«Дар освобождения», курс 8 «Учимся быть тихими», занятие 2

[Говорящий 1] (0:01 - 50:52)
So we were talking about your teacher's gesture with their hands, teaching gesture with their right hand, meditation gesture with their left hand, the wisdom ball in their left hand with the nectar in it, right? And we said that one meaning was that, what? It's a da, it's a sign that they are enlightened, because they can teach and they can be in that deepest meditation at the same time, okay?

That's one meaning of those two hand gestures. Here's another meaning. ,YANG CHOD CHE'I KYI, ,DUL BYA THOD PA LA GUR BA DANG, ,NYAM ZHAG GIS, ,THOD DON DROD PA LA GUR BA RDZAS PA, So, Nyingbo, you want a reference here?

82A, second line, okay? You can also say that the CHOD CHE'I, the Dharma teaching gesture, is, GUR BA means encouraging, or what's stronger than encouraging? Urging, yeah, urging is good.

They are urging their disciples to, not to, they are urging their disciples to be more, to study more, to learn more about the spiritual path, okay? This means, I want you to learn more about the spiritual path. And then this one means, you should practice what I teach you.

So the meditation posture, the meditation gesture, is meant to say, learn a lot, but then do it. Okay, like that, right? Because sometimes we learn a lot and we don't do it.

Sometimes we try to do things, but we didn't know what we're doing. Okay, that's common, I think. I hear a lot of people, like yoga people, they haven't studied, they haven't been trained.

So they don't have this, but they have this. They're doing the asanas, they're trying to practice, but they don't know exactly what they're doing. Then some of the Buddhist people are all this and no practice.

You see what I mean? So we have to try to be both, okay? All right.

That's the second meaning of those two mudras. GOS PA DANG, YANG RJE CHEN GSONG KHA PA CHEN POS, KYANG LDAN THAR NAM DUG PA RDZOGS RGYAS, SEMS SBYONG MONGS PA LUN SBYONG SHIN RJE YIN Then he says, there's a third way to explain these two gestures. And he quotes Tsongkhapa, Rje Tsongkhapa.

And Rje Tsongkhapa says, KYANG LDAN THAR NAM DUG PA RDZOGS RGYAS KYANG LDAN means lucky person who has good karma. One of my first teacher's name was Kyang LDAN, Geshe Kyang LDAN. So sometimes people use it as a personal name, Geshe Kyang LDAN.

THAR NAM DUG LA If they want to practice the path to liberation, THAR NAM DUG LA RDZOGS RGYAS You know LAM TSOR NAM SUM? What's the TSOR? What's the TSOR in LAM TSOR NAM SUM?

LAM TSOR NAM SUM is the three principle path, right? So TSOR means principle. TSOR RGYAS means, TSOR RGYAS means the main problem or the main obstacle that you're going to run into.

Rje Tsongkhapa says, if you try to practice this path, is what? SEMS SBYONG MONGS PA LUN SBYONG SHIN RJE Something destroys your body and something destroys your mind. So you have two main problems.

When you try to practice the Dharma, something will try to destroy your body and something will try to destroy your mind. What's that? MONGS PA MONGS PA is what?

Remember? Ignorance, right? It's a synonym for ignorance.

So now we have the Tibetan up there. And it's in the middle of the third line there. MONGS PA You see it?

Right in the middle of the screen. MONGS PA BYONGS PA RA MONGS PA MBYONGS PA Okay. So MONGS PA means...

What's a good example of MONGS PA? MONGS PA when your boss yells at you is what? You yell back.

MONGS PA is stupidity. Okay. So that destroys your mind.

It makes you stupid. He yelled at me. I hate him.

Somebody has to teach him I'm the one. You know, like that. Okay, that's MONGS PA.

That destroys your heart. And then SHIN RJE destroys your body. What's SHIN RJE?

The Lord of Death. Okay? The Lord of Death.

So the death will destroy your body. And misunderstanding your world will destroy your mind. Okay?

And these two things will stop you from your practice. RDZOGS RGYAS ZHES GSUNGS PA LTAR CHUG RDUG PA'I BAR CHOS KYI RDZOGS SEMS BYONGS PA BYAS PA'I MONGS PA The things which interrupt your practice mainly are misunderstanding in the mind and LUS BYONGS PA BYAS PA'I PHYI DAG The Lord of Death who destroys your body. DI NYID These two.

NYIN POR What is the antidote to those two? Okay, got it? Which one is this?

Destroys the ignorance. You're not going to yell back at your boss. If you've been trained in these classes, you will be a graceful, gentle, you know, intelligent, kind person.

Okay? Right? And your mind won't be destroyed.

Okay? Then what's here? Inside the ball is the AMIRTA.

Deathlessness. And that will stop your body from being destroyed. Okay?

So he's trying to say there's two big problems you have to face. One is misunderstanding things. So I'm teaching you.

One is death itself. The slow degeneration of your body as you get older. I'm offering you nectar.

Okay? These are two fixes for the two greatest problems of a person who wants to practice Dharma. So he's saying I have the two fixes.

Okay? That's the third meaning of these two mudras. SBYOR BAR TSUN TSUN means they represent that.

Can you see where we are? Are you okay? DIL LA BRTEN NAS Yeah, Ningbo's got the cursor there.

Okay? DIL LA BRTEN NAS ZHI RGYAS DBANG BRTAG GI LAS TSOR GRUB PAS MIG PAS ZAB NAS KYANG MANG DU YOD DIL LA BRTEN NAS means you can also interpret this gesture in another way. ZHI RGYAS DBANG BRTAG ZHI RGYAS DBANG BRTAG What's that?

These are the four modes of a teacher. ZHI means Mr. Knife Guy. RGYAS means generous, pays for you to come to the teaching.

