the lowest in the country.

You're just, your life is more bright and happy. Or maybe you're so hot that you can't argue. I don't know.

Okay, anyway. By the way, an extreme example of someone caught in darkness, by the way, I was in St. Petersburg. I worked there.

We did 14 years of cataloging in St. Petersburg. We saved 134,000 Tibetan manuscripts. That didn't get in the New York Times either.

But anyway, that's a country, that's the farthest northern city in the world which has a large population, over a certain million people, St. Petersburg. And it's dark. It can be dark for 14 hours a day or 18 hours a day.

It's really depressing. Like the sun doesn't come up. The sun comes up at midnight and goes down at four in the morning or something.

People go out at midnight to have a cup of coffee at a cafe. So to live in those places, it's because you haven't shared light. An extreme example is there are creatures in the universe who you've never met who are born into the depths of outer space, between stars, and they can live there without oxygen or food or water.

Their spirit, their mind lives there and they are lonely and in the dark for a whole lifetime. They are beings, sukme means arupa. They have no physical bodies.

They live in the darkness between worlds for their whole life. That's an extreme example. You don't believe it and I don't care.

LONG CHOS CHE BA RGYUR BA You will have a better finances. That was number eight. Number nine, THOR RIGS SU BSKYED PAR RGYUR BA You will be born into a...

Your passage through death will lead to another world which is more beautiful. I like to say that rather than reborn, your spirit will pass through the bardo and you will enter a more beautiful world on the other side. Last one.

NYUR DU YONGS SU MYA NGA'I LAS DABA You will quickly become enlightened. That one was the same, right? In every case.

We have finished the ten for lamps and for incense and for flowers. I'm going to lay off on that because we'll never get to the end. I'm going to go to the next section.

Ready? We got like ten minutes. We have reached GYOR BA'I PHYIR GSUM PA Say GYOR PHYIR.

GYOR PHYIR. GSUM PA The third of the six preliminary practices. The first one had two parts.

Cleaning your room, straightening up your room and setting up your altar. The second one was putting the offerings forth. We finished the first two.

We're making great progress. I like it. I love to go through a text sweetly and slowly and chew on it and enjoy the taste.

I think it's nice. It might take 30 years. Who cares?

GYOR PHYIR GSUM PA The third is BSTAN DE BA LA LUS DU LUG BSKYED Say BSTAN DE BA LA LUS DU LUG BSKYED BSTAN means your meditation cushion. BSTAN means your meditation cushion. DE BA means comfortable.

LA means on it. LUS means put your body. DU LUG means how you sit on your meditation cushion.

The position or the posture with which you sit on your meditation cushion. BSKYED It has eight parts. There are eight parts to the traditional meditation posture.

Say NAM NANG NAM NANG PHYIR GYE NAM NANG PHYIR GYE PHYIR GYE means the eight dharmas, but here it means the eight aspects of a good meditation posture. There are eight parts of a good meditation posture. They are said to be related to the enlightened being named NAM NANG.

In Sanskrit, that's VAIROCHANA. VAIROCHANA VAI means various, and the word various came from that. VAI means various.

ROCH ROCH in Sanskrit means light. Sometimes R's change to L's in Sanskrit, and it becomes LOKA, meaning the world of light. So ROCH and LOKA, LOCH, are the same.

VAIROCHANA means the deity who has the capacity of showing different aspects on different days. If they're talking at the prison, they look buff and tough. Then if they go teach at the nursing home, they are sweet and gentle.

Like that, if they teach at the bar, they talk about sports. If they go to China, they talk about the 5,000 years of Chinese dynasties. They know all the dynasties, and they know the dates, and people love it.

When they go to Japan, they talk about... Yingbo is so popular in Japan. Martial arts.

Anyway, VAIROCHANA means the person has the ability to morph to their circumstances, and it's an important skill. The eight traditional aspects of a good meditation posture are said to relate to the enlightened being called VAIROCHANA. Got it?

VAIROCHANA, accenting all Sanskrit on the penultimate syllable is just trying to put an American accent on Sanskrit, which is really weird to someone from India, but that's okay. Like AMITABHA for Amitabha. Like that.

You should try to break that habit. If you're going to learn Sanskrit, break the penultimate, the next and last syllable habit. All right, here we go.

LUS SKYE DAM CHUD NAM GANG DER KOS He says, you can take the eight-part posture of VAIROCHANA, but more importantly, it should be comfortable. So he's like, forget the eight-part posture. I'll teach you the eight-part posture, but in the end, it should be whatever's comfortable for you.

