Занятие 6, часть 2

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 14:13)
Okay, here we go. YIN PAS BYA NA'I GSUM PA YIN PHYIR BSKYED PA'UG BYANG BA NAS So now we're going to start talking about the eighth of the eight-part postures. What is that?

The breath. Okay, he's going to make some nice... Again, this is the only place, this is the best explanation you'll get about this in your life.

So pay attention. You won't find this in textbooks from the monastery, for example. Okay, here we go.

RTZO SEMS MI DGE BA DANG GSUM DENG DU SONG DUG NA DGE SEMS BSKYED PA CHEN ZAL THEBS SKA BA Oh boy, you're in trouble. Let me see. Say GSUM DENG.

GSUM DENG This is a concept from the Abhidharma. This is an ancient, ancient concept called GSUM DENG. It describes the relationship between your main consciousness and your thoughts.

For example, if you have anger, or jealousy, or compassion, or love, or discrimination, or feelings, those are not main mind. Those are aspects of the mind. Those are functions, sub-functions of the mind.

Emotions. But while you're having emotions, you have general awareness. Your mind didn't go black.

Mike Tyson didn't hit you in the head. You are aware. Linked to that awareness are your emotions.

Love, compassion, logic, wisdom, jealousy. There's a very beautiful and detailed teaching in the Abhidharma about the nature of that link between the main mind and the aspects of the mind or the functions of the mind. That link is called GSUM DENG.

You need to know it for this discussion of breath meditation. To understand breath meditation, you must understand how your awareness is linked to your emotions. GSUM DENG means, in the Abhidharma course, it's a special teaching which we can do someday in our spare time.

There are five ways in which the main mind or your general awareness is linked to your thoughts. There are five ways. I'm going to give them to you just because it will slow everything down.

Say DEN. They go like this in Tibet. DEN MIG PA NAM PA DU ZE DEN MIG PA NAM PA DU ZE ZE DEN means, how should I say?

Let's give an example that I'm looking at this postcard because I want work study and I understand that I have to apply tonight or forever shut up. Okay? So, I'm looking at the postcard.

My main awareness in my mind is aware of the postcard. Also, I have feelings about the postcard. I like Milo's, you did this one, right?

I like the job he did. So, there's an emotion which is linked to the general awareness of the postcard. Through the same DEN.

Link number one is called the same basis. Meaning, both my primary state awareness and my appreciation of the quality of the artistry, they are both resting upon the consciousness of my eye. Upon my visual consciousness.

My awareness of shape and color. I have a capacity to see and both my awareness and my appreciation are resting upon that in the way that Kleenex rests upon the table. Got it?

So, they are linked according to their foundation, which is the sense consciousness that I'm using at the time. Got it? Clear?

Not so clear. Both of those states of mind are resting upon my capacity to see. That's number one, link number one.

Link number two. MIG PA, say MIG PA. The MIG PA is the object of my consciousness.

In this case, the postcard. The postcard. That is shared by my main awareness and by my appreciation.

They are both looking at the same postcard. Got it? My general awareness and my appreciation are both looking at the same postcard.

So, they are linked in a second way, which is called object of perception. Got it? So, so far we have foundation, sense consciousness, and then we have, they are linked through being on the same object of perception.

The outside postcard. Say NAM PA. NAM PA is really difficult.

You see, I studied Abhidharma for 10 years with Rinpoche. We translated one of the greatest commentaries together. And this is a particularly difficult idea.

NAM PA means the coloration of the mind. Okay? The general coloration of the mind.

That is difficult to describe. In the Yoga Sutra they talk about a white crystal put next to a blue crystal and the blue crystal will cause the white crystal to have a blue shade to it. So, they are both shaded in the same way.

For example, it might be a shading of feeling good. My main consciousness is somehow shaded happy or postcard-ish. And my, how shall we say?

Let's change that. When I look at a postcard, both my appreciation and my awareness have a postcard-ish quality to them. They are content of the invisible mind.

Not the content of the object, but the content of the state of mind. It's like crystal which is colored blue or red due to proximity of another object. Like that.

Both my general awareness and my appreciation are imbued with an awareness of postcard-ness. The quality of being a postcard imbues my state of mind like a color of a rose next to a diamond or a crystal. You see what I mean?

Colors of red. The same coloring. And that you've got to work on.

It took me many years to even get that far and it's not very clear, is it? DUN YANG DUN YANG is easy, number four. They are simultaneous.