ZHI RGYAS DBANG means tough. You know, I want to see your six times bull. BRTAG means bam.

You know? BRTAG is like fierce. I got hit once by my teacher.

I'll never forget it. So my teacher had ZHI RGYAS DBANG BRTAG. These are called the four modes.

And a good teacher should have them all, okay? Without being angry, okay? I mean, they should be, what do you call it?

In the way that parents fake sternness when their children are trying to run across the street or something, and they grab them and they, you know, shake them a little bit. What do you call it? Tough love.

Okay, you have to have these four. As a teacher, you have to have these four. It doesn't mean it's good for a teacher to be angry.

That's not one of the four. You can fake anger, or you can be, what do you call it? Grateful.

You should see the Dalai Lama when he comes to the monastery. He's not like, he, he, he. You know?

He's like, he's screaming at the monks. He's like, the biggest abbots are shaking. You know?

And he's like yelling at them for 45 minutes. You know? And they're all like, oh.

You know? And, but he knows how to pull out the appropriate gesture for the audience. That's called shi gye wang dang.

The interesting thing for you, for those of you studying Tibetan, is here, le dzok. The word's le dzok, okay? Le means usually karma or action.

And here it means, no, it's a noun, but it means stuff that you do, actions, activities. Dzok means what? A collection.

So le dzok means, he's using the word le dzok to mean your repertoire of your four modes of a lama. Okay? Le dzok.

But le dzok is also a very important tantric word. When you have a, like if you're studying Vajrayogini, if you're practicing mainly Vajrayogini, then you can order a special book called Le Dzok. And it will have everything you need about Vajrayogini in there.

It will have the fire offering. It will have the offering of the hand. It will have the puja that you do.

It will have a description of the offerings that you should do. It's everything you wanted to know about Vajrayogini. And that book, that genre of literature is called Le Dzok.

So here he's using it in a very interesting way. Your repertoire. You should have in your repertoire the capacity to be a little tough with your students, or be nice to them, or be generous to them, or be wrathful to them.

What he says is, why did he bring that up here? Somewhere in there you can find those four. And I'm not going to talk about it, he says.

So I thought you guys could maybe debate it. Somewhere in these two gestures are those four modes. I don't know myself exactly why.

He says, mang du yod. Mang du yod means you could go off on that for a long time, but then he declines to do so. I thought you'd maybe have fun talking about it and deciding.

Maybe you'd hit your student and give them a Coke or something. I don't know exactly. I don't know how it is.

Here, let's do the mang du yod thing. DE LTAR LOGS LOGS PA'I RGYAS RGYEN NAS TZAM TE CHOD RANG BA THOGS PA'I LAMA RNAMS KYIS KHOR BA So we were talking about your Lama in their real apparent form, sitting on the front throne. Now we have how many thrones?

Five. Over here is Manjushri. Over here is Maitreya.

Back there is Vajradhara, the Tantric Buddha. And then in front is your teacher, the way they look to you nowadays. And around your teacher are all of the teachers you had in your life, starting, he says, with Mrs. Melvin. Who is Mrs. Melvin? Mrs. Melvin was my first grade teacher. You know, this bun hair and those little glasses.

So you have to put her there. She is in your refuge visualization. Mrs. Melvin. And I enjoy that. I like putting my grade school teachers. I had eight teachers.

Mrs. Melvin, Mrs. Evans, Mrs. Harris, Mrs. Powell, Mrs. Butts, Mr. Bloom, Mr. Riley, and Mrs. Jacobson. So I had those eight. I still thank them.

You know, not every day, but whenever I do this visualization, I thank them. You know, you taught me to ride. You know, you taught me a lot of stuff.

And I thank you. And they should be there. It's interesting.

Your parents should be there. All the people who taught you. The people who taught me my job in the diamond business.

Lots of people trained me. Finance, you know, administration. I had all these teachers.

So they're around your Lama. All the teachers you had in your life. Your partner who teaches you every day.

They should all be there. And then you are thanking. This is the refuge visualization.

So you are asking them for help. You are asking them for protection. Okay?

You are my teachers. And please protect me. Okay?

Like that. All right? LAS SOGS SGRUB PA'I DMIGS PA'I TSUL ZIN GYUR Not okay.

CHOD DEL CHOD DEL Those of you who want to learn Tibetan. That's a certain expression. CHOD DEL CHOD means what?

Dharma. DEL means? DEL BA DEL means relationship.

CHOD DEL means Lamas with whom you have a relationship. A teacher-student relationship. It's called CHOD DEL.

Okay? So like they'll say, Do you know Geshe so-and-so at Seren? You say, yeah.

And they say, Is he CHOD DEL for you? And you say, No, I haven't. I don't have that relationship with him.

He's not one of my teachers. CHOD DEL means people with whom you now have a karmic relationship because you studied with them. That's called CHOD DEL.

CHOD DEL NGOS THOB NGOS THOB means direct. You have direct teaching relationship with them. You didn't just listen to them on, what do you call?

YouTube. That's not CHOD DEL. Okay?

Maybe, I don't know. Maybe it could be. NGOS THOB KYI LAMA RNAMS THI KHOR BA RANG RES KHYOD LA LAM This is a cute section, okay?

I remember this from like a hundred years ago. RANG RES KHYOD LA LAMA DUS YOD CI NA PHRAD MA GSUM NAS SHES NAS DRANG DANG DGOS PA YOD Anybody have a rosary? Can I borrow?

So, he says, KHYOD LA LAMA means, this DUS, by the way, those of you studying Tibetan, DUS means, this DUS means how many. Just one word, DUS means how many. So, KHYOD LAMA DUS YOD means, how many Lamas have you had in your life?

