«Дар освобождения», курс 7 «Учимся быть тихими», занятие 7

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 1:22:11)
Okay, afternoon's a terrible time to have a class. Everyone gets sleepy, so I'll talk very softly and you can snooze. We were talking about the eighth of the eight, what do you call it, eight parts of posture, right?

The eighth one was your breath. And then we were discussing the purpose to do that. So anyway, they were talking about why to do breath meditation.

And people think I'm ragging on the Vipassana thing, right? My first meditation teacher was Goenka. He gave a 10-day program in Dharamsala when I was living there.

And the Dalai Lama required us to go. And he required all the monks from Nechu Monastery to go. And they cleared out the Tibetan library and we slept in the library for 10 days, the boys in one part of one floor and the girls on the other floor.

And then Goenka taught us meditation, who is the big breath meditation person, Vipassana. Vipassana is Pali, is an old corrupted Sanskrit called Pali. The Sanskrit is Vipassana.

And so a discussion, people have asked me, when you talk about breath meditation as not being the goal, but only a tool, where do you get that from? And it's from here, okay? So now, if anyone ever asks you the clarification of the use of breath meditation, comes in this scripture at this time.

Also in the Abhidharmakosha, in the Chapter on Meditation, if you're interested. So they're discussing what is the motivation for doing breath meditation? And the idea is that you shouldn't try to go from a very busy state of mind to a meditative state of mind directly.

It's too much of a clash. And you probably won't be able to do it. So you should first, you're very busy.

Your mind is very busy. Then do breath meditation. And it will slow the mind down.

And then you can switch over to meditating. But it's not a meditation. It's just a segue.

It's just a linking. It's a vinyasa, right? To link to meditation.

It's not a meditation in itself. It's just a tool to prepare the mind for meditation. So we closed last night with an example where he told a story, a funny story.

It's winter in Tibet. You go to your room, your meditation room. Somebody's sitting on your cushion, on your carpet.

And you want to get them off. Then if you confront them directly, get off of my meditation cushion. It's too cold for me to sit on the floor, right?

If you confront them directly and you say, get off, then they might not do it. I don't know about you, but if somebody tells me not to do something, I do it. And if somebody tells me how wonderful I am and then tells me to do something else, I'll do it.

You see what I mean? Like at work, the boss used to say, he used to say, you have to stay late. And I would say, no, fire me.

Just fire me. I'm leaving at five o'clock. And there was this standoff.

What do you call it? Mexican standoff. And then one day he calls me in at five o'clock and he says, you know, you're the backbone of this company.

And we have this huge order for diamonds, you know, so-and-so. And there's really no one else in the company who can pull this together except you. And I'm like, I'm there, man.

And he says, you'll just have to stay a few hours later. And then I'm like, sure. And it's like that.

You don't confront your mind. You don't say, don't be busy. You trick your mind.

In the metaphor that he explained, you told your mind, you told the guy on your carpet, you wouldn't believe what's happening behind the house right now. And he doesn't trust you. He's like, what's happening behind the house?

And you say, it's okay, you stay there. I'm going to go check it out. You know, you just stay there.

And then he gets up and runs after you. And then you hide in the closet. He runs past.

You go back and sit on your cushion, right? And the idea is that you do the same with your mind in meditation. Let's watch the breath for a while, okay?

You don't say, don't be busy. Don't think about Facebook. Don't think about pancakes, Geshe Michael.

Let's just watch breath for a while. And then you can shift your mind over, okay? So he just finished that section.

Now he says, DE BZHIN DU, like that, SEMS LA CHAGS SOGS MI DGE BA DANG BCAS PA'I SKABS When your mind is overcome by, say, thinking about breakfast, okay? During meditation. U TZUG BYAS KYANG, say U TZUG.

U TZUG. It's a good colloquial word if you speak to Tibetans. U TZUG.

U TZUG means to be stubborn. U TZUG means to be stubborn. U TZUG BYAS KYANG.

If you're stubborn to your mind, BYAS KYANG GOG DKA' It's difficult to stop thinking about breakfast, okay? It's going to be difficult. If you confront your mind, it will be difficult to switch over.

GOG DKA' ZHING DE BA'I By the way, those of you who are studying Tibetan, you should note the DE BA'I. The small words are the hardest in any language, okay? DE BA'I is what tense, I'm sorry, what case?

Like locative, or accusative, or genitive, or instrumental, dative. What normally an S added to anything makes it, it makes it instrumental. By me, or by it, or by him, okay?

But very rarely in the Tibetan language, their instrumental is used for the comparative, okay? So DE BA'I here doesn't mean because of that. It means rather than that, okay?

Or what would be better than that is, okay? So those of you studying Tibetan, you should learn that, okay? DE BA'I UG SBYOR DBANG RA SEMS TE NA If rather, okay?

If rather, you focus your mind on the passage of the breath in and out of your body, DE LA DGOS GOR NAS You will DGOS GOR your own mind. We had it last night, DGOS GOR. You will trick your own mind, okay?

You will pull a fast one on your own mind, DGOS GOR, okay? NYON MONGS KHO BZHI NAS The thinking about breakfast, which he calls here a klesha, will stop. And SEMS SEL DEB DE BA'I YIN NO DGE SEMS SEL DEB DE BA'I YIN NO And it will be easy to bring the mind into a virtuous state, okay?

Before you meditate, okay? YANG SEMS MI DGE BA DANG TSUM LDAN DU MA SONG BA DGE SEMS SEL DEB LA NA UG BRANG BA NGAS PAR MI DGOS PAS MA SONG, MA SONG, right? Do you see it there somewhere?

MA SONG means, if it hasn't happened, what? The mind, SEMS, is TSUM LDAN with MI DGE BA, okay? SEMS means the mind.

MI DGE BA means an unkind state of mind, right? An unkind state of mind. What does TSUM LDAN mean?

Linked. Linked how? In five different ways.

We talked about it last night. Okay, it comes again. If you don't know Abhidharma, you can't read this book, okay?

If the mind is not linked to non-virtue, meaning if you don't have a problem with your state of mind, okay? DGE SEMS SEL DEB LA And if it's easy for you to slide into a kind or compassionate state of mind, NA NA UG BRANG BA NGAS PAR MI DGOS You don't have to do the breath thing, okay? If your mind is already peaceful when you sit down to meditate and you're not obsessed with breakfast or some problem you're having in your life, then he said NGAS PAR MI DGOS means you don't definitely have to do it, okay?

You can skip it, okay? MI DGOS PAS That's why he said, back in the beginning of this section, we said the eight aspects of a good meditation posture or, right? I made a big deal about the or yesterday.

Here it comes. Or DGE DAM DON Eight or DON, seven, okay? All right?

That's why there's such a controversy or it's not clear whether Vairochana's meditation posture has seven parts or eight parts because sometimes number eight can be skipped. Sometimes the breath meditation can be skipped if your mind is already soft and gentle, okay? PHYIR DAM NANG NYID GYUR GSUM PA'I GNAS KYANG YIN That's a real key point, he says.

So don't get confused. If you see in scripture, you'll see the seven steps of Vairochana and sometimes you'll see the eight, okay? DE NI UG BRANG DGOS MIN JI LTAR YANG THUN GYI GOR Now he's going on to a really important thing, okay?

This is probably the most important discussion of how to prepare for a meditation session, okay? Here comes the most important part. I mean, if you get your feet off, it's okay.

If one shoulder's a little higher, that's okay. But if you don't know this section, you're in trouble. You will have a bad meditation.