They are happening at the same time. My awareness of color and shape and my appreciation of Milo's artistry and of birthday cake are happening at the same time. They are simultaneous.

They're going on at the same time. So they are linked temporarily, by time. Got it?

Number five. I said ZE. ZE means the stuff of both of them is the same.

The stuff of general awareness, the material that you use to make it, and the material that you use to make appreciation is consciousness. Mental stuff. So they share a substance which is not really substance.

They share the quality of being mental. They are both mental. What would be not matching?

It would be one of them is physical and one of them is mental. But in this case, the raw material of both the awareness and the appreciation is mental. Mentalness.

They're both mental. So anyway, in these five ways, your feelings, your emotions, your other mental functions are linked to your general awareness of the world. Got it?

Let's go back to breath meditation. Why is that relevant? Let's hope it is.

TSO SEMS NI DGE BA DANG TSUN DANG DU SONG DUG NA If your general awareness is linked in those five ways to a negative state of mind, to a non-virtuous state of mind, like you're angry at somebody. That would be your main mind, main awareness, is tainted by anger. Because it's linked to it.

And the anger is coloring the consciousness. DUG TO SONG DUG NA DGE SEMS BSKYED PAR CAN SREL BSKYABS SKA Then it would be difficult to enter a meditation where you were focusing on a virtuous subject, such as your own personal teacher in the golden roof. If you're angry and you sit down...

Basically what he's saying is if you're angry and you sit down to meditate, you will not be able to turn the mind to a virtuous object quickly. It'll be a struggle. Because you're not only trying to focus on your teacher's form, you are struggling against your feelings of unkindness.

And you won't be able to meditate. It will ruin the meditation. It's like...

And I always tell the same story, but Nyingpo told me, Geshe-la, you shouldn't tell the same story 28 times in one city on a DCI tour. But anyway, I'm going to tell you again. Is everybody getting kicked?

Otherwise I feel bad. You got to hand it out to everybody. I'll tell you another distracting story.

In the monastery of... In our monastery, 1,300 monks when I was there, the abbot must get the first cup of tea. He's up there teaching and he has to get the first cup of tea.

Then slowly, 1,300 other monks get their cup of tea. But the abbot cannot drink his until they do a prayer. So his is always ice cold and covered with butter, spoiled butter.

What do you call it? Scum? And the youngest monk who's about seven years old is the only one who gets a hot cup of tea.

Anyway. What was the other distracting thing? Oh yeah.

So I was in... I told you this story already, but I think I was in Michigan with my mom and my brother. So we had a fight in the car and she was on the highway and my brother hit the gear shift knob and it went from forward to reverse at 50 miles an hour.

And there was this and everything smoked and it ruined the car. Meditation is the same. If your mind is linked in the five ways to unhappy thoughts, you cannot sit down and immediately try to have a good meditation.

It will never happen. Got it? That's where we are.

What's he going to say? What's he going to say? Therefore, you should count your breath for a while because that brings the mind to neutral.

The car stops. Then you can change it to reverse. Like that.

Here we go. SEMS KHYAD PAR CHEN GZEL THAB GYUR NA DPER NA, for example, KHO NDUR DRAG PO MANG BZHIN PA'I SKABS When you are very angry or upset, MA SEMS CAN THAMS CAD CES You can sit down and do the prayer with Venerable Phil singing. Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh Then you're supposed to be taking, you're supposed to be feeling universal love.

It's a Bodhichitta prayer, right? And you're upset. Somebody just bothered you.

Did some mean thing to you. KHO NDRUD CHAD means you can pretend to do the prayer with Venerable Phil, but we all know what, you're just upset the whole time, okay? CHOG TZAM YANG SEMS BDAD MI NUS PA You can't even get a glimpse of universal love when you're upset, even if Venerable Phil is singing the universal love prayer.

Got it? Okay. SEMS BDAD MI NUS PA LTAR RE DE NA SEMS MI DGE DANG SEMS LDAN DU SONG DUG NA Therefore, if you find that your mind is linked to an unhappy or non-virtuous thought, right?

In the five ways. SONG DUG NA RE ZHIG DGE SEMS BDAD MI BYA BAR Don't try to shift the car forward from reverse. Go to neutral first.

Go to neutral first, okay? LUNG MA BSTAN, say LUNG MA BSTAN. Very, very, very important idea in Buddhism.