How many spiritual teachers have you had? Then, most of us have to pull off our rosary, you know, and say, Oh, well, there was Geshe Khyel Rinpoche, and then there was Geshe Yonpo, and then there was Khen Rinpoche, and then there was Shakyamuni Rinpoche, Kham Rinpoche, Geshe Ngo, and Dalgyal, you know, like that. Then you say, Oh, there must have been, in my case, there's 12 main Lamas, okay?

So, you say, Oh, I have 12, okay? DUS YOD PHRAD MA NAS DRANG DGOS DUS YOD NGU KHUL NAM DU NGU BYIN DAG YOD CI NA But if I ask you how much, how many bucks you've got in your wallet, you don't have to look. You're like, 14.

It means you spend more time thinking about your money in your wallet than about how many teachers you've had in your life. And it should be the opposite. Somebody say, How much money do you have in your wallet?

Yeah, I hope there's some. And then, but how many Lamas do you have? Oh, 13 before 1985, you know, 12 after that, you know, I had two in my, you know, it should be, because you're thinking about it, Oh, Mrs. Melvin, you should be able to do your eighth, you know, first through eighth grade like that. Can you? It should be like, because it should be that you've thought about them in the last few days. Because you wouldn't be, you would be feral if it wasn't for them.

You would be like a wild cat. You know, you'd be running around like with no good manners. And you'd be like an animal, you know, if you didn't have your, the teachers you had when you were young, even the dopey ones, you would be like a wild animal.

And there are people like that who just didn't have teachers, you know, and no one taught them good manners. And you're not like that. And they should, they should be on your mind frequently.

You should be thinking about your sixth grade teacher and thanking them. I'm grateful you taught me grammar, you taught me computers. My sixth grade teacher forced me to learn punch cards and said, one day this will be a big deal.

The computers were thousands of punch cards with holes in them. And you had to learn binary. He's like, I'm like, what's the use of this?

He's like, there will be a thing called the computer and people will use it. You should know. So thank those people.

All right. I'm trying to go a little quicker. LO THOG NAS SHES CHOG CHOG SHES CHOG CHOG means you're ready, immediately.

Somebody asked me, how much money is in your wallet? I said, I got like $13 or $43. YOD PA'I DE NYID LAM GYI TZA BA BA'I DOR NA There's a mistake in the Tibetan.

DOR NA What is that? Yeah, that shouldn't be done. It should be D-O-N-A-N-A I'm sorry.

It should be D-O-N-A-N-M-I DOR NAN MI CHE So take out the NA. It's D-O-N-A-N-M-I-C-H-E Yeah. And that's just a...

There are thousands of mistakes like that in the typing because the typist can't read what they're typing. And it takes a Geshe to read this book. So it's going to take like, I don't know, a couple hundred years to fix the data.

In the meantime, DOR NAN is very colloquial. DOR NAN means... And they don't say DOR NAN, they say DOR NANG in colloquial Tibetan.

And it means to take an interest in something. DOR NANG CIG MIN DU How many lamas do you have? DOR NANG MIN DU I never thought about it much.

How much money is in your wallet? DE LA DOR NANG YOD Yeah, I'm interested in that. I pay attention to that.

DOR NANG means pay attention to that. So DOR NANG LAM GYI RTZA BA LA DOR NANG MI CHE If you can count the money in your wallet, but you can't immediately count all your grade school teachers, you are LAM GYI RTZA BA LA DOR NANG MI CHE What's that? LAM GYI RTZA BA RTZA BA Yeah, the root of the path.

DOR NANG MI CHE You are not taking any interest in the root of the path. What's the root of the path? Your teacher, your personal teacher.

That's why all this stuff going on nowadays and people are saying, I don't need a teacher or my teacher is weird. Then this LAM GYI RTZA BA, you destroy your practice. Destroy all your practice.

DOR NANG MI CHE means they don't take any interest in. LAM GYI RTZA BA means without a teacher, it's nothing. You can't study, you can't do anything.

You can't practice. If you don't like your teacher, find a better one. But you need a teacher.

And they have to be someone you consider enlightened. Otherwise it's hopeless. That's the root of the path.

So if you can't count your grade school teachers on your hands quickly, you don't understand the root of the path. Because they're also your gurus. They're also your guru.

And you have to be grateful for them. And you're very lucky you grew up in a country where they bothered to teach children rather than sending them to work. And you should thank the people who built the schools and who paid the money for them and paid the teachers.

You think it's a natural right. It's not. There are countries in the world where...

I mean, I studied in India. They grab you as soon as you can walk. And they put you in a restaurant and you're cleaning glasses for the rest of your life.

You didn't... You had gurus. Okay, NAM GYI RTZA BA DANG NAS MI BYAS PA'I LTA YIN means that's a sign that these people have no interest in the root of the path.

LTA YIN ZHUGS BSTAN LAMA ZHAL ZHUGS PA'I NAM LA BUGS BSTAN DANG MA ZHUGS PA'I NAM LA PAS DAG BYA RGYUR ZHUGS BSTAN, which is not the same as ZHUGS BSTAN, which is some weird thing. ZHUGS BSTAN means the seat on which they are sitting. ZHUGS BSTAN means the cushion on which they are sitting.

LAMA ZHAL ZHUGS PA'I... LAMA ZHAL ZHUGS PA'I means their faith is still in the world. And that means they didn't pass away yet.

So ZHUGS BSTAN means... LAMA ZHAL ZHUGS PA'I NAM BUGS BSTAN They're on a... What do you call it?

Cotton cushion. What do you call these things? It has material in it.

BUGS means bumpy. Okay, BUGS BSTAN. They have BUGS BSTAN.

They have a cushion. If their LAMA is still alive, you should picture them as sitting on a cotton cushion. But if...

MA ZHUGS PA'I NAM means if they've already passed away. PAS DAG You should use a lotus. They should be sitting on a lotus that has a moon disk on top of it.