The goal of a correct meditation posture is to park your body still and leave it. And if your knees are screaming at you, you've failed. If you need to sit in a chair, sit in a chair.

But don't try to look good and be uncomfortable because that's against the whole idea. The idea is to park your body. You know like those vampires who they leave their body in a casket and then they go running around all day and then they come back to the body?

That's a good example. That should be in our Lam Rim. You should park your body on a meditation cushion and leave.

And the body shouldn't call you back to the physical world. Your body should be as comfortable as possible so you can think about higher things. And your spine's not screaming and your knees aren't screaming.

Find a way to park your body in its casket and then go take off and do your meditation. And at the end, come back to the body. But the body shouldn't be calling you back.

Baby, call me home. We're learning this word. It's calling me home.

It should not call you. The body should be neutral and then the mind should be able to fly and not forced back to the body. The body shouldn't be screaming in pain and bringing the mind back to the body.

Park the body and leave it in whatever way is comfortable for you. And that will take experimenting. I'm going to go over tonight.

Is that okay? Do you care? If you got to leave, just leave.

I don't care. Let's at least do the eight. Is that okay?

If you have to leave, please leave. Don't feel obligated to stay. If you have to pee-pee, which is impossible because you just had a break, you can still get up and go.

Here we go. ,GES SEMS BSKYED PA CHEN GYI SNANG NAS, ,KHYAB DOR SEMS GYI RGYUD DANG, ,BRING NAS SU BYA BA, This is the whole name of the section. It has another part.

,GES SEMS BSKYED PA CHEN GYI SNANG NAS, Your state of mind should be extraordinarily virtuous. And there's a practice for that. This third preliminary has two parts.

One, parking the body. Two, making the mind super sweet before you start to meditate. It has two parts.

Park the body, and then make the mind very fertile and very sweet, which involves going for refuge and thinking about saving the world. I call it the Spiderman state of mind. I'm going to save the world, and I take shelter.

I take shelter, and I'm going to save the world. So that's the second half. Those two things are the second half.

The first half is park your body. Here we go. ,GYI RGYUD DANG, ,BRING NAS SU BYA BA, means never start a meditation session without reviewing your motivation.

And we'll get to that. We're not going to cover it tonight, but we'll get to that. We're going to try to cover the eight parts of your posture before we quit tonight, because I'm fresh.

Because I had a nice break. ,BSTAN NI RGYAB MTHO DANG, ,DON MA BA ZHIG BYA STE, About your meditation cushion, the back should be higher and the front should be lower. So I have one under my butt right now, and I don't sit on the whole thing.

I put it, I'm propping up the back higher than the front. The back of my butt is higher than the front of my butt, which I'm not going to demonstrate. It might be reported.

We have cushions. Do you got those? Let's do it tomorrow.

Let's do it tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm going to show you some options on your meditation cushions. It's good to see four or five options.

You should experiment. Everybody's different. We had a guy named Dido Gevitzler in New Jersey.

He insisted on using a wooden two-by-four, and he swore it was comfortable for him, and nobody else found that to be the case. So tomorrow let's talk about some options you have. Here we go.

,BSTAN NI RGYAB MTHO DANG, ,DE LA SNGAGS KYI SEMS NAS KHYAD PAR CHEN ZHIG RGYOD, There's a tantric, there's a secret profound tantric reason to do that. ,CHING ZHIG RGYOD Meaning, he refused to describe it in an open teaching. He just said, there's a reason, especially in tantra, why the back of your bottom should be raised higher than the front.

It has to do with your central channel, Sushumna, and how the prana flows through your central channel. That has an effect on how you see the people around you, which is tantra. Not like sex orgies in the back of a yurt in the desert, which is not very fun anyway, because it's too hot and there's flies everywhere.

Seriously, it's the last thing you'd want to do. So, the back of the seat should be raised a bit. That straightens your central channel.

That increases the flow of prana. By the way, yoga does the same thing, right? That's why yoga was invented, to help straighten the central channel.

So, if you straighten the central channel, prana flows more easily. The heart chakra is connected to your physical senses, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling touches. If the prana is flowing well, as information comes in through your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and body, those objects strike you as more divine.

Those objects strike. You can connect with the divinity in other people better if your meditation cushion is good. Got it?

That's what he didn't want to mention. Because it's tantra. Tantra should not be spoken about publicly or to newspapers.