Here it comes. DE NI UG BRANG DGOS MIN JI LTAR YANG Whether you find you have to do the breath meditation or not, THUN GYI GOR at the beginning of the meditation session, DGE SEMS BSKYED PAR CHEN SEMS BDEB DGOS PA You must try to bring the mind into an exceptional state of motivation, okay? You must be meditating for the right reason.

And that's the most important preparation for meditation. It's not your feet. It's not your back.

It's not how you breathe. It's why the heck are you doing meditation today? Why are you doing it, okay?

If you don't have a good motivation for doing it, you won't do it every day, okay? You won't be able to do it every day, okay? So now he's going to discuss the importance of motivation before you do your meditation.

You've got to examine your own heart and ask yourself, why are you meditating today? Because otherwise you won't be able to keep up a habit of meditating every day. You've got to be doing it for a good reason or you'll stop.

Sooner or later you'll stop, okay? Here we go. DE YANG RGYAS BYOR CING DAG ZHIG BYED KYANG THOB MA KUN LONG CHOS PA RGYAL BYED TE He says, before you do any spiritual practice at all in your life, it could be yoga, it could be meditation, it could be studying scripture, it could be going to the nursing home or the homeless shelter to help cook or something like that.

Before you go, you should pause and ask yourself, why am I doing this, okay? Otherwise you'll poop out. Otherwise you will fade, okay?

You've got to get in the habit of pausing before you leave your home. And say, why am I leaving? What do I want out of going to the homeless shelter?

Why am I going? KUN LONG CHOS PA. Say KUN LONG.

KUN LONG CHOS PA CHOS PA KUN LONG KUN LONG CHOS PA CHOS PA If you got it up there, you go. That CHOS is not spelled the same as the Dharma, CHOS. It has an apostrophe in front of it.

It has an AO prefix letter. It changes the meaning completely, okay? This CHOS PA means to fix or repair or to renew.

And here it means to renew your motivation. KUN LONG CHOS PA is one of the most important concepts in this thousand pages of this book. How do you get the right motivation?

You're going to go to the prison this afternoon to teach. If it's a war prison, they're going to be talking and goofing off and the warden's going to yell at you. Then you better have a good motivation before you go.

You better stop before you leave your house and think, why am I going? KUN LONG CHOS PA GAL TE PAS BYAS TSUNGS SONGKHA PA CHEN PO'I BOS KYI GOM CHEN RNAMS LA GOM GYI MED LA TZAM PA'I PHYI BA LHAG BSAM RAB DGAR DU BYAS TSUNGS SONGKHA PA CHEN PO'I means the Great Tsongkhapa, teacher of His Holiness the First Dalai Lama, and who started our lineage. There are signs even in the monk's robes.

He adjusted the monk's robes. He added this blue thread here. Blue is barely legal in monk's colors.

We're allowed three colors, blue, red, and gold, saffron, right? So he, it's just allowed to have a little bit of blue, or some, any blue can be there. He added this blue, and he added this sleeve.

He changed the sleeve, okay? And he started this undershirt, gold undershirt, right? So he, when he started that lineage in Tibet, he made changes to the outfit.

In India, it was illegal to wear this color. No Buddhist monk in India could have ever worn this color. It had to be saffron.

And it was required that it was one piece, that you, it looks like a sari. It goes on like a sari, okay? And it was required in India.

So the Tibetans, when Buddhism came to Tibet, they made adjustments to fit Buddhism to their country. And I think we are going through that process now. And we need to do it formally.

We are not Tibetan. We didn't grow up on butter tea, and roasted barley flour, and yaks, and like that. We are a different country.

And I think if Buddhism is going to be healthy and vibrant here, we need to make a lineage. It has to be a more of a, I used to say American lineage, but now our group worldwide is many thousands of people in all countries. And most major countries, we have groups.

So I was thinking you have to call it something like modern or new or something like that, rather than calling it American lineage. It's not really an American lineage anymore. It's a new lineage, and it's global.

I was thinking to call it New World, but I'm not quite ready yet, okay? She said no. Okay, anyway, think of something better.

It has to be modern, and it has to be global. Like I grew up in the Episcopal Church, and that broke off from the Anglican Church in England. At some time, at some point, they said, we're not the same, we're not British.

We're American, and I think it will come. Anyway, Je Tsongkhapa did it in Tibet. He broke off into a new lineage, which is now the lineage, right?

One of the main lineages. Tsongkhapa Chenpo Kukyagongchen Nangla, so he said, somebody asked him questions about, there's a book of questions that he was asked by his students about meditation. And we have this book, okay?

It's called Lhagsam Rabkar. What's Lhagsam? The buck stops here.

It's a buck stops here, okay? I had it this week. There's lots of problems at Dime Mountain, and there's lots of discussions going on, and then I just realized at some point, yeah, the buck stops here.

Sue me. You know what I mean? I am the, that's Lhagsam.

Lhagsam means, okay, yeah, I run the prison program. And if something doesn't go well, that's my fault. And I accept that responsibility gladly.

When you accept ultimate responsibility, the karma is a zillion times more. And the problems are a zillion times more. But the karma outweighs the problems, okay?

It's still better to say, okay, I'm responsible. Lhagsam means, I take responsibility. I personally am responsible.

I take responsibility. Okay? DGAL PO CHEN PO'I TZAM GYI GOM GYI GYIG YIN GNAS LA TZAM PA'I PHYIR So he called his book Pure White Sense of Responsibility.

His book is called A Pure White Sense of Responsibility. I looked it up. The full name of the book is A Song for Opening Pure Hearts, Consisting of Responses to Questions Posed with Motivations of Purest White.

So it actually refers to the motivation of the students who asked him the questions. And they said, okay, this is a thing. In our lineage, we have four and a half thousand books which came from India.

Okay, they're not Tibetan. They were written in India before Buddhism came to Tibet. Okay?

They stretched from a period of 2,500 B.C. up to 1,000 A.D. There were four and a half thousand books written. 1,500 are by Lord Buddha. They're divided into sutras and tantras.

The tantras are more, okay? The secret teachings are more than the open teachings. And they come first because they're higher.

Then there are 3,000 Indian commentaries, okay? Now there's a custom in Tibet that in our canon of four and a half thousand texts, before each book starts, they give the title of the book in Sanskrit. Okay?

First they give the original title of the book in Sanskrit. And then they go ahead with the whole Tibetan translation. And maybe more than half of those originals have been lost.

And they only exist in Tibet. Maybe out of those four and a half thousand books, maybe several thousands are gone in Sanskrit. We don't have the Sanskrit.

Anyway, in the opening line of every canonical work in our tradition is the Sanskrit title. Okay? That's a tradition.

Now, one of Je Tsongkapa's students raised his hand in the class where Je Tsongkapa offered to answer questions about meditation. And the student said, what is it before meditation which is as necessary at the beginning as the Sanskrit title? Okay?

What is it, Je Tsongkapa? I've heard Lamas say that before every original scripture you should give the Sanskrit title. And before every meditation session, there's the equivalent of the Sanskrit title.

Meaning something which is sinkhwan non, totally necessary at the beginning. So they're asking him, what's the one thing you need to do before you start your meditation? And what's he going to say?

You know what he's going to say. GANG YIN SHES DU RANG BRDZAD PA JE TSUNG LO SANGS CHOS RGYEN GYI CI LEN LO SANGS BSHAD PAS BDAG YANG NAS Then Pabongka Rinpoche chose to give the answer from another book. His Holiness the First Panchen Lama, who lived, he was born about 200 years after Je Tsongkapa.

He offered a response in one of his books. All right? So it's confusing.