And then they're sitting on top of that. That's a tradition when you picture them. DE LTAR LAMA GANG NGA PO DE LA LAMANG DE NGA SER How many thrones do we have?

It's five. One, two, three, four, five. He says these five groups of LAMAs are known as the five groups of LAMAs.

Because each throne has smaller thrones around it. All your elementary school teachers are sitting around your root LAMA in five. Like that.

These five groups of LAMAs are called the five groups of... They're called LAMA DE NGA. Say LAMA.

LAMA DE DE NGA It means these are the five groups of LAMAs that you have. You have tantric teachings. You have wisdom teachings.

You have compassion teachings. You have your root LAMA's teachings. And then you have the teachings of the Buddha in general.

So you have these five groups of... You already have five groups of teachers. DE LTAR NGAR GYI GCIG CHEN PO'I RTEN YID DAM NAS GSUM MED PAR GYI SOGS SHING RNAMS KYI GOR BA DE Around the great throne, the central throne, DE LTAR YID DAM NAS GSUM MED PAR are all kinds of tantric deities.

YID DAM means angels, tantric angels. PAR GYI GSUM MA And also guardians of the teachings. Guardians of the teachings.

There's a war going on constantly. You're not even aware of it. You are sitting in the middle of this war.

You don't even know it's going on. There are powerful beings struggling to prevent Dharma from spreading in the world. And then there are powerful beings fighting them.

And you don't even know it's going on. And it sways back and forth. Victories are had and then great defeats are had and these kind of things are going on.

And it looks to you like normal world and stuff. But every time the Dharma gets strong, that country will be attacked or that person will be attacked or things will happen. And then there's a constant psychological war or spiritual war.

It's going on all the time in the world. And you don't feel it so much. If the people in the wealthiest country in the world are just sitting and watching videos about sex and guns, then the demons are like, yay, this is so good.

And then there are people starving across the border. Those people are dying from overeating and then across the border people are starving, no food. Then this is like, there's this war going on and it ebbs and flows.

But there is a war going on all the time. So there are protectors, there are guardians who are fighting for the good guys. SOGS SHING RNAMS KYI GUR BA STE That's the SOGS SHING and we'll get into it later.

You can call them the guard and these are the good guy angels. They call them the white side of angels. GUR BA STE So they're surrounding that big Lama.

DE YANG LAMA DE NGAG THAR YI DAM GOS LUGS They are, I'm sorry, around the whole five thrones. There's a set of angels. GOS LUGS I corrected the Tibetan there.

Did you? Yeah, YI MA should be YI DAM. YI, just YI with no D on it, yeah.

GOS LUGS How you set those angels, how you arrange them, there are different lineages. One lineage, BDAG GIS LAMA RINPOCHE SUNG YUN SELING YONG ZIN KYI CHAG CHE NANG KHO DU So in my own Lama's tradition, Pabongka Rinpoche's own Lama, followed a tradition by a Lama called Seling Yongzin. He lived 1792 to 1862, if you care.

KYI CHAG CHE NANG He followed the custom of that Lama. And that Lama said, how you arrange these tantric angels, these tantric deities, okay, in our direct lineage, you put the highest ones in the middle. So around the five thrones, the first row around them is the highest tantric angels.

And then you go down from there. You go out from there. So there are four groups of tantric teachings, four classes of tantric teachings.

What are they? Yeah. NYANG PHYIR LAMA MED PA'I RGYUD Anuttara Yoga is the highest.

What's the third one? Yoga. Yoga.

Okay. NYANG PHYIR LAMA MED PA'I RGYUD Then? PHYIR RGYUD Yeah, CHAG RGYU And then CHAG RGYU, which is Kriya Yoga.

So in the secret teachings, there are four great traditions in ancient India. And sometimes a deity is even shared between the two of them, like Tara can come in an Anuttara form or Tara can come in a Kriya form. So what makes one group bigger than another group?

Do you guys remember? Yeah, how internal is it? If it's more internal, it's higher.

If it's more external, it's lower. So if the secret practice is all about ringing the bell at the right time and making sure the offerings are in the right order and all that, that's lowest tantra. And then internal tantra, where you're thinking, I'm an angel.

Like you have some tantric practices inside of you, that's the highest class. So the teachers of those four classes are circling the five thrones. And one tradition says, put the highest ones in the inner circle, then go down the outside.

So first you have Anuttara Yoga, then Yoga, then Activity, and then Action. Classes of tantra. TENG SHI RDZE There should be four circles of deities.

CHU SANG RJE YOD SHIG RGYAL TSOG CHAGSHE Then there was a Lama named CHU SANG RJE YOD SHIG RGYAL TSOG. He said, you should just put them all in one circle. And then the higher yoga angel should be in front.

And then they should go around in a circle. The lower tantras. DGON NAS BDUN DU LA ME YES SU MYONG SROG RGYUD On the left should be the, sorry, it's Anuttara Yoga, Yoga, Activity, and Action class.

So they go down leftwards from the main figure's point of view. SROG KHOR GCIG TSE There should just be one. CHU SANG BAR MED SOGS SHING DU LA ME LAS MI ZAL BA YANG DE NYID KYIS So there were different, what do you call, carvings?

Of how to visualize these angels. And in the carving from CHU SANG's monastery, you could only see the Anuttara Yoga deities. Why?

Because the others were covered. They were in the back. So he's explaining why if you ever see one of those carvings, you'll only see people like Bhairava, Yamantaka, Chakrasambhara, Vajrayogini, like that, Tara.

You won't see the other tantric angels, because they're in the back. In that system. GNAS KYIS YIN Khandhara, anyway, he got to the same point we got to.

Everybody's like, huh? Khandhara, YIDAM GYI THAR, SANGS RGYAS CHOG KYI THUG DGOS RNAM PAR CHEN Outside of the circle of tantric deities, you can put another circle. And that will be Buddhas, enlightened beings of the universe.