I think we're not allowed to do that. All right. CHUNG RING PO DE KYANG CHUNG RING PO DE KYANG means, even if you sit there for a long time, say PONG MI NA BA.

PONG MI NA BA Your butt won't get sore. It's kind of cute how people remember bad words better than good words. Like if you teach people a Tibetan cuss word, they remember it immediately.

Anyway, PONG MI NA BA means your bottom won't get sore. Soak, et cetera. DE KYANG DE means it's a crucial point.

If your meditation cushion is correct, if the back is higher than the front, it will help your tantric realizations, meaning you will see more divine in the world. And your butt won't be sore. Several important points.

BSTAN GYI'OGS SAR GAR GYI I'll go for like another 20 minutes. So don't freak out. I'll just go to 10.

BSTAN GYI'OGS SAR GAR GYI YONDON GCOD CHI I need a piece of paper and a pen. And Scotty, beam me up to the little camera here. Okay, Captain.

Thank you. Below the, you have another one for yourself? Okay, below the meditation cushion, you should draw a swastika.

So I'm going to teach you how to draw a proper swastika. This is a good sign. It's an ancient good sign.

It shouldn't be reported in the news that Geshe Michael's drawing swastikas all over the place. It's funny to think like that, right? You have to be like, I'm not drawing swastikas.

The text says you should put a swastika under your meditation cushion. Swastika meant su-a-sti-ka, means goodness. So GYOGS SAR GAR, you should take a piece of chalk and under your meditation cushion, are you okay?

Okay, under your meditation cushion, you should draw a swastika. CHOS KOR, say CHOS KOR. CHOS KOR means Dharma Circle, but it means it should go left way.

So what does that mean exactly? I'll show you the correct way and I'll show you the wrong way. This is CHOS KOR.

Your pen is not being powerful. No, it's okay. That's a CHOS KOR.

See how, and as I said the other night, I like to think of it as if there was jets coming out of the arms of the swastika, it would spin counterclockwise. If those were shooting out air and pushing the thing around, it would spin counterclockwise, which is considered auspicious. It goes to the left.

Now I'll show you the wrong way to draw it. Okay, so this is right and this is wrong. I did a yoga book once and I showed all the wrong versions of the postures and the editor talked me out of it.

They said lazy people will just open up the book and start doing it that way. So I'm a little hesitant to draw it the wrong way for you. That's the wrong way.

Good? And don't think of it as a bad sign. It's a very beautiful and it's a very sacred, ancient sacred sign and it can have beautiful meaning.

Okay, so you should take a piece of chalk and under your meditation cushion you should make that sign. To your corset too. YUN SDUG NI, DOR JIG RGYA DANG GYI BDOD YIN PAS So anybody have another Vajra?

No? You have? Okay, he's coming.

DOR JIG RGYA DANG means across Vajra. Somebody asked a question like the other day. GYI BDOD, say BDOD.

BDOD means substitute. So the swastika under your cushion is a substitute for a cross Dorje. Cross Dorje just means you have one and then you have another one over it.

Like that. And a cross Dorje represents stability. And as I said the other night, it's often put on a banner in front of the Lama's seat which is a request to them to stay.

So a cross Dorje means may the Lama stay in my life. A swastika is a substitute for a cross Dorje. SANGS RGYAS GNYIS SU BYAMS PA DANG DONG PA DOR JE BSTAN DU NGON PAR SANGS RGYAS KYI RNAM THAR BYAS SU BYAMS PA DANG One of the meanings of the cross Dorje is to remember that Lord Buddha was enlightened in the town called...

Bodhgaya is the modern name. Bodhgaya is a recent name. It's only like a thousand years old.

The original name was Vajrasana. Vajrasana. Dorje Den.

The original name of Bodhgaya was Vajra. V-A-J-R-A-S-A-N-A So are we going to be able to tell these apart? Yeah.

So that's a cross Dorje. Say Dorje. RGYAS DANG Dorje.

RGYAS DANG Swastika is called in Tibetan, YONG DUNG So this is a Dorje RGYAS DANG and this is a YONG DUNG. YONG DUNG Don't forget the good after. ASANA means what?

It means seat. The yoga poses originally were meant to prepare your body for long periods of sitting. The original purpose of doing yoga, one of the original purposes was to prepare the body for long periods of sitting.

So those exercises were called ASANA. The word AS is directly related to ASANA. If you're interested.