Say LUNG MA BSTAN.

[Говорящий 2] (14:13 - 14:14)
LUNG MA BSTAN.

[Говорящий 1] (14:15 - 43:39)
Buddha was asked 14 questions in his lifetime which he refused to answer. Okay? LUNG means to speak.

BSTAN means to demonstrate or to show. LUNG BSTAN PA means to give a reply to a question. He was approached.

It's happened to me this week a lot. I'm not being mean. I'm just saying it's happened to me this week that people approached me with questions which were inappropriate.

And I couldn't say yes and I couldn't say no. You see what I mean? And Lord Buddha had 14 questions like that.

For example, one of them is, does the world have a beginning or an end? He could have given an answer but the audience wouldn't have understood it. So he declined.

He said no comment. That's called LUNG MA BSTAN, okay? In Tibetan it's called LUNG MA BSTAN.

There are 14 famous questions. That would be an interesting class one day, right? To cover them.

It'd be a really interesting class. Anyway, LUNG MA BSTAN came to mean more generally, neutral, neutral, or a neutral state of mind. So in the study of karma, we say there's bad karma and there's good karma and there's LUNG MA BSTAN, means neutral.

Picking your nose in your own room is LUNG MA BSTAN, okay? All right, somebody else's house, if it's gooey it might be a bad karma, okay? Like that, okay?

Certain actions are just not karmically charged. They are neither negative nor positive. They're just kind of, you're just doing it, okay?

All right. If you have any other examples, you can let me know. LUNG MA BSTAN GYI SEMS SU GYUR BA BYED PA'I So it's important to bring the mind into neutral before you meditate, because you might have been upset up to that moment.

Okay, DE NAS GYI SEMS SU GYUR BDE BA Then it would be easier to shift to a virtuous state of mind. So first do your breath meditation, okay? Then LUNG BU DGAR PO YIN KYANG PHYI MA'I SNGAG PO BYED PA LA TSOS LEN DKA' TSOS LEN DKA' LUNG BU means a bolt of cloth, okay?

A bolt of white cloth, DGAR PO, in Tibet. If it's already stained, like with a butter stain or something, it won't take a dye very well, okay? You cannot dye it uniformly red or uniformly blue, because if it has a stain, it won't take the color very well, okay?

ZHING DE'I PHYUD LA LAS PAR SPYOD So first you would have to wash the stains out of it, right? Then you would have to dye it red or whatever other color you wanted, okay? What's he talking about?

Your own mind, your own state of mind. Don't sit down after being on the internet and getting all this blah, blah, blah, and then sit down and try to meditate. It's not going to work, okay?

First bring the mind to neutral. Watch your breath for a while, okay? Watch your breath for a while, okay?

Don't try to dye a stained piece of cloth red. Wash it first to neutral color, and then dye it, okay? So GYUR KHYANG LA BA LTAR YIN DE YANG SEMS LUNG MA BSTAN ZHES PA What do we mean when we say LUNG MA BSTAN?

DGE BA DANG MI DGE BA GANG DU YANG MA SONG BA It's a neutral state of mind. It's neither virtuous nor non-virtuous. LUNG BU GAR PAR PHYIR MA MED PA LTA BU LA ZER BA YIN It's like a neutral state of mind is comparable to the white cloth after the stains have been removed.

Got it? Okay. Now it's ready to dye.

D-Y-E. GAR PAR PHYIR MA MED PA LTA BU YIN ZER DE NA DUNG BYANG NAS SEMS LUNG MA BSTAN THUG RGYUR LUG JI LTAR YIN NYAM THA So how is it? There's a rhetorical question in the text.

How is it that you bring the mind to a neutral state by watching your breath, okay? LO GANG NANG DU CHOG NAS KUN RUNG LA BTAG PAS DOD CHAGS DANG ZHES DANG SROG GI DBANG DU SONG DUG NA Now he's telling you how to do it in real practice. LO GANG NANG DU CHOG means bring your mind inside.

Bring your mind to, what do you call that, introspective. Look to the inside with your mind. Stop looking at the cake and bring the mind inside.

KUN RUNG LA BTAG PAS Check your motivation. Why are you meditating? Why did you sit down to meditate today?

DOD CHAGS DANG ZHES DANG SROG GI DBANG DU SONG DUG NA If you find that your mind has slipped into disliking something strongly or liking something strongly in a wrong way, right? But we all know what that means. UGS NA BUG NAS BDAG CAN DANG ZHUGS CAN DANG DGOS PAR CAN SOGS MA YIN PAR Check the sound of your breath passing through your nostrils.