If you're reading the Lam Rim, it's a little confusing. RGYEN LO SANGS BSHAD PAS BDAG YANG It's called the song of the explanation of Lobsang. Who's Lobsang?

It is, but here it refers to Lobsang Dharpa, which is Je Tsongkapa's name, his monk's name. So he wrote a book saying, I'll give the answer for Tsongkapa. Okay?

Here it is. BSGOM LEN KUN GYI DANG PO'I DGOS RGYA RGYUR SKAD TSUN RANG GI LA LAS PAR DAG PA YIN NO ZHES BDAG MED LAMA CHOG KHYAD ZHES Oh you, my matchless lama. Who's he talking to?

Tsongkapa. First Panchen Lama's talking to Je Tsongkapa, 200 years before. Oh you, my matchless lama.

What did you say was as important at the beginning of a meditation session as writing the Sanskrit title before a scripture? What did you say was most important? RANG GI LA DAG Say RANG GI LA DAG Examine your heart.

Look into your heart. BSGOM LEN KUN GYI DANG PO'I DGOS means that's the doorway to a meditation session. You step into a meditation session when you examine your motivation.

Why am I doing this meditation? Why am I doing this? LAS PAR DAG PA ZHES That was your answer, wasn't it Je Tsongkapa?

He wrote that. PHYIR GSUM PA LTAR BSGOM THAMS CAD GYI MTHONG MA KUN SNONG PHYIR PA DE BZHIN DU GAL BYAS TE So the most important of all, before you meditate, if you skip the butter lamp, okay. If the wrong food is on top, okay.

But you've got to ask yourself, why the heck am I meditating today? Why? It also applies to a yoga session or studying scripture or going to the homeless shelter.

You have to ask yourself on the way, why am I doing this? MDOR LAS PHYIR RNAM THAMS CAD KHYEN YIN TE DUM PA'I TZA LA RAB DUS NAS MDOR LAS means from a sutra, okay. When they don't know the sutra, they say from sutra.

And I didn't have time to look it up. So I'll look it up for you sometime. Venerable Phil's going to prepare the conga for me.

So anyway, RNAM THAMS CAD KHYEN YIN TE Okay, everything that exists has a cause. Everything that exists has a cause. Not technically true, but it's okay.

DUM PA'I TZA LA RAB DUS NAS And the root of all practice is your motivation. The root of all practice is your motivation. ZHES DANG SLOB DU LUS GRUB KYIS KYANG So he quoted, by the way, he's giving LUNG GI GRUB PA RIG PA'I GRUB PA LUNG GI GRUB PA RIG PA'I GRUB PA In Buddhist tradition, there are two ways to prove anything.

In the Buddhist tradition, there are two ways to prove anything. One is logic. Give a reason why.

You can tell your husband or your partner, you should wash the dishes. And then he'll say why. And then you've got to have LUNG ready and you've got to have RIG PA ready.

RIG PA means logic. Logic means I cooked, there's only the two of us here, therefore, you should wash the dishes. Like that's logic.

Then LUNG, LUNG means pull out an authority, scriptural authority. Geshe Michael said in Phoenix, when we were there, that we had to straighten up our room first. And we can't have dishes lying around when we're going to meditate.

So therefore, you should do the dishes. That's not totally logical, but it's, okay. So what he's doing, by the way, there's a lovely monk in New Jersey, his name is LUNG RIG, right?

His name is logic and scriptural authority. His Lama named him logic and scriptural authority. LUNG RIG.

So anyway, we're getting the LUNG. It's typical to start the LUNG with the oldest authority and then work your way up. So first he started with DO, which means what?

Sutra. Sutra says the root of all things is your motivation. Now he's pulling out LUD GRUB.

Who's LUD GRUB? Nagarjuna. Arya Nagarjuna.

That greatest Tibetan thinker, it tells some kappa or something like that, after the Buddha. ,'DOD BYA GZHAD DANG LTOS MOGS SUM, ,DE SKYE LAS NI MI DGE BA, ,MA CHA MI DANG DI MUNG MED, ,DE SKYE LAS NI DGE BA'O, He's talking about DOD BYA GZHAD DANG and TIM MUNG. These have been mistranslated.

I think those of you who've been around for a while, you know that one of my pet peeves, I have many pet peeves, as far as teaching Buddhism, but one of them is how you translate these three words. DOD GZHAD, GZHAD DANG, and TIM MUNG. These are the three roots of all negative emotions.

The first one, you can call it desire. I don't like to call it desire. Why?

Because that implies that all desires are wrong, and they are not. You can have a desire to have Jared come and help you set up your solar system, and that's a legal, clean, correct desire which will help the world. That's okay.

I wish he would come. It's not evil to help me with my solar. So you have to translate this as, I like to call it ignorant desire or ignorant liking of something.

It's defined as the ignorant desire that you get something that you want. Why do we say ignorant? So I have a donut here.

Somebody was probably listening to my classes 10 years ago when I liked these things. Maple covered donut. So, I still like them.

I don't eat them so much anymore because they're not healthy, I guess. So anyway, is it wrong to like a donut? No.

Does it hurt anybody if you like donuts? No. I mean, as long as you don't shoot your way into the Dunkin' Donuts.

It's okay to have a donut. They're nice. They're nice.

One bite is okay. I still might take another one later. But anyway, but to steal it from someone else or to, you're in a group of people and you take the last donut without thinking of the other people.

That's wrong. That desire is wrong. Why?

It'll hurt you. It'll hurt you. If you shared the donut, you would get a zillion more.

If you eat the last donut, that's the last one you're going to get. It's just dumb. You can call it dumb desire.

So Arya Nagarjuna is talking about dumb desire. Wanting something without understanding that the way to get it is to share it. That sharing is why, I got this donut here because I shared a donut in the past.

That's all. All things come from sharing. To want anything and be unwilling to share to get it is ignorant because it doesn't work.

And then Shedong is the opposite of that. I don't want that thing. So I am willing to hurt someone to avoid it.

I don't want somebody saying something bad about me. So I will criticize them. Like that.

In order that someone shouldn't criticize me, I will try to hurt them. See what I mean? And that's just ignorance.

That's not the way you get someone to stop criticizing you. If you were more positive and encouraging to other people or less judgmental secretly in your mind, then people would stop criticizing you. You don't have to go and fight them.

You know what I mean? Like that. That's ignorant disliking.

So now we have ignorant liking and we have ignorant disliking. And then the third one is ignorance itself. The dumbness which bears those two kinds of emotions.

Got it? Why is Arya Nagarjuna being quoted here? Because he goes on to say, nothing good can come of them.

It's not possible. Nothing good can come of them. It's not possible.

That's very, very powerful. That's very, very powerful. If the root is bad, the tree will be bad.

The leaves will be poisoned. If the root is poison, the leaves are poison and the fruit is poison. If the initial motivation for doing something is poison, it cannot come out right.

It will always be wrong. Something will go wrong. What's he talking about?

Every virtuous practice you ever did, oh boy. Every meditation you ever did. Every yoga session you ever did.

If your motivation, going into Anton's yoga class this morning, was I should get something. You see? I should get something and I don't care if anyone else gets it in the class.

I should be able to do a handstand. Me, me. If the motivation is at the expense of other people, then at some point your yoga practice will go bad.

You will hurt yourself. Something will go wrong. That class will not help you because the first two minutes the thought was wrong.

The desire was wrong. I want to look the best in the class and I want other people to look worse than me. Okay?

You're not sharing, right? You want something for me. And you want to eat the donut and not share it, right?