There are billions of Buddhas, not just the one who came to this planet. And then there will be a circle of Buddhas. They're called, say, CHOG KYI THUG DGOS.

You know THUG DGOS, right? THUG DGOS means like emanation. CHOG means highest.

This means Coke classic Buddha. It means bump on the head, big ears, sitting like this. That's a classic Buddha form.

Like a Coke classic Buddha. THUG DGOS Do you have a line of them? DE YANG RGYAL SANGS RGYAS SANGS RGYAS STONG DANG Hang on.

There are groups of Buddhas hanging around the universe. Maybe you'd like to hear their names, okay? Nobody cares much about them.

There are specific groups of enlightened beings hanging around the universe. I'll tell you, he mentioned some of them. They're not just generic Buddhas.

There are certain affiliations and sub, what do you call it, little groups of Buddhas that hang out together. Who are they? I mean, at this point you just get beyond everybody's, you never met any Buddha, so who cares if there's 23 that hang out somewhere.

Anyway, RGYAL SANGS RGYAS SANGS RGYAS STONG RGYAL SANGS RGYAS SANGS RGYAS STONG means it's the 1,000 Buddhas who will come to this planet in the golden eon. So in the last billion years or so, there have been, well, there's been three, and there's 997 to come. I think Maitreya is the fourth.

So there will be 1,000 Buddhas who will come to this planet, and we're only on number three or four. So you can picture that in that row is all those 1,000 Buddhas, three who came already, 997 to come. DE SHES RGYAS DE SHES RGYAS means the group of eight, the gang of eight Buddhas.

And then I'm going to tell you who they are, like you could care less, but I'll just tell you their names. These are related to Medicine Buddha. Vaishaja Guru, Nenla.

Which is not la, it's la, like Lama, Guru, Vaishaja Guru. So there's a Buddha that's especially related to medical treatment and medicine and the practice of medicine. And that's called Medicine Buddha.

And he hangs out with seven other Buddhas. So you get eight. That's how you get eight.

So I'm going to just tell you their names. I wrote it down here somewhere. One is called Senlek.

One is called Rinchen. One is called Sersang. One is called Nyong'enme.

One is called Chodak. One is called Munkhen. Then there's Nenla.

And there's Shakyatupa. So Gautama Buddha is one of the eight also. So this is a group of eight Buddhas.

Why are they important for us? They are a club, Buddha club. And a zillion years ago, they were having a club meeting.

And they were looking into the future and saying, things will get bad on planet Earth in a zillion years from now. Let's make a pact. Let's make an agreement between us that when it gets bad on planet Earth, we'll come.

The eight Buddhas will come. So Medicine Buddha will be there. Shakyamuni will be there.

And there will be six other Buddhas. So they're coming, all right? They're like the cavalry.

And they're on their way. So you should know. You should be happy.

There's eight Buddhas who are coming to help us. Then there's a Tungshaki Sangha. There's a group of 35 Buddhas who, if you have a particularly bad deed in your past, if you killed somebody, or if you did something really bad, there's a special practice that you can confess to the 35 Buddhas.

And so there's a group of 35. There's another gang of 35 Buddhas who are really good for confessing. And if you want, I don't know, someday we can learn that practice.

But there's a practice to the 35 Buddhas of confession. If you've done some really, really nasty stuff, then that can help you. Let me see, how's the time going?

We'll take a break in about 10 minutes. I know it's hot. You should be drinking a lot.

And you should have a pee-pee break. ,DE NI PHYIR SANGS RGYAS THAG YAS KYANG, Generally speaking, there are an infinite number of Buddhas. ,KYAL SANGS DE'I SANGS RGYAS RNAMS, ,RANG NA BRAL CHE BA DANG, ,DE SHES GDUN GYI, But the thousand Buddhas are related to our world.

So they have a big connection with our world. ,BRAL CHE BA DANG, ,DE SHES GDUN GYI, ,MAN LAM ZHAG BSKYED RTEN PA'I THAR, ,GYUR GRUB PAR GSUNGS PA DANG, And it is said that the prayers of the group of seven, including Medicine Buddha makes eight. They made MAN LAM.

What's MAN LAM? Prayer, but for a Buddha, when you're talking about a Buddha and what they were doing a million years ago, that's called MAN LAM. They made a, what do you call it?

It's a prayer, but it's more of a, it's almost like a promise, like that. They said, when stuff gets bad on planet Earth, I'll be there. So MAN LAM ZHAG BSKYED RTEN PA'I THAR.

It means when the teachings of Gautama Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha begin to collapse, which is now, THAR GYUR GRUB, they will come and they will help. So we have a connection with these Buddhas. And they are coming.

This is supposed to be the days that, the Buddha predicted that his teachings would die in this world, like all things die in this world. And we reached that time. Nobody knows what they're talking about.

Oftentimes, in the teachings or the practice of the teachings, it's a bad time. We're at the end of those times. THAR GSUNGS PA DANG, SDUG BSHAGS KYI SANGS RGYAS GSUNGS LA SDIG SDUG SBYONG BA LA STOB CHE BA'I GNAS KYIS YIN And the 35 Buddhas, of course, are very powerful when you've committed some kind of really bad deed and they can help you purify it.

DE THAR GNYIS ZAD RGYAS Then you have the famous Bodhisattvas. So now you've got Tantric Deity Group 1, Tantric Deity Group 2, Group 3, Group 4, full Buddhas, clubs of Buddhas, and now you've got Bodhisattvas coming. So now there's another group, the big Bodhisattvas, the big guns among the Bodhisattvas, who are not quite Buddhas yet.

There's called the GNYIS ZAD RGYAS. Say GNYIS ZAD. GNYIS ZAD.