BDAG CAN Is it making a whizzing, whizz? The wind through the trees. Whizzing sound?

Whistling, like a swipe. They say if you're a good meditator, you get distracted by the sound of the breath moving through the hairs in your nose. It will start to sound like a helicopter or something.

If your meditation is good, you will be compelled to slow down your breath so you don't have to listen to the infernal whistling. It sounds like a teapot when it's going off, you see? So ZHUGS CAN DANG means, or if your breath is too strong.

Or DGOS PAR CAN, if your breath is ragged. Like you were doing John Salberry's class and your breath is like, you know. That's how mine was today.

DGOS PAR CAN SOGS MA BDAG BU CHOD DONG BZHIN PAR SONG NGO NYAMS PA BYAS In that case, you should start to watch your breath. Bring your awareness to your breath. And he says, oh look, it's going out.

Oh look, it's coming in. Okay, all right. If you find your breath is off, stop and examine your breath, okay?

So I want to put a side editorial comment in here. Anytime your breath gets out of whack, you are in danger of having a negative emotion, okay? Anytime.

And you can detect that you are about to get upset when your breath falls out of whack. When your breath gets ragged, or you start breathing faster, or the exhales are too short and the inhales are very long, okay? Then you're about to have a mental affliction attack.

And you better stop because you're about to make some bad karma, okay? You should gain an awareness. Also, when you're doing yoga, I found it very helpful to listen to your breath as if you were somebody else standing next to you.

And how smooth does it sound? And it's kind of depressing, okay? Now you're like, and then you can bring it down.

Then you can control your breath, okay? But become capable of standing away from yourself as you do yoga and listen to yourself breathe, which John said today you can't do if the music is pumping, right? So sometimes turn off the music, but not too often.

BAR TSOG NYON MED PAS ,DE BZHIN DU GNAN DU DNGOS BZHING TSUL DBANG SOGS NYAMS PA'I PHYIR, As it goes out, think, oh, look, it's going out. As it comes in, think, oh, look, it's coming in, okay? Oh, so I really wanted to emphasize, and it's on your homework.

You know they say count to 10 when you're angry or something like that, right? So watch your breath, okay? If your breath gets out of whack, stop whatever you're doing and do 10 good breaths.

Do 10 good breaths, and you will save so much suffering in your life. You'll have so many fewer fights with people, or so many less food, what do they call it? When you have a food attack?

What do you call that? Yeah, I mean, you're nervous, and you go to the fridge and you open it up, and watch your breath, and it'll be, and you're just eating because you're nervous. You're not hungry.

Check your stomach at that moment. You're like, I'm not hungry. I just ate like half an hour ago.

And then close the fridge and breathe. Watch your breath. It's a very powerful practice, okay?

Bring the breath to neutral, okay? Anytime you find your breath off, stop. Also during a yoga session, right?

If you can. Okay. Where were we?

DE LEN GCIG SONG SNYAMS PA BYAS Then you think, oh, look, that's one complete breath, okay? He started with the exhale, and then he went to the inhale. And that's an important spiritual practice in India and Tibet, all traditions.

A breath is not this, like when you're swimming or something. The breath isn't an inhale and an exhale. A breath is one exhale followed by one inhale, and that's a breath, okay?

It's very important in Tantra. It's very, very important. You never, to take your, it's the last part of the breath with the exhale, that's a death.

That's what people do when they die. They breathe out and they don't breathe in, okay? In our tradition, you always count a breath from the exhale to the inhale, and that's considered laya.

There will be a, what do you call it? All of the universe will contract to your heart and you get enlightened or something like that. It's never like this.

The last moment of enlightenment is always like, pshhh, pooh, okay, like that, okay? So you always count a breath from the exhale first and then go to the inhale, okay? You got to practice that.

It's not too natural. DE BZHIN DU NYID NAS BDUN Then start counting your breaths. Go from two to seven, to gu, nine, to chu chig, to 11, to chong na, to 15, to nyer chig, 21.

You can choose your own, sorry, DANG PHREN LA MED DANG BA DANG BZHIN DU NYID Yeah, you can choose your own number. I prefer 30, personally. I never count to 10, frankly.

I teach you guys, but I don't do it that way. I use 30. It takes me 30 breaths to calm my breath down, okay?