AS means to sit or to be. Like swastika, ASTI means to sit or to be. So part of the reason to write a swastika under your meditation seat is to remember where Lord Buddha was enlightened, which is called the seat of the diamond.

VAJRAASANA That's extremely important. The Vajra or the diamond is the most important metaphor in all of Buddhism. Lord Buddha was enlightened in a city called the place of the diamond.

So the diamond is extremely important. If you had to go to work and you were a sincere Buddhist and were trained properly for many years, you would want to work in a diamond business. Regardless of the rest of the details of diamonds, they are the most important metaphor in all of Buddhism.

Lord Buddha is in the place where he sat when he was enlightened. It's called the place of the diamond. It's very, very important.

Okay, Vajraasana. So the reason to use the swastika is to remember the cross diamonds, which is partly to remember where Lord Buddha was enlightened. If you had to go to work and you had a choice, it would be good to work around diamonds all day, just to remember Lord Buddha.

By the way, interestingly, if you care, this is the shape of a diamond crystal. They are octahedrons. They're often twinned octahedrons.

This part is an octahedron, four-sided crystal with four facets on the top and four on the bottom. And then this is another octahedron. This is one of the most common forms of a diamond crystal.

The first great diamond stone in the world came from India. They fell out of mountains in South Africa before India split off from South Africa. And that's why you find diamonds in Brazil.

There's no diamond pipes in Brazil. There's no kimberlite pipes in Brazil. They all fell out of mountains and worked their way downstream in South Africa before Brazil left Africa.

It's very cool. The first great source of diamonds in the world was India because it was very close to the diamond pipes before it broke off in Africa. So anyway, RANG GI GRUB PA BSTAN PA'I GRUB PA YOD The crossed Dorje is meant to represent the stability of your practice.

Your personal practice is steady. Steady wins the race. Don't do three-hour meditations.

Learn to do a 12-minute meditation. And don't go crazy. Do 12 minutes every day.

Get your butt on the cushion every day. To do two hours on Monday and then do two hours on Thursday is useless. It's like doing two hours of yoga and then not doing any yoga for a week.

It's not going to help you. Do a little bit every day. To remind you of that fact, draw a swastika under your cushion to remind you.

Your practice should be small and modest and constant and not like four hours one day and nothing the next day. Do a little bit every day and you'll become a great master. Sakya Pandita said, memorize three Tibetan words a day and that's all.

You will become a great master of Tibetan. David Swenson, who is a great Ashtanga teacher, he taught me to do, I don't know, I hate that, Urdhva Dhanurasana. It was very hard for me.

I couldn't do it for many years. He got three phone books, big ones, and he put them on the ground and he made me do Urdhva Dhanurasana on three phone books, which anybody can do because it's like this high. Then he gave me the three phone books.

He said, do Urdhva Dhanurasana. Then I did it because it was easy. Then he came up and he tore out one page.

He said, tomorrow do it with one page left. Now I can do Urdhva Dhanurasana. It's like, I don't know how many pages since then.

It was a couple thousand pages. But every day, tear out one page. That's steady.

You see what I mean? YIN GRI PA BSTAN PA DGOS PA YIN RGYA DANG LUS NI LHA'I TZAM MA YIN PAS BSGOM MI RUNGS This GOM doesn't mean meditation. This GOM is spoken with a prenasal accent.

Say NGOM. NGOM Then say GOM. Then say GOM.

Three different sounds. NGOM GOM GOM Three different words. If you're fancy, if you want to give yourself a headache, you can add two more.

GOM and GOM GOM GOM GOM NGOM GOM If you're Tibetan is good, and if your Sanskrit is good, you hear those five different names. And if you have a really good teacher, you can hear the difference. If you don't get a good teacher, you can never learn Sanskrit because they'll all sound the same to you.

GOM, GOM, GOM, GOM, GOM Anyway, it's important that we have a prenasal here. GOM means don't step on it. What's GOM mean, Venerable Hill?

Meditate. What's KOM mean? I'm thirsty.

I'm sorry, I have time. And GOM means I'm thirsty. So you got to learn to pronounce them.

And we can do it someday. GOM means don't step on it. What?

Don't draw a double Dorje under your meditation seat because when you stand up with your bare feet on your seat, you will be stepping on the sign of an enlightened being. Therefore, we use a swastika as a substitute. This is the sign of an enlightened being and you're not allowed to step on it.

So you can't use it under your meditation cushion. You can use it in front of a lama's seat properly as good luck. You sew, you can order them from India.