And then something will go wrong. Something in your yoga practice will go wrong. You'll hurt your shoulder or you'll have a fight with your yoga teacher or something will go wrong.

Okay? So the first five minutes of a meditation session, the first five minutes of yoga, as you step on your mat, right? You got to bring up some noble motivation.

You got to pull up something. I will do yoga. I will look fantastic.

That's not wrong. I will be thin and strong and handsome or beautiful. That's fine.

That's not wrong. So that I can help more people. So people will be attracted to me and they will listen to me.

So you got to have that extra motivation. It's not wrong to wish to look good or to be smart or to be wealthy. These are not wrong if you use them for the right thing.

You see? So you got to, it's not a big thing to change the motivation, right? I'm not saying you should get up on your mat and say, I don't want to look good.

And I hope I can't do a handstand. And I hope I'm the worst person in the class, you know? That's that, what do you call it?

Whipping yourself. It doesn't, it's bad. That's also stupid.

We're not allowed to do that kind of stuff. The motivation should be beautiful and exciting. I'm going to do my yoga.

I'll be strong. I'll be healthy. I can help more people.

I can go to more homeless shelters, you know? And people will listen to me because I'm not overweight and I'm not, you know, tired all the time. And I have energy and I should look good and I should be happy.

And I should have energy. And then people will want to be in my class. You see what I mean?

Then the motivation becomes sweet. If you don't go the extra step, it's poison. And then the yoga itself, something will go wrong, okay?

That's what Arya Nagarjuna is saying, okay? What I'm trying to impress on you, it doesn't, you don't have to be a saint to have the right motivation. You just expand on your own natural selfishness, okay?

That's what Shantideva said, you know? I want to be cool. I want to look good, you know?

I want to have some muscles like Anton Mackie, you know? And so that I can serve people. If you add the last part, you're safe, okay?

And why not? It's not wrong to be healthy or to look healthy or to, you know, that's not wrong. It's nice, but do it for others, okay?

I will be handsome for others like that. I will be healthy so I can teach more people like that. It's not a big, the extra words are not a big deal.

Just stick them on and you're, then it becomes a bodhisattva activity, okay? Then suddenly it becomes a bodhisattva activity, okay? It doesn't cost you anything.

You don't have to give up anything. Oh, I want to be ugly so I can serve people. You know, you're not supposed to do that, okay?

All right, here we go. MA BYA'I MI DANG THEG PA DANG If you do the opposite, then if the motivation is sweet, the yoga cannot go wrong. The yoga cannot go wrong, okay?

Something beautiful will come out of any activity if you enter it with a good heart. You will have, what do you call, obstacles. Bad things will happen.

The greater the good that you try to do, the greater the bad things will come to you. But in the end, it will be beautiful. You will just roll over those obstacles, okay?

If the motivation is pure, you cannot lose. It cannot fail. You cannot fail.

It's not possible, okay? SBYOR BA CHEN PO'I SA BA THUGS YIN NA YAL GA DANG BLO MA'ANG THUGS Who's SBYOR BA CHEN PO'? Lord Atisha.

SBYOR BA means the great lord. And when you say lord in our lineage, it always means Atisha, Lord Atisha, okay? SA BA THUGS YIN NA If the root of the bush is poisonous, the leaves and the fruit will also be poisonous, okay?

He means, if you get on your yoga mat only wishing to be the best student in the class, something bad will happen, okay? Something will go wrong, all right? SA BA THUGS YIN NA YAL GA DANG BLO MA'ANG MEN DU YONG BA BZHIN DU MEN means orshada in Sanskrit.

Orshada is herbs. Sometimes they are, what do you call, hallucinogens like dhatura. But orshada can also mean, MEN, it typically means medicine.

You know medicine Buddha is what? MEN LA That Lama is Lama, by the way, and it's not LA. It's not the Tibetan word for God or deity.

It's the Tibetan word for Lama. When you say MEN LA, it's not MEN LA, okay? It's MEN LA.

MEN LA means Lama. The medicine Lama, okay? So what he's saying here is MEN.

MEN means medicine, or MEN means herbs which do good things, okay? So the whole tree could be called MEN or something, right? Like a dandelion is MEN.

Agaru is MEN. Basil, chamomile, these are all MEN, okay? They are beneficial for you, normally.

So if the root of the plant is MEN, then the leaves and the fruit are also MEN, okay? Got it? If the motivation is sweet, you cannot have a problem later.

It's not possible. If a big problem comes up when you're trying to do a virtuous thing, where's that coming from? Is it coming because you tried to do a virtuous thing?

It's not, it cannot be. It must be that you messed up with somebody else's virtuous thing last year, okay? You put some obstacle in somebody else's way.

Now you have an obstacle. But it's not possible to start a yoga class with a sweet motivation and hurt yourself. It's not possible.

If you do hurt yourself, that's because you hurt somebody before that, got it? But the motivation will bring something sweet, must. It must bring something sweet.

It always works that way. So why rhubarb? I have a debate.

I planted rhubarb the other day. My Lama said, plant rhubarb. I planted a rhubarb.

It's growing very well. So I was going to make a green shank, you know? And I went out to the rhubarb and I started to cut the leaves off.

And I was like, maybe I ought to look this up online. The leaves are poison, okay? The stem is very good for rhubarb pie.

Anyway, we'll have to debate that. TSA BA RDO RJE SHES LUG TU MING LA CI BYAS MI DGE BA YIN And this Lama said, Lord Atisha said, any action you undertake with the three motivations that we talked about, ignorant liking, which is why we do most actions, ignorant disliking or ignorance itself, then any action you undertake with those motivations is MI DGE BA. What's MI DGE BA?

Bad karma. That's a pretty heavy statement, okay? If you start a yoga class hoping that you will look better than everybody else and not willing to share what you learn, it's a bad karma to take that class.

That's pretty heavy. All right, ZHES GSUNGS PA LTAR KUN LONG NYON MONGS SOGS KYIS KUN NAS BLANGS TE PHYIR SEMS BSGOM GSUM BYAS KYANG BDE BU SNGA MA'I YID DU'ONG BA CHEN PO BYIN DANG And then Pabongka Rinpoche says, any spiritual practice you undertake with a negative motivation is not only not a good karma, it will produce a very, very bad karmic result. You will have great suffering from that practice.

We'll go for four more minutes and we'll take a break. DGE SEMS BSAM PO KUN NAS BLANGS NA SOGS SPYOD SOGS MI DGE BA Do you want to do a heavy thing now or do you want to add to the burden? Okay, this is kind of long, but it's heavy.

Let's do it. We had a nice yoga class. We're all pumped up.

I could pass around the donut and do the bread and fish thing, but I don't think I have that power. Okay. DGE SEMS BSAM PO KUN NAS BLANGS NA SOGS SPYOD SOGS MI DGE BA BYAS KYANG TSOR LA PO CHE RDZOGS PA YOD PAS It is possible.

Now be careful. This discussion is dangerous. The discussion we're about to have is dangerous.

I'm glad it didn't come last weekend. It's a dangerous discussion. So you must put on your thinking caps and you must listen carefully because if you misunderstand this teaching, you will have great suffering.

It's a dangerous teaching. It's a powerful teaching. You ready?

Here we go. He says, and I didn't make this up. It's in the book.

DGE SEMS BSAM PO KUN NAS BLANGS NA If your motivation is pure enough, SOGS SPYOD SOGS MI DGE BYAS KYANG Even if you commit murder, TSOR LA PO CHE RDZOGS PA YOD PAS it is possible that you could commit a great good karma. So we got to, I'm not saying that's true. There's a lot of small print there.