You can do 10. He says you could do nine, you could do 11, 15, whatever you want. DANG PHREN LA MED DANG BA Don't use your rosary.

Don't say, oh, breath number one, breath number two, right? This is a practice. I mean, this custom of breath meditation is very old.

It's called UBDBYUNG ROL, right? In the Abhidharma. What happened historically is that there are five great subjects of Buddhism, and only two of them got out of southern India, to Sri Lanka, or Thailand, or Burma, okay?

They never got the other three. All they got was Vinaya and Abhidharma. So if you go to Thailand, or you go to Sri Lanka, or Vipassana, right?

Which is a corruption of the word Vipashyana. That's a Burmese custom. All the instructions they ever got was the breath meditation, which was only a warm-up.

And then because it was the only book that ever got there, they did it for a thousand years. Just watched their breath, okay? In our tradition, that's considered...

That's like buying a, how do you say? The object towards which you're focused is not virtuous. It's not morally charged.

It's neutral. The breath is neutral. If you watch your breath for year after year, the mind will become neutral, but not kind or compassionate, you see?

You should choose an object which would induce kindness, or love, or knowledge in your heart. But just watching your breath is not going to do that. It's only a warm-up.

It wasn't the final act, okay? Okay, so here we go. SEMS MA YANG BAR DANG PAS Don't let yourself get distracted.

Count. Don't count your breaths on your rosary, okay? Because you can't do two things at once.

And that's what he says next. SOGS SKYE RLOG CIG GI DZIN DANG NYID LA SBYUG MI NUS Okay, I'm going to say it again. It's important.

SOGS SKYE RLOG CIG GI DZIN DANG NYID LA SBYUG MI NUS This is a very important subject for those of you studying Munsell. They do Nyiki Munsell, right? If you're studying with Ningbo, Buddhist logic and Buddhist thinking, it's a very important subject.

In the... What's the root text for that? I'll eat cake.

You will wonder what's the root text. What's the root text for the study of all logic and perceptual theory in Pramana-vartika? Say Pramana-vartika.

Sanskrit doesn't have a V. It's a V. You are studying Pramana-vartika.

Okay? Written by Master Dharmakirti. There's a very, very famous line in the Pramana-vartika.

It's said, say it, say it, okay? CIG GI NYID SHES MA YIN TE CIG GI NYID SHES MA YIN TE Very famous line from the Pramana-vartika. Okay?

What's that say? One can't do two. One cannot do two.

Okay? What's he talking about? A normal human being's mind cannot hold two objects at once.

It's not possible. So anytime in the monastery, and I grew up, right? 25 years with Khen Rinpoche.

If I was trying to do too many things at once, he would say, CIG GI NYID SHES MA YIN TE CIG GI NYID SHES MA YIN TE Your mind cannot do two things at once. You can toggle between the two and it appears that you're doing both, but you're not. Okay?

You're just wrecking your mental power. You're messing around with your head. Okay?

Don't try to do two things at once. Get in the habit of doing things well and with all your concentration. Okay?

And don't try to juggle things, okay? It's a kind of samadhi. It's a kind of healthy state of mind.

Okay? You don't have to juggle three things. Do them one by one.

Finish the first one, then do the second one, then do the third one. Don't try to eat cake while you're teaching a class. Like, wait until the class is over and eat the cake because CIG GI NYID SHES MA YIN TE.

Okay? But it's a very helpful thing in your life. If you want to meditate well, learn to prioritize your life.

Don't try to do your Facebook while you're having lunch. Eat your lunch, turn off your computer, eat your lunch, concentrate on the taste, then go sit somewhere and do Facebook. Okay?

But you are hurting your mind and you are hurting your attention, your capacity of attention if you try to do Facebook while you're eating, for example. Okay? It's very bad for your mind and you will not be able to meditate well.

And it's a disease that has spread through the whole modern world. Everyone's trying to text while they're driving. It's so dangerous.

People are always swerving towards me and I'm like... And then they're on the phone or they're texting and I'm like, damn, you know? I mean, how stupid do you have to be to text while you're driving?

And it's extremely dangerous. And it's okay if they just crash their own car, I don't mind. But they're like swerving into me, you know?

I'm like, text some... Park your car and text, okay? The text will come out better if it's romantic or something.

I mean, you can concentrate on it. But to try to text while you're... It hurts your mind and it hurts your capacity of attention and will hurt your meditation.