RGYAS They're called the Eight Close Sons of the Buddha. And these are Bodhisattvas who lived during the Buddha's time. And there are eight of them and they're very famous.

When you're talking Bodhisattvas, you say, oh, these are the big eight. It's like Nyingbo's Big Ten Conference or Pac-3 or like big football games. These are the big eight Bodhisattvas.

I'm going to tell you their names just for good luck. The first one is called Cagna Dorje, which in Sanskrit is holding a Vajra in his hand. What's the Sanskrit?

Vajrapani. By the way, in the time of the Buddha, they are considered Bodhisattvas. Since then, they got upgraded.

Okay. Jampayang. Manjushri.

Chamre Sik. Avalokiteshvara. Sayi Nyingbo, which means Kashiri Garbha, the essence of the earth.

This is a famous Bodhisattva in the time of the Buddha. Jampa. Maitreya.

Namke Nyingbo, the essence of the sky, which is Akasha Garbha. This is another famous Bodhisattva. We got six so far.

Dipsal, which means the Bodhisattva who clears away obstacles. It's not clear what the Sanskrit is. I believe it's Nivarana Vishkambini.

Vishkambin. And then Kundusambhu, who's famous for spreading flower petals across the sky. Samantabhadra.

Okay. So those are called the eight great Bodhisattvas. Those are the eight.

They are related to certain directions, if you care. I'll do it fast. It'll be on the tape.

Vajrapani is to the east. Manjushri is to the south. Avalokiteshvara is to the west.

Kashiri Garbha is to the north. Maitreya is to the southeast. Akasha Garbha is to the southwest.

Dipsal, who clears away obstacles, is to the northwest. And Samantabhadra is to the northeast. Sokchangtsen Nambhaya Bui Nambha.

And they look like young... What do you call it? Angels.

Young deities. The Bodhisattvas. Not quite mature.

Teenage deities. Okay. DE LTAR RANG RGYAL I'll go a little bit more.

Then I'll give you a break. I promise. These are the worst circumstances under which to have a teaching.

A warm day. It'll get worse. DE LTAR RANG RGYAL CHU GNYIS SOGS RANG RGYAL Then outside of them are the self-made Buddhas, who are not Buddhas.

They are Arhats. They're not even Bodhisattvas. They're on a lower path.

They're on a lower track. They are Arhats. They have overcome their mental negative emotions.

But they're not Bodhisattvas. They don't have a vision to save the universe. They just are very calm and peaceful.

And they've reached the destruction of their own negativities. Then there are 12 of them. There are 12 famous self-made Buddhas.

Because their main teaching is the 12 Links of Dependent Origination, the Wheel of Life. So there's a correlation between 12 great Arhats and the 12 Links of the Wheel of Life in the self-made Buddha track. This is getting really difficult.

Again, I repeat, I don't do all this visualization. I just have my Lama there. And I've been happy with that for 40 years or so.

The reason I'm teaching this text is I want you to have the full transmission. And maybe it will be useful for someone. So you should learn it.

We'll finish one more and then we'll stop. If we did self-made Buddhas, then outside of them should be listeners. Arhats, lower track.

Then there are 16 famous listeners. Lowest track, 16 famous Arhats. They're called neten.

Neten means tabira, means elders. There are 16 elders. When you talk about listeners, somebody says, name me 10 listeners.

You can give them 16. And that's all the ones they ever talk about. I'm going to tell you their names.

Just for good luck, he doesn't mention their names. One is called pantha, which means lampa. Do you know pantha?

The one who's on the path. Who is that? That's the guy who was sweeping.

He's called little path, right? Why? Because they took the baby out on the little path and they said to the monks, would you bless the baby?

He got called little path. Pantha. Abhedya is one, michepa.

Sechen is kanakavati. Bakula. Some of you were fortunate enough, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, we went to Mongolia and we met Bakula Rinpoche.

We met the current incarnation of Bakula. He was a prince from Ladakh and he went to Tibet in like 1930, 40 and became a Harambe Geshe. He passed the highest geshe.

And then he came back to Ladakh and he was involved with the independence movement with Gandhi. And then he became the senator of Ladakh. He's a Harambe Geshe reincarnated mama.

He was the Indian Congress' representative from Ladakh for many years. When he got to be like 85, they chose him to be the ambassador in Mongolia. And we met him.

We used to hang out with him there. That was Bakula Rinpoche. Very, very unusual.

Great, great. One of the greatest beings in current times. But nobody knew much about him.

But anyway, some of you had the honor to meet him, Bakula. He passed away after that. Bharadwaja, Samasabhadra, Vajraputra, Rahula, Bhadrashri, Ribhihula, Beche, which is probably Guha, Nagasena, Vanaprastha, Chudapanduka.

There's a little path. The other one was probably a big path. Kanakavatsa, Angaja, and probably Ajita.

So those are the 16 elders. I'll tell you one more thing, okay? And then I'll let you go.

Really, I promise. If the self-made Buddhas are distinguished by their knowledge of the 12 links and the Wheel of Life, right? Then the listeners are distinguished by, we call the Jangbe Yondanchunyi.

Say Jangbe. Yondanchunyi. These are the 12 high qualities that come from practice.

But these are customs followed by the earliest followers of the Buddha. The earliest monk followers of the Buddha specialized in 12 different activities. And so that's the measure of a good listener, okay?

Someone who's mastered the 12. So I went and got you the 12, okay? Just because I didn't want you to go around not knowing the 12.

And then I promise we'll have a break. If I don't break, then you just walk out. Anyway, okay?

I love these things. I love these 12. So nobody talks about these 12, but I like them.

The first one's called Chakdartrupa. Chakdartrupa means when they need something, they go to the garbage cans in the city and they look. They take what they need out of the garbage cans.