You sew this symbol onto a piece of silk and you hang it in front of the lama's seat and it means may the lama stay forever. See what I mean? But you can't step on this symbol.

All right. You make GOM in your room. We got another eight minutes, hang in there.

Don't get sleepy on me, okay? Look interested and bright. Okay, I know the cookies have that effect.

That's why you have to pay for them. DE NAS TSAR BDUR BA DANG KUSHA MA THUG PAR SEMS DUNG DU BRTEN NAS TING Say TSAR BDUR BA. TSAR BDUR BA Then say KUSHA.

KUSHA Do you have any KUSHA? Do you have any KUSHA here? Huh?

On the altar? Oh, can you give me one of those brooms that wrapped in the yellow cloth? Hand me either one.

So in ancient India, there's a grass called KUSHA. Say KUSHA. The Tibetans translate it as KUSHA.

So it's a loan word, they didn't re-translate it. They just say KUSHA. KUSHA is a kind of fragrant grass that grows pretty commonly around India and it's considered sacred.

Lord Buddha was sitting on KUSHA when he got enlightened. So just either one. Just open that and give me either one.

Probably the one with more KUSHA on it. It's a very fragrant, holy grass. If you go to any Indian store, even in Mexico City or Tepoztlan or Chapala, you can find it.

They sell them in Indian grocery stores all over the world. And just either one. That's okay.

Give me the whole thing. So that's KUSHA grass. It has a nice smell and it looks like that.

The usual stalks look about this long. These have been cut for the broom. Oftentimes you'll see the whole broom made of KUSHA and they make a handle out of KUSHA.

But then when you buy them, you buy them at the grocery store and then you take them apart and you take out the KUSHA grass. Then this, it has a stem on the end. It grows from a stem and then it grows this kind of grass.

So under your meditation cushion, it's considered traditional to put KUSHA grass. The tips, which means the stalk, which doesn't mean the tip. The tip should face towards the front of your meditation cushion.

That's considered the tips. And it says MA THUG. It says don't jumble them up.

They should be like combed hair. They should be nice and orderly. TSE MO'I DURN DU BRTEN NAS ZHING ZHING means lay down flat.

Lay them down flat with the tips towards the front. DE YANG STON PA'I TZA'I RTEN DU SNGON PA SANGS RGYAS PA'I RNAM THAR DANG We use KUSHA grass because Lord Buddha sat on KUSHA grass when he got enlightened. It's considered very powerful.

It's considered a very powerful grass. By the way, you can leave it there for months. It doesn't get old.

It turns brown, but that's no big deal. You can leave it there for a long time. THOR BA Or you can use THOR BA.

THOR BA means reeds. What do you call? Is there another word for THOR BA?

Like that you find near a lake. What's it called? Thule?

I think reeds. They have joints on them. It's not bamboo.

What did you say? Let's say reeds. They're thin.

They're thinner than a pencil. They're about the size of a drinking straw. And they have joints on them, which in Tibetan is called TZIG.

These are also called TZIG. These joints are also called TZIG. Each section of a reed from a lake represents more life.

THOR BA is considered a grass of long life. If you have an illness and you want to live longer so you can serve more people, then get some THOR BA instead of KUSHA and put it under your... You can find it in any...

In where I live, it's called Johnson grass. It's a bitch for your garden. It grows huge networks under the garden.

It shows up all over the place. But it's a beautiful long grass. And the joints and the sections, the jointed sections, similar to bamboo, are considered sympathetic.

What do you call? Sympathetic magic. They help your life energy.

[Говорящий 2] (48:42 - 48:43)
Like that.

[Говорящий 1] (48:44 - 56:48)
That's called TSAD DOR BA. Those of you who are coming to the retreat in August, DOR BA is one of the substances we offer to a fire, in a fire offering. We will be using DOR BA in the fire offering.

When you offer it, you make prayers for the long and healthy life of all the people in this world. You see what I mean? You do this very beautiful...

You take two strands and you throw it into the fire. Then the smoke covers the planet. Eventually those atoms cover the planet and they knock against the ionosphere and they send vibrations out to other stars.

Scientifically, it's happening. There is an effect with the right motivation that you are making prayers for the long life of every living creature in the universe. When you throw the DOR BA into the fire, you imagine that atoms will be sprinkling the...

What do you call? They will hit the ether at the edge of the atmosphere. That has a repercussion in the universe.

You see what I mean? You can think, I'm praying for the long life of all beings. You see what I mean?