Don't think anything yet. And especially don't plan on who you're going to eliminate. All right.

LUNG DUN PA'I LOB PA You've heard this story, but here's the source. You've heard this story, but now you get to hear the real thing. LUNG DUN PA'I LOB PA LAM GYI GNAS KHABS SU There was a time, you shouldn't leave now, you'll get in trouble.

LUNG, in days gone by, meaning zillions of years ago. DUN PA, our present Buddha, Gautama, the present Buddha, when he was still a student on the path. That's important.

He was not an arhat. He was still a student on the path. He had not reached nirvana yet.

He was maybe similar to you and me, or a little better. LAM GYI GNAS KHABS SU DE BOS SNYING RTOB CHEN PO'I RGYAS BA ZHES PA'I TSE He was born as a ship captain whose name was SNYING RTOB CHEN PO'. SNYING RTOB CHEN PO'I means great courage.

His name was great courage. RGYAS BA ZHES is an interesting word. The RGYAS BA ZHES doesn't mean he was born as that ship captain.

ZHES means he deigned to take a birth as a ship captain. He agreed to take a birth as a ship captain. ZHES PA'I TSE SONG PO'I SNGABS KYA DANG MNYAM DU RGYAS TSOR ZHUGS PA He went to sea with 500 merchants in his ship.

RIN PO'I CHE LUS NAS They went to get jewels. These trips from India to pick up jewels are always to Sri Lanka. Say Rinchen?

Ling. RATNA DVI PA In Sanskrit. RATNA means what?

Jewel. DVI PA DVI means two. The D drops off, the V becomes B, and you get bicycle.

Or duo. So DVI means two. PA means water.

DVI PA means that thing which splits the water into two parts. So it's a name for an island. It's the Sanskrit word for island.

Splits the water into two parts, DVI PA. So they went to Sri Lanka, which is still, I used to do business there a lot in Colombo and Kandy. It's still, you can walk out in the forest and find gemstones on the ground.

It's incredible. Geologically, something happened there. Topaz, zircon, emerald, sapphire, ruby, everything.

It's all there. It's amazing. So it really is the jewel island.

So anyway, he went off to the jewel island with 500 merchants to get jewels. Surpeb say when they were returning with the jewels, minnak. Minnak, what's nakpo?

Black. Minnak means a black person. It means evil, a black-hearted person.

There was a black-hearted person on board. His name was Dung Tung Chen, which means the guy with a short spear. Probably he was hiding a spear under his cloak or something, okay?

ZHES PA'I YUN CHEN ZHIG GI That probably should be YO CHEN, but anyway. Sneaky, a sneaky, nasty guy with a short spear. TSOM PA NGAB BYA SOS PAR TZAM PA NA He started to...

Some texts say he was planning. This text uses the word TZAM PA. TZAM PA as a verb means he started to, okay?

So this is a little more serious than you often see in scripture. Sometimes its story goes he was planning to kill the other 500. This text says TZAM PA, which implies, the use of that word in Tibetan means he started to kill the other five, to get their jewels, right?

TZAM PA NA DE'I BOS KYI The ship captain jailed him, okay? Three lines down in the middle, say jail. If you add an O sound to that, it becomes DRO.

What's Tara's name in Tibetan? DRO MA, okay? It means the lady who frees you.

The lady who frees you is the word for Tara. This is the verb to liberate somebody, okay? DRO is another form of the verb DRO, which means to free somebody.

But it is also the name of a practice where you send somebody's soul to a higher birth, okay? If you have that power, okay? If you have that power.

Does anybody in this world have that power? I don't think so. Do I have that power?

No. Do you have that power? I doubt it, okay?

That power means, like a mosquito is biting you, right? If you had the power of DRO, you could squeeze him and kill him and go like that, and he would be born as a human. You see?

Through your power. So we don't have that power. You don't have that power, okay?

He had that power, okay? So that's important, okay? Don't write in the New York Times that Geshe Michael said you could go around killing people.

I didn't say that. The book says if you're a high saint, if you have the power to take a person's soul and put it in a better place, you can DRO, okay? So he did a DRO.

He did it for two reasons. The text says he did it for two reasons. GNAS SKABS SROM PA SNGABS SKYES SOGS BSKYABS PA In the short term, he wanted to protect the lives of 500 other people.

In the short term, he was seeking to protect the lives of 500 other people. PHUGS, say PHUGS. PHUGS means in the long run, ultimately.

MI GNOC DUNG CHEN NGAN SONG LAS BSKYABS PA He wished to protect the guy with the spear from going to hell. He was performing an act of protection on both sides. In the short run, he wants to help the 500 people.

In the long run, he has the power to prevent that guy from going to hell. We don't have that power. I'm not condoning war, which is what this question comes down to, or violence.

I'm not condoning that. We don't have that power. He had that power.

DUNG CHEN NGAN SONG LAS BSKYABS PA'I PHYIR SNYING RJE CHEN POS Out of great love for the man, DEL He killed him. DEL BAR MDZAD I don't even like to use the word, see in Tibetan, you're not allowed to use the word killed. He sent him to a better place.

DEL BAR MDZAD MDZAD PA Now here comes the punchline. RGYAL CHEN GZHI MTHRI SOGS BDUN PAR Say, RGYAL CHEN GZHI MTHRI SOGS BDUN PAR In a single few-minute act, he shortened his journey to enlightenment by 40,000 eons. In those few minutes, he collected 40,000 eons of good karma.

And okay, you want to know how long an eon is? Kalpa, right? Kalpa.

I calculated it one time. I said the other night, right? 10 to the 60th power years.

10 with 60 zeros on it. Minimum. That's a little kalpa.

There are big kalpas. 40,000 times that, he collected in a few minutes by sending the person to another place. Got it?

But here comes the other punchline, which I like. You should understand, deyang means you better understand, SOGS GCOD KYI LAS KHO RANG GI BRAL BUR The karma of the killing, RDZOG SOGS PA MI SRID cannot result in a good thing. Not possible.

If you kill somebody, it cannot make a good karma. You will suffer. That karma is bad, and it will cause you to suffer.

So, Pabongka Rinpoche is being very careful. The result of the violence was evil. He suffered from that.

He made bad karma, and he suffered for many years from that bad karma, of killing. But, there was a separate karma that he collected from the intention. What was the intention?

KUN LONG SNYING RJE STOB CHEN PO He was acting out of huge compassion. His motivation was compassion. And the karmic result of that far outweighed the other karmic result.

Got it? The result of the compassion, the result of the intention was he shortened his journey to enlightenment by a zillion years. The result of the killing was bad karma.

He suffered. He suffered for that. They say, in the scripture, it says, like a basketball, he went to the hells.

You know, how long that is in the hell realm, it's probably, I don't know, couple thousand years or something, but relatively quickly he came back. So, it's interesting. You cannot kill somebody and make a good karma.

It's not possible. The motivation can bring a good karma. So, be careful.

Violence is wrong. All right, CHEN PO By the way, he says, he describes his motivation. You ready, Nyingpo and Venerable Phil?

His motivation was good because it was SNYING RJE STOBS CHEN PO SNYING RJE STOBS CHEN PO Sound familiar? Take out the J and you have SNYING STOBS CHEN PO That was his name in that lifetime. Pabongka Rinpoche is pulling a pun on us.

You can miss it if you don't know Tibetan very well. Out of great maha karuna, SNYING RJE STOBS CHEN PO he acted. Take the J out and that's his name.

All right. RJE BU SOGS BSLAB CHEN RDZOGS PAR DE But his motivation shortened his path to enlightenment by billions of years. By billions of years.