They're living like, what do you call it? Nomads. They are spiritual nomads.

And they don't keep a house and they don't keep money. When they need something, they go look in garbage cans. Why do they take this robe?

This robe, they take a good piece of cloth and they cut it up and they make patches on it. It's a big trouble. It costs a lot of money to pay someone to cut up good cloth and then sew it back together in a certain design.

And it's all a big corruption. In the old days, you were only allowed to wear cloth that you took out of a garbage can and you had to sew the pieces together. And you probably looked like a quilt or something.

You know? So now they take a good piece of cloth, expensive cloth, and they cut it up and they re-sew it back together. So anyway, in the old days, the reason there are patches on monks' robes nowadays is that it used to be all patches.

All right. I'm trying to get somebody to sew it. It's difficult.

Chagatupa. Chugasumba means they only wear the three, their clothing is the three, the three sets of robes. There's the skirt and then there's an upper, an upper covering, and then there's a cloak.

This thing, which is now just ornamental, was a sleeping bag for a homeless person. And you wore it. And that was your coat and that was your sleeping bag.

Okay? And that's where this came from. Nowadays, it's just a castle carried around.

You know? But it was, probably it was thicker and made of wool and when you went to bed, you just laid down wherever you were and you just covered yourself up and that was it. So anyway, those are three, that's the second of the 12 who wears the three.

That's all they have. They don't have more than those three pieces of clothing. Chimbawa means they refuse to wear more expensive, the clothing that they had was made of rough wool because that was cheap.

I think nowadays it would be jeans. Dirty jeans. Worn out jeans that weren't worn out on purpose by juicy couture.

Okay? Using the volcanic ash that's torn down from the mountain outside of Flagstaff. Okay.

Tenchikpa. Tenchikpa means one seat. And I had to go deeper in the scripture.

It means they agree, when they sit down to eat, they eat what they need for the day and when they get up, they don't eat again. So one seat means they sit down to a meal once during the day. Tenchikpa.

Sunyomba means, we're on number? Five. Sunyomba means they beg for their food.

They go out door to door and they take a bowl and they ask for food. People ask me, why do Tibetan monks eat meat? Why do they eat meat?

You beg for food. If they throw a hot dog in your bowl, you eat it. You're not allowed to negotiate.

I'm vegan, but... Let's say I'm 60% natural. What was that?

I'm 60% raw?

[Говорящий 2] (50:52 - 51:08)
It's a video clip called Raw Food. It's not necessarily that it's S-H-I-T, but it's something that New Age girls say. It's on YouTube.

And it's a clip of her and she says, I'm like 70% raw and the next couple of years they eat the raw.

[Говорящий 1] (51:10 - 1:30:47)
Yeah. So anyway, you can't negotiate. Whatever they throw in your bowl, you're supposed to eat.

And then when they didn't have bowls anymore, they started to buy meat, which is bad. That's a corruption, but that's why they eat meat. Number six.

SREG CI MI LAM PA DANG Once they do come back from begging for food, they cannot go out again. That's... They don't go out again.

They don't start eating again. That's an interesting monk's vow. You're supposed to eat to not quite full and then you're supposed to stop.

And you're not allowed to restart on the same sitting. That's what a lot of us do, right? Like we're done with the meal and then we decide we want something else.

Okay. SREG CI MI LAM PA GOMS PA BA means... This is interesting.

What's a GOMS PA? GOMS PA It came to be corruption from meditation house, but GOMS PA means a monastery. The word GOMS PA means a monastery.

GOMS PA BA means someone who lives in a monastery. The definition of a monastic in ancient times was so many miles from the nearest town, like Bui. Okay.

Frankly, the people at Diamond Mountain are more monastic than the people in Vassa in the monasteries. They are following the ancient custom. It's you have to be so many minutes by car, ideally like an hour or half an hour from the nearest town.

And then you're a monastic. That makes you a monastic. Okay.

So that's a GOMS PA BA. They agree to stay far away from towns. We live in Cambridge, but that doesn't really count as a town.

Okay. Just kidding. ZHING MTSUNG BA means...

ZHING MTSUNG BA means at the foot of a tree. What's that mean? Yeah, they sleep.

When it gets dark, they lay down at the foot of the nearest tree. And that's where... What's your address?

ZHING MTSUNG BA What's your address? The nearest tree, when it gets dark. That's my address.

Okay. ZHING MTSUNG BA How many we got? That's eight, right?

LAG LHAG MED PA LAG LHAG MED PA means they don't buy a winter coat. They don't have a fancy coat. They have this.

They have only this. And they don't go trying to buy a big fur coat or something like that. Or a...

What do you call it? A winter coat, for when it's cold. LAG LHAG MED PA DUR GRUB PA What's DUR GRUB PA?

They like to hang out in cemeteries. Just to... It's not some kind of weirdo cult thing.

It's to keep you aware of how little time you have and use it preciously. If you sleep in graveyards... Graveyards in India are flat pieces of land where they throw dead bodies without burying them.

Burial grounds, right? And it's scary because all the wild animals come there. The most vicious animals come to the DUR GRUB to eat the bodies at night.

So to sleep there takes a lot of renunciation. That was a custom. Some people would sleep on top of a body.

And it's not some kind of... Don't think it's some kind of weirdo tantric thing. It's made to make you not watch videos.

I'm not going to waste my time. I could die tonight. So if you hang out in a cemetery, it's not to make you morbid or weird or something like that.

It's just appreciate every hour, every minute you have. Don't waste five minutes of your life. Okay?

What's the next one? 11? SOG PUA They agree never to lay down completely to sleep.

They sleep sitting up or they crouch. I don't think it's... It's not a wise practice.

I heard a lot of people went cuckoo doing that. But the idea especially is, especially during the day, they make a promise never to lay down. They use their life.