We offer that grass also in... We will offer it in August. We will do two fire offerings and everybody will get to throw stuff in.

All right. I got two more minutes. PHAL BAR BYED PA STE DOR BA'I TSE NI PHAL BAR BYED PA STE He's quoting a famous line of verse which happens to come from a fire puja and also a rabne.

Say rabne. Rabne. Rabne means a special ritual which I can teach you someday if we have nothing else to do.

That you do before you build a new house or you build a new chapel in Glendale, Arizona, an adobe complex. But before you start building, you do rabne. You do a certain fire offering and you do rabne.

This verses about the power of reeds comes in the rabne ritual. He quotes only one line. Geshe Michael went on a date with a blonde Russian model in New York.

I don't even know. I've never met a blonde Russian model. Anyway, I'm at home looking up computer references.

Here's the full... It's kind of amazing. Here's the full quotation.

Anyway, DOR BA'I TSE NI PHAL BAR BYED PA STE DOR BYED SEMS PAS TSE NI RAB DUD NAS NYON MONGS KYIS ZHIG RGYUN ZHIG GYUR PA YID BRTAG ZHIG DE KYANG TSE YANG PHAL GYUR CIG That's the whole verse. He only gave one line. I gave you the whole thing.

Why? Because those ladies are typing for the last 25 years. It's in the computer.

Let me translate you the whole verse. DOR BA'I TSE NI PHAL BAR BYED PA STE That's the line he used. DOR BA'I TSE NI PHAL BAR BYED PA STE means if you use reeds under your cushion or offer it to a fire, it will increase people's lifespans.

It will increase the life of all beings. DOR BYED SEMS PAS TSE NI RAB DUD NAS You will come to have the same length of life as Vajrasattva, tantric deity of purification. NYON MONGS KYIS ZHIG RGYUN ZHIG GYUR PA YID You will cut the stream of your negative emotions and of rebirth and death, constant being born, constant dying.

If you use DOR BA, grass, you will cut them. DRAG ZHIG DE'I KYANG TSE YANG PHAL GYUR CIG Then may the lives of all living beings be extended. May their lives be extended.

That motivation, as you use DOR BA under your seat or as you offer DOR BA in a fire, will increase your own life. It will overcome obstacles to your own life. DOR BA RTEN DU BYED NA TSE PHAL BA DANG If you use reeds, DOR BA, under your meditation cushions, you will live longer and other beings.

If you use KUSHA, you will have more purity and more good karma. That's a verse. That's two lines of a verse.

KUSHA DINI SANGS RGYAS I'm not going to give it to you yet. I'm not going to overwhelm you. It's 10 o'clock already.

He quotes one part of a verse about the benefits of KUSHA grass. I went and found the rest for you. It's by the second Panchen Lama.

He lived, I forgot. Anyway, he lived in the 1600s. I'll read you the verse next time, tomorrow night.

The benefits of KUSHA grass. Karmically. Karmic benefits of KUSHA grass.

Don't think this is all just BS or something like that. Surrender to it and do it. It's fun.

You become like a magician or something. I like KUSHA grass. I'm a KUSHA grass man.

Take the time and go to an Indian grocery store. Ask them for a grass broom that came from India, KUSHA. They'll know what it is.

Then take it apart and use it under your meditation cushion and your meditation will change. That's why we're going through these hundreds of hours of talk about your meditation before you start meditating. Make the seat correctly according to ancient tradition.

Then your meditation will take off. Your meditation will be awesome. Don't just think, oh, this is all superstitious Tibetan stuff.

It's not. Try it and see. Your meditation will improve.

You will have fantastic meditations. Take it all very seriously. Make the little swastika.

Arrange the KUSHA grass just right. Do the eight-point posture and your meditation will change. People learn some 10-minute TM thing in a yoga studio and they try to meditate for a week and nothing happens.

You have the whole 2,500 years of tradition. It's very beautiful. Use it.

Go home and be gung ho and go back to Hamburg and to your ex-rabbit house and get the right grass and do everything right. Your meditation will be awesome. You will have fantastic meditation.

I did it. I can tell you. All right.

Then I'm going to fill you up. Let's go.

[Говорящий 2] (56:52 - 58:51)
Shuk Rung Kyi Chok Shing Le Namo Amitabha Shuk Rinpoche Sangye Shuk Rinpoche Sangye Shuk Rinpoche Sangye Shuk Rinpoche Sangye Shuk Rinpoche Okay. Thank you.