All right? So we can take a break there. I can't stop in the middle of that story or people will go out and make virtue with the people they don't like.

You have to tell this story carefully. You must tell this story carefully. It is not a justification for the use of violence.

Be very careful. Be very careful of how you talk about this story. The violence led to a bad karma and he suffered from it.

What he's describing, why did he tell that story? The power of motivation. And what he's going to say later is, look, if before killing somebody, motivation can even cause you to go faster to enlightenment, then much less a good motivation before you meditate.

Okay? He's trying to sell you on good motivation before you meditate. And he gave an extreme example.

Even if you kill somebody with a good motivation, the good motivation will still have a good result. But the killing will not. So he's not justifying war.

He's not justifying violence. If another country's army threatens your country, then what are you supposed to do? Should you fight or should you not fight?

It's a bad question. The question is wrong. You shouldn't fight and you shouldn't not fight.

You should avoid violence. You should avoid hurting others. That's the answer.

What's the strategy if my country is threatened? Help other countries. Got it?

It's hard to do. It's easy to talk about up here with the donut. It's hard to do.

But otherwise, you're just going to suffer. If you kill back or if you sit there and let them kill you, both are wrong. You have to think about that.

It applies to everything. Also criticism, things like that. All right, we'll take a break.

Our human, and then she yells at you and she blames you, right? Your motivation was to make her pleased, to make her happy. And then the execution was a failure, okay?

Don't ever think that the motivation caused the execution. It's not cause and effect, okay? If you offer your mother-in-law a gift out of kindness and wanting to make her happy, it must have a good result.

It will never have a bad result. Her falling down in the shower was not connected to the mat, okay? You must understand that.

Why? Otherwise you'll get discouraged, okay? You work for 25 years for free, tirelessly.

You help thousands and thousands of refugees. You translate 20,000 pages of text by working in cars all night and stuff like that. And then you, I don't know, et cetera.

Then something bad happens to you. Somebody criticizes you. You can't be discouraged, okay?

You can't think, it's wrong to think, oh, I should give up my translation mark or I should close down my free classes. Nobody likes it. Everyone's criticizing me.

The criticizing is not coming from anything good you did. It's coming because you were criticizing somebody last year, last month, okay? A good motivation cannot produce a bad result.

Therefore, when you try to do a virtuous thing and things go wrong, you can't stop, okay? That's just dumb. Then you're proving that you don't know what you're doing.

You got to get more determined and you have to be more kind and more compassionate and you have to serve people more, okay? Because the problems you had aren't connected to the good things you did. They're connected to something else that you did mixed in there, okay?

So it's inappropriate for any of us to be discouraged when things are hard, okay? They're not connected, okay? There's no connection.

It's like saying, I'm going to give up eating breakfast because there was a rainstorm yesterday. There's no connection between those two things, okay? All right, that's one of the lessons here.

Here we go. SNGON NAMS YID BLO'O MI'ONG THOB CHE CHUNG SOGS SA MA KUN LONG GI BYED PAS Whether a karmic seed ripens powerfully or not, whether the karma comes back to you powerfully or not, all depends on your motivation, he says. Of course, it depends on other things.

It probably depends more on your knowledge of how seeds work. But for now, we can say it's your motivation, okay? THOB CHE CHUNG SOGS SA MA KUN LONG GI BYED PAS Dini's going to tell one of those Lam Rim stories, okay?

I love these stories. These are what you remember when you go home. You don't remember the philosophy so much, but you remember the story and then you remember the philosophy.

You're not going to forget about the ship captain. I hope you don't forget what I said about the ship captain, or we'll have problems, okay? No, it has happened, okay?

It has happened, all right? So here we go. SNGON RGYA RGYUR DU DRANG PO RGYAL RIGS DANG Long ago in India, there were two youths.

One was a RGYAL RIGS. RGYAL RIGS means, how do you say, royal caste. He belonged to the upper caste, but he was DRANG PO, he was poor.

It's also a military caste, okay? So he wasn't like a laboring caste or like that. So does Buddhism recognize caste?

No. Do we think it's a good thing? No.

Is it part of Indian history? Yes. And in a story, sometimes they will identify the caste of the person.

The point is that he was poor, okay? And DRAM ZE GYU, then there was a son of a Brahmin, okay? This is a very high caste.

This is the highest caste in India, okay? A priestly caste. And they're allowed to marry.

So DRAM ZE GYU, GYU means a child of a Brahmin, okay? YI NI YOD PA'I DRAM ZE GYU GYI MA SHES PA CHIN PAS RGYUN DU RNAMS KYI ZHAL ZE MA SOGS KHONG PHU MI CHIN PAS CHI YANG MA CHIN So that the Brahmin youth went out to beg food, okay? By the way, the Sanskrit for food beggar is BIK SHU, which is the word for monk, okay?

Someone who begs for their food. But in ancient India, both Buddhist monks and Hindu holy people would go out asking for food at people's homes in the morning. I've been in Thailand.

I ran, I opened and built an office in Thailand, very successful office in Thailand. And sometimes people would come late for work. And I'd say, why are you late?

And they said, the monks didn't come on time. And I'm like, what do you mean? And they said, well, we cook food for them in the morning before work.

And then we wait on the porch. And sometimes they come late. And all Thai companies will allow you to come to work late if the monks are late.

So I had to get used to that. I still had to pay them, okay? So DRAM SREG KHYOD DU MA SHES PA He didn't know the proper time for going out to ask for food.

CHIN PAS He went too early. RGYEN DU RNAMS KYI GSHER ZAS MA SOGS KHONG PHU So the people offering the food to the monks wanted to give the first part. We talked about that the other night, which is PHU, okay?

PHU They wanted to give the PHU to the Buddhist monks, okay? They wanted to give the first part out of respect to Buddhist monks, just in this town or this village or whatever. So when he got there, CHI YANG MA BYIN They didn't give it.

They said, we can't give you anything. We haven't given the PHU yet to the monks, okay? RGYAL RIGS KYI DU LA BSKYED PA But the poor boy, he was DU LA BSKYED PA.

DU LA BSKYED PA means wise in the proper time, okay? Wise about the proper time. That's the K in Khedrup Je, for example.

Who's Khedrup Je? Je Tsongkapa's one of his greatest disciples. GZHEL TSE TSOS ZIN NAS He waited until the Buddhist monks had already gone through and gotten their breakfast.

LHAG MA PO RIN PA'I And when they were ready to hand out the leftovers, he knew that was the right time to come. RIN PA, for those of you who are studying Tibetan, is still used in colloquial Tibetan to mean it's the right time. DRO RIN GZO LAS means is it time to go yet?

Like that. LONG BA'I SHIN TU MA BU THOB PA He got a lot of food. So the Brahmin youth didn't get any and the poor boy got a lot.

DE'I KHYAMS SU'I KHYOD LA Then the poor boy said to the Brahmin boy, which is like a royal kid, he said, KHYOD KYI CHUNG ZAD NYES DAM BYAS PA'I How did you do today? How much food did you get today? BYAS PA'I DE'I PHYIR NAS means he got angry.

The Brahmin son got angry. KHO LA DBANG YOD NA If I had the authority, ZHAGS KYI DGE SBYONG THAMS CAD KYI DGOS BYUNG NAS BYAS PA'I I would rip the heads off of every Buddhist monk in this city. SA DE LA DOR and throw it on the earth like garbage.