Learn to do things one at a time. Focus. Get into it, go deep into it, go sweetly into it.

Make it creative and deep and sexy, you know? And don't try to do three things at once because then it all becomes shallow. And the whole internet is such a shallow thing.

If you meditate well and you're living this kind of spiritual life, the whole internet is like people living in a half inch of ocean at the top of the ocean. And there's 5,000 feet below that that they never touch, you know? And it's a very sad thing.

Focus. Learn to focus on one thing. If you're going to look at a flower, then look at a flower.

Stop, hold it in your hand, smell it, look at it, you know? And enjoy it. Learn to enjoy things.

I saw the Dalai Lama eat dinner once. He was so into it. And he wasn't thinking about anything else.

He was just eating. And I have a feeling he enjoyed dinner more than anybody because he has the capacity to focus on one thing, okay? Anyway.

Sokye means someone who has not yet seen emptiness directly. LO GCIG GI BRDZIN DAG NYID LA BRJUG MI NUS PA You cannot focus on two things at once. Cannot do.

What's the implication? If you have seen emptiness directly, you are able to focus on two things. I'm not sure.

A Buddha can, for sure. I still don't think it's healthy, unless you're a Buddha. BRDZIN DAG NYID LA BRJUG MI NUS PA CHAGS SOGS ZHES NAS SEMS LUS MA BSTAN DUG GYUR RO'ANG First, deal with whatever emotions you're having at that moment, okay?

Don't sit down and try to meditate. If you're upset, or you're thinking strongly about breakfast, how does Michael Roach define yoga? That thing which stands between me and breakfast.

Like, get your mind off the breakfast. Get your mind off the emails. Get your mind off the latest on the internet.

And watch your breath. And bring the mind to neutral. Then start meditating, okay?

GYUR RO'ANG DGOS PAR BA'I TSE RANG RGYUD KYI NYON MONGS RNAMS DGOS NAG PO'I RNAMS PA By the way, there's a cute story here, and I'm going to push it a little bit to get to the story, because it's so cute, okay? That's the treasure of the Lam Rim, I think, the stories. It's like Jesus's parables or something, okay?

So anyway, NYON MONGS RNAMS DGOS NAG PO'I RNAMS PA DANG DNGUL PA'I TSE RGYAL BA ZAS ZHES KYI BYIN LA DGOS KHAR PA'I RNAMS PA DNAM DU ZHUGS PA'I DNGOS PA BYA BAR GSUNGS PA NI So he said, you do see teachings that tell you when you exhale, you should picture it as a black stream of air, and that you are exhaling all your negative emotions, okay? And when you inhale, you should imagine that you are breathing in white light, which is the blessings of all the, of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas, okay? DNGUL PA'I TSE RGYAL BA ZAS ZHES KYI Doing that practice is not for regular meditation, and you don't need to do it.

It's only for, here's a word you know, BOG DON or BOG DZIN PA, okay? So Lama Christi asked me, what can I teach? I said, well, maybe you start teaching meditation.

This is in 2003 or something. I said, maybe it'd be nice if you start with meditation. What should I call my class?

I said, well, we have many students who have been meditating poorly for many years. They got into a bad habit. Let's call the class Bok Jimpa, which means to upgrade your meditation.

It means to, what do you call it, bring it to a new level. So the Tibetan is either Bok Jimpa or Bok Dönpa. But doing that black cloud thing and the white cloud thing, he says, you don't have to do it.

Don't worry. People just do that when they want to add extra effort to the thing, Bok Jimpa. But it's not for everybody.

You should be doing it without the clouds. Just watch your breath. Don't picture something or make it more complicated.

So Bok Dönpa, NGES PO DGOS PO MIN You don't have to do that. DE LTAR LUS MA BSTAN TU GYUR NAS DGE SEMS ZAL TEB LA BA Here's the story, and then we'll stop. We got two minutes.

I'll try to say it faster. But I'm kind of stalling. Dhagyai Lama Rinpoche, my precious Lama, used to tell me, who's saying that?

Pabongka Rinpoche is saying that. He used to give an example of how it was easier to go into a virtuous state of mind from a neutral state of mind. He gave an example.

He used to tell a story. He told a pe, pe means a metaphor. GUN DU, it's winter.

RNAMS DRANGS RGANG Those of you who are learning Tibetan, that's a very rare word that means when. S-G-A-N-G, RGANG. RNAMS DRANGS RGANG means when the weather was freezing outside.