SA LA DOR ZHIG BDOD ZER I would love to do that. I would love to have a chance to do that. RGYAL REG DE LHAG MA MAN DU NYES PAS DE PA THOB PA DE MED PA But the other youth, the poor one, who had gotten so many yummy leftovers and had, therefore, had great gratitude and faith, he said, KHO LA SBYOR BA YOD NA If I had the money, NYIN RE BZHIN SANGS RGYAS RGYEN DRIN DANG BYAS PA LA ZHAL ZER RO RGYAL DANG DEN PA THOB PA ZHIG DOD ZER I would cook a meal for Lord Buddha and all his followers in this town and serve them a tasty meal every morning. If I had the money, I'd like to do that. He's describing two kunlongs, two intentions.

One is a very violent intention and one is a very lovely intention full of devotion. ZHIG BDOD ZER DE NYID JI LA GCIG MA ZHING NYAN YAN LAS BYUNG DE So they started to walk out of the city having a conversation on the road. They left from NYAN YOD.

NYAN YOD is, NYAN means to listen, which is SHRA BA and YOD means to exist, which is ASTI. So what's the name of the town? SHRA BA ASTI.

Which is where the Buddha taught the diamond cutter. I like to brag that I went there on the millennium. I was sitting on the stones where he taught the diamond cutter when the millennium struck.

I thought if the world's going to end, I'd like to be here. You can still go there. It's very beautiful.

NYAN YAN LAS BYUNG So they were walking out of SHRA BA ASTI. ZHING SDUG ZHIG DU NYAL BA DANG They decided to sleep at the foot of a tree. They both laid down to sleep at the foot of a tree.

ZHING BDAG KHYAM PAR ZHIG GIS KHO LUS DRAM RDZE'I RGYUD DI DGO BYED DO A wagon went out of control on the road, went off the road, came under the tree and the wheel of the wagon severed the head of the Brahmin youth. Cut his neck, cut his head off at the neck. DE'I TSE NYAN YUN NA TSONG BU ZHIG BU MED PAR ZHIG BA DANG KHYIM PA THAMS CAD DUS NAS SON NAM CHE BA DE'I PHUN DU ZHAR GO At the same moment in SHRA BA ASTI, there was a great merchant, a very wealthy merchant who died with no issue.

He died with no children. And KHYIM PA THAMS CAD DUS NAS So the people in the city had a meeting about what to do with his money and his property. And they said, SON NAM CHE BA DE'I PHUN DU ZHAR GO We will look for who has the best karma in our city.

We'll have a karma contest. And we'll see who has the best karma and we'll give him all the money and the houses and things. DE'I RNAM GYI BDAG PAR BRTZON PA NAS Okay, so they were out looking for who had the best karma.

RGYAL RAS KYI RGYUD DE And the noble, the poor child, right? ZHING YID DRIB PA LA NYAL BA NA He was still sleeping under the tree. I guess he didn't hear the other guy get his head cut off.

ZHING GZHAN RNAM GYI DRIB MA YOD KYANG By the way, that MA is not negative. It's part of DRIB MA, which means shadow. DRIB MA YOD KYANG ZHING DE'I DRIB MA MA YOD BAR MTHONG NAS This is a very common thing in ancient India.

Because India is hot and it's miserable. And you try to find big trees to stay under. And if your karma is good enough, as the sun passes across the sky, the shadow of the tree you're under will not move.

The shadow of the other trees will move as the sun passes. But if the shadow is over you when you're asleep and you have enough good karma, the shadow will not move. The sun will move and the shadow will not move.

That's very famous. It happens a couple of times in the sutras. So anyway, as you can guess, the poor child's tree's shadow didn't move.

All the other shadows moved. DE'I DRIM MA MA YOD BAR MTHONG NAS And the people saw. He was asleep, but people saw the shadow didn't move.

TSOG PO'I RGYAL PO'I DBANG KHUR And so DBANG KHUR means, nowadays it means to give a tantric empowerment. But it can also mean to, what do you call it? Coronate someone, to coronate someone.

They coronated him king of the merchants. He became the wealthiest guy in the city. They gave him all the money and all the houses and stuff.

DE'I KHUR RANG GI MED PA LTAR SANGS RGYAS RGYEN RIN DU BYAS PA NYEN KHOR Then he had the money to fulfill the wish he had expressed. He was able to honor all the monks in the city. CHOS NYAN PAS BSTAN PA MTHONG DE In other words, he was able to feed all the monks in the city.

CHOS NYAN means he learned the Dharma. And then BSTAN PA MTHONG, what's BSTAN PA MTHONG? MTHONG, MTHONG LAM He reached MTHONG LAM.

He reached the path of seeing. He saw emptiness directly. DE'I TSUL RDO LAS KYANG There's a sutra which describes this event.

Okay? By the way, if you care, the original event comes from the Lunggisi. It's a Vinaya work.

It's one of the first books in the canon, in the Kangyur. So the story is found in the Vinaya. In the Lunggisi, the foundation of the scriptures.

Then there's a poem elsewhere in the scriptures, in the canon, which describes the event again, in poetry. And that's from a book called CHOS DU SBYUR PA'I TSOM. Okay, do you care?

No. Should it be recorded somewhere? Yes.

Maybe someone in a hundred years will want to look it up. So it's in a book called CHOS DU SBYUR PA'I TSOM. Here's the quotation from the poetry.

CHOS NAM NGON DU YI ROL TE YIN GYUR GYI NI TSOR YIN JI LTA YI RAB DUG PA YI MED SEMS YANG NA BYAS KYANG RUNG DE'I YID DE NI SDUG BSNGAL THOB KHOR LUS DGO BA BYAS PA BZHIN JI LTA YI RAB DANG BA YI MED SEMS YANG NA BYAS KYANG RUNG DE'I YID DE NI BDE BA THOB DRIN MA BYAS SU BRANG BA BZHIN So here's a verse summary of what happened. CHOS NAM NGON DU YI ROL TE The mind precedes all other objects. Everything in the universe is preceded by thought.

It is thought which creates the universe. YI RGYOL YI NI TSOR YIN And the mind is fast as lightning. And the mind is everything.

Meaning intention. JI LTA YI RAB DUG PA YI If you are in a negative state of mind, LAS SEMS YANG NA BYAS KYANG RUNG It doesn't matter what you say and it doesn't matter what you do. DE'I YID DE NI SDUG BSNGAL THOB It will bring you suffering.

If you do a yoga class for the wrong reason, it will cause you suffering. If you meditate with the wrong motivation, it will cause you suffering. It has to.

Eventually it will. If the root is poison, the fruit is poison. We're not saying that you get on the mat and you don't do a 15 minute prayer to save all living beings or something.

Not necessary. It's okay if you get on the mat and you just want to lose some weight. You're not going to hell.

What he means is, if you get on the mat with great anger or great malice towards someone else in the class, you're like, I hope they break their neck and I hope I look good. Then you might go to hell. There won't be any good results.

So before you do yoga, just, it's okay, as I said, you can have a personal motivation. I want to look better. I want to be stronger.

But there should tack on some bodhicitta so that I can help other people. I can be more helpful to others if I'm healthy. Then it's a win-win.

You look good and you made really good karma. And that's the way it should be. It shouldn't be that you have to say, I hate yoga.

I don't want to look good. I hope I'm chubby. And that kind of thinking is wrong also.

That's also stupid thinking, all right? You should be happy and healthy and successful so you can help others, okay? And that's fine.

And you don't have to do without things. Because if you collect the karma, you can have anything. And there's nothing wrong with that, okay?

All right. SDUG BSNGAL THOB For example, just keep in mind the guy who lost his head because of the wagon wheel, okay? JI LTAR RGYUD RANG But if you have a heart of devotion, ME SEMS YANG NA BYAS KYANG RUNG And then you can say anything and you can do anything.

It doesn't matter. DE'I DE NI DE BA THOB You will get something good out of it. It will come to you.

Happiness. BDE'I MA BYAS SU BDAG BA BZHIN Don't forget the shadow that followed the boy, okay? So sometimes they say the shadow didn't move, okay?

And sometimes they say all the shadows of all the trees moved over to the boy and covered him, okay? So whichever way you want to do it. BDAG BA BZHIN ZHES GSUNGS PA LTAR KUN ROL ZANG NGAN GYI BDE BU MTHONG CHOS SU BDE DAG BYUNG BA LAS Say MTHONG CHOS.

MTHONG CHOS What's MTHONG mean? Now we just had it. To see.

What's CHOS mean? Dharma, thing, okay? MTHONG CHOS in scripture and MTHONG CHOS in colloquial Tibetan means you can see that that kind of stuff happens.

MTHONG CHOS means it's a thing you can see. But what it means is in your own life you've seen many examples, okay? Somebody, two people do the same action.

One person is doing it out of extreme competitiveness and anger. And then, like a yoga class. And then the other person, they want to just help other people in the yoga class.

And you can see, you have seen yourself many cases in your own life where somebody got something beautiful because their motivation was sweet and somebody else had a disaster because their motivation wasn't sweet, okay? MTHONG CHOS means we've all seen that. Everybody can see that.

You can observe that in your own life. MTHONG CHOS DE DAG BYUNG BA LAS DE LA RGYAS BYOR GYI DGO'I By the way, we got another five minutes. Hang in there.

I hate to teach in the afternoon but it's better than not teaching, right? Okay. Tonight we'll have more fun.

DE LA RGYAS BYOR GYI DGO'I KUN LONG TZAM MIM PA DU RGYUN DU'ANG KUN LONG TZAM PA BYAS PA GAL CES Then he says, therefore, I'm not just talking about meditation sessions. Okay? Before you do anything, you should examine your own motivation.

Why am I doing this? Why am I going to do this? If you feel sad or if you feel depressed or if events have been heavy for you recently or blah, blah, blah, then it's an insufficient motivation, okay?

It means you must have some other motivation, okay? If the motivation for what you're doing is devotion, is love, is compassion, is to serve others, nothing stops you and nothing delays you, okay? You're just like, okay, so something messed up.

How can I help somebody today? What can I do for people today? And then you don't feel sad.

The degree to which you feel sad by heavy events is probably a reflection of your motivation, okay? If your motivation is pure and if you examine your motivation frequently, I don't think you can get very sad about anything, okay? TZAM PO'I GAL CES THENG DU RANG RE LUS DE'AM SHES KHAMS CI BYAS PA'I TSOD DO Nowadays, here's another long-rimmed story, okay?

You ready? I like them. Nowadays, people like you and me, we ask after people's health.

By the way, the Tibetan there is Kham Di. Say Kham. Di.

Very, very difficult word. Kham means, in this case, your body. Di means to ask.

It means to inquire after someone's health. Nowadays, people like you and me, we go up to somebody and say, do you feel well? That's a question about the person's physical.

In Tibetan, it's called, is your body well? KUSU DEBO DUE. Say KUSU.

DEBO. DUE. That's how you say hi in Tibetan.

That's the polite way to say hi. I'll say it again, because it's useful to know, right? KUSU.

DEBO. DUE. Is your honorable body in good condition today?

KUSU means your honorable body, okay? DEBO means, is it happy today? KUSU DEBO DUE.

You don't say, Khanda Yenpa, how are you? Then they'd say, what do you mean, how do I exist before? You know, like that, you see what I mean?

You say, is your body well? Okay, KUSU DEBO DUE. Then TSOD, in this Tibetan here, TSOD means, Lord Atisha, what did he say?

He switched the wording around. He changed the wording of, how do you do? He didn't say, how is your body?

KUSU DEBO DUE. He didn't say that. What did he say?

SEMS SAMBO CHUNG RNAMS Is your, are you thinking kind thoughts? He didn't say, how are you today? He said, how is your heart today?

He would say, how is your heart today? He refused to say, how is your body today?

[Говорящий 2] (1:22:12 - 1:22:12)
Okay?

[Говорящий 1] (1:22:13 - 1:25:30)
They do that at Shivananda in the Bahamas when we go there. When you say hi, or when you say bye, they always say, what do they say? OM NAMA SHIVAYA.

I bow down to Shiva, okay? You're like, hi, and they go, OM NAMA SHIVAYA. And you're like, okay, you know, and...

But it's the same idea. It's cute. It's the same idea.

Are you thinking kindly? Means, good morning. Okay, are you thinking kindly?

GSUNGS RGYUN YOD PAR DE GSUNGS RGYUN, those of you who care, totally unusual Tibetan, and it means, he used to say that all the time. GSUNGS RGYUN, the RGYUN is very rare, but it means he would say that, meaning frequently. GSUNGS RGYUN YOD PAR DE BYAS MTSOMS SONGS SKABS PAR CHEN PO'I KYANG DGAR NAG LAS RNAMS SANGS PA SANGS NGAN LAG SANGS PA SANGS NA SA DANG MANG YANG SANGS SANGS PA MEN NA SA DANG MANG YANG MEMS THAMS CAD SANGS PA BDAG LA LAG LAS BSTE This is like she sells seashells at the seashore.

It's an alliterative, a consonants. It's consonants. It repeats the first sound.

I'll do it again. Maybe you can hear it. DGAR NAG LAS RNAMS SANGS PA SANGS NGAN LA SANGS PA SANGS NA SA DANG MANG YANG SANGS SANGS PA MEN NA SA DANG MANG YANG MEMS THAMS CAD SANGS PA BDAG LA LAG You see what I mean?

It's an S poem. So here we go. And then we'll stop.

So have hope. You get dinner after this. DGAR NAG LAS RNAMS SANGS PA SANGS NGAN LAG DGAR NAG LAS RNAMS SANGS PA SANGS NGAN LAG Good and bad karma follow good and bad intention.

SANGS PA SANGS NA If your intentions are pure, SA DANG MANG YANG SANGS You will reach high paths and high levels. SANGS PA MEN NA If your motivation is less or inferior, SA DANG MANG YANG MEMS You will also reach inferior paths and levels. THAMS CAD SANGS PA BDAG LA RAG LAS PAS Everything depends on your motivation.

Everything. That's THAMS CAD SANGS PA BDAG LA RAG LAS PAS DE NA KUN RUNG GI KHYAD PAR DE THOB TSUL THOB CHE CHUNG GI KHYAD PAR GZHAN DU BYAS TE Therefore, your spiritual realizations, the level at which you are spiritually, all depends on your motivation. Now, we can stop there.

He's going to start to outline some possible motivations. He's going to give four possible motivations for meditating. He's going to say, here's four possible motivations you could have.

And then he'll discuss which are better and which are not so good. So we'll do that tonight. Brooks, are you ready?

[Говорящий 2] (1:25:33 - 1:26:25)
BROOKS DE PUR GYI CHOG SHING ME THOB THAM VE RA VING SHIK VINDE GYAM GANI SANG GYE SHING DU MIN TE RUNG WANG GI DO KHO NAMDAR SHING LA CHE PAS HI RAM GURU RAGHAVANDI GI GYEL WONG KHREN SANG NAM YI SHING ME CHOG SHING SANG NAM YI SHING ME CHUNG KHREN GAM PAR KHRUNG ME DROP PAR