ZHIG LA RANG GIS BSTAN CIG DE MED PA You only have one carpet. Carpet means, in Tibet, each monk has a personal carpet. It's only this big.

And when the weather's cold and you have to debate in the debate ground, you take your den. You have a DING BA, which is a thin piece of cloth that every monk is required to carry that used to be a thick piece of cloth that you could sit on in India when it was wet and stuff like that. Nowadays, it's just a ceremonial thing that you drag around, like so many other things.

But in a modern Tibetan monastery, a den is a piece of wool carpet that's woven about this big. So, okay, it's the dead of winter. You have your den, your one den, your one Tibetan carpet for sitting.

It's a sitting carpet. MED PA'I RTEN DU, MI ZHIG DE SDUG NA You walk out and somebody's sitting on it, on your carpet. LONG ZHES BRTZON THABS SU JI TZAM LONG YANG MI LANG NA You can yell, get off my carpet, but he's not going to move, because it's cold.

LONG ZHES MI SBYOD PA So it would be smarter not to say, please get off my carpet. BAR TZAM NA, BSTAN PA CHEN PO ZHIG BDOD BYED SBYOD PA Rather, you should walk up to him and say, you can't believe what's going on behind the house. He's like, what?

LEN NA'I RANG LTA BAR GRO KUR BYED NA I'm sorry, I got to go. And you head off towards the back of the house. Then you hide.

GRO KUR BYED NA GRO YANG LANG NA Then he leaps up to see what's happening behind the house. And he passes you. DE MA THAG TU BSTAN PA'I RTEN DU RANG BSTAN PA'I RTEN NA Then you jump on the carpet, and you sit on it.

DUS NUS PA BZHIN SEMS LA CHAGS SOGS MI DGE BA So trick your own mind. Trick your own mind into neutral. Oh, wait till you see this breath I'm having.

I know you're upset about the newspaper or something, but there's some wild breath going on here. Okay, all right. U TSU'U BYED KYANG DGOS KHA Don't fight with your mind.

That's an important meditation instruction. Don't go head to head. If your mind is upset or worried about some stuff going on, don't go head to head with it.

Don't try to fight it down. You won't be able. Distract your mind.

Distract your mind. Let's count breaths. All right.

UG DRO'ONG SEMS LA BSTAN NA DE LA DGOS KHOR NAS DGOS KHOR NAS Those of you who are learning Tibetan, DGOS KHOR is an important word. Can you see it up there somewhere? It's at the end of a line somewhere.

You want to put the cursor there, Ningbo? Yeah, DGOS KHOR. DGOS means what?

The head. KHOR means to spin it. DGOS KHOR means to trick somebody, to spin their head.

In Tibetan, DGOS KHOR, SNGAG DGOS KHOR BSTAN CHUNG He's tricked me. So, DGOS KHOR NAS You should trick your upset steady mind. And say, let's count breaths.

Let's look at the breath. NYON MONGS KHO BZHI NAS DGE SEMS SANGS RTAB DE BA YIN NO And it will be much easier to go forward from reverse, out of neutral. Then you'll be able to get a virtuous state of mind.

And we'll stop there. So he's describing, we just described the benefit of breath meditation. It is not a goal.

It is a means. It is not an end. It's a means.

You use it until the mind gets into neutral, and then you switch to your meditation object. Breathing is not a virtuous object, necessarily. You switch to some high object, like your own personal teacher's face, or compassion, or kindness, or something good.

Don't just sit and watch your breath all day. It doesn't help you. It doesn't get you anywhere.

It calms you down, but it doesn't cause your mind and your heart to progress. Since we praised Venerable Phil, we better... Yeah.

[Говорящий 2] (43:42 - 45:15)
GYI GYI KHYEN PO in the land of snowy mountains, the source of all happiness and joy, our fortune is in cleansing gospel. Please remain until sunset."

[Говорящий 1] (45:20 - 45:58)
Okay, see you tomorrow. Please take a homework, okay? Okay, this tradition has gone on for two and a half thousand years.

It has been passed down from generation to generation. I will only teach it once. You must pass it on.

You can't do so responsibly unless you do the homework, okay? So work with your groups. Do your homeworks, okay?

It's not for me. It's a lot of hassle. But we need to pass this on purely, okay?

Okay, deal? Mazal? Okay, mazal.

Ubrakha.