They're always serving somebody. Like Jampa in Howl. He never lays down.

He's always on his feet. He's cleaning and then he's cooking and then he's building Dharma things and he never stops. That's a SOG PUA.

One more, right? Then you get a break. Either way.

ZHI JI SHIN PA Say ZHI. ZHI JI SHIN PA The foundation as it is. So I had to go study that and I found it.

And what it means is for your mattress, you use whatever materials are at hand, meaning grass and leaves. The words in Tibetan is whatever's there. But what it means is when it's time to lay down, you just get some leaves or grass and you put it together and you sleep on that.

Those are the 12 practices of which tribe? Listener tribe. And those would define a good follower of the listener tribe.

That's the lowest tribe. More appropriate for our circumstances would be to have a small, comfortable house without bugs in it or mice and meditate nicely there or live quietly, modestly, but in a healthy way. Those people who live by these 12, they don't live very long.

No, I mean it's too rough. The lifestyle's too rough. It's like a homeless person and they're dead by the time they're 40 or something.

In our cultural setting, it would be more appropriate to have a comfortable small apartment and a quiet place to practice. That's just more doable. I tried the cave thing.

I did the cave thing and it was miserable. There were spiders everywhere. There was a green rattlesnake.

Somebody told me later if they bite you, you die. There's no known. He came in the cave.

There was coyotes and wolves and I just gave up after a couple of days. I was like, whoa. So it's not conducive.

These are all the ancient custom, but I think for us, a small comfortable place where you can be anonymous in practice. We have half an hour. Ningbo, we're at 83A.

We're just about to hit 83A. Chadna Thungse, those listeners who you are visualizing who have mastered the 12 practices of sleeping in front of a tree, et cetera. They have a wisdom ball in their hand.

Karsil means they have a sage's, what do you call that thing? Yoda has one. Star.

They have a sage's star. Karsil, I like the word karsil. Puti is a corrupt Sanskrit word for, this is a puti, a religious book.

Sorry, that's a puti. Sok Namba. This namba means they are holding in their hands.

Mindawai Kepa Rangyal Nam Ulat Suktor Chungse Yoppa A little bit difference between the listeners and the self-made Buddhists is that the self-made Buddhists have a little bit of a suktor. Suktor means shikhanda in Sanskrit. It means, it can mean a top knot or it can mean the bump that a Buddha has on their head.

They have a slight bump here. A Buddha has a slight bump here on their skull. Okay, suktor.

So, they have a little bit of one. Okay, a little bit of a bump. And that's called, Zenbei Jei Tumba.

Say Zenbei. Zenbei Jei Tumba. Zenbei.

Zenbei means the 112 marks of an enlightened being. They have special designs on the skin of their palms. Their toes are connected with little webs.

They have bumps. They have big ears. There are these signs of an enlightened being.

Jei Tumba means almost, but not quite. So, they have little bumps, but not big bumps. Okay, so the self-made Buddhists in your visualization should have little bumps.

Jei Tumba Dandempa. Nyentu Gitar. Outside of the listeners are Khanda Kapala and Rab Tumma, etc.

Pao Dampamo. This means warriors, man and woman warriors. And they are tantric angels, tantric practitioners.

Like Khanda Rohi. Those of you who practice Vajrayogini, you know Khanda Rohi. Which is similar to Rab Tumma.

These are like angels. Protector angels. Two different kinds.

Etc. Decho Laya Sumbadar. As we find in the Chakrasamvara scriptures.

Those holy beings. They are mostly protectors. They are mostly protecting the place.

If you've ever done a retreat, for example, if you get trained in tantric retreat, then there are certain ways to protect the building. You put up tsamto, right? You put up certain markers which psychically protect the place where you're doing the retreat.

And they supposedly attract those protector angels. And then, you know, being a Westerner, you say, oh, I don't believe all that stuff, and you skip it once. You know.

And then, then terrible stuff happens. And then you're like, no, I guess this stuff works. I put up those markers on a retreat cabin in Flagstaff, outside of Flagstaff.

And a forest fire came. Huge. 35 guys were sent to the hospital.

Firefighters. Right outside of my cabin. It was jumping from the top of the trees.

It wasn't even on the ground. It was flying down the mountain. You could see it fly down the mountain on the top of the trees, and it didn't touch the ground.

It was flying forest fire. And it came down as fast as you could run. And I was like, whoa.

And I asked my lama, I did a mo, should I leave? And they said, no, you don't have to leave. And I'm like, it got closer and closer.

And then I got my suitcase, and I ran out to the highway, and I hitchhiked to Flagstaff. And then I came back the next day, because I forgot some of my stuff. I forgot something I needed, and I came back, and the house was standing there, and everything around it was burned.

But the house was just standing there. And the owner was there, and they were like, oh, thank you so much. I like those little protector things.

And the fire jumped over it, and kept going, and the house is still there. So they work. There are such beings, and it works.

If you don't believe it, try it sometime. Do a retreat with, do the Coke test. Try it with the protectors, and try it without the protectors.

And it's a big difference. I've done it. Okay, DE PHYAG RGYAS SUMPA THAR GYI'I KHOR BA DE THAR GYI'I BU SUM GYI CHOS BDAG GIS BDAG GIS TSOR BYAS PA'I JIG RTEN LAS DE PAS CHOS KYONG Then there are certain Dharma protectors who specialize in the Lam Rim.

Okay. GYI'I BU SUM means the three levels of practitioners. CHOS means their teaching, meaning the Lam Rim.

BDAG GIS TSOR BYAS PA'I means those protectors who specialize in protecting Lam Rim practitioners, which is what you are. They're on the outside of the outside. JIG RTEN LAS DE PAS CHOS KYONG LAM GYI KHOR BA DE CHOG SHIR RGYAL CHEN GZHI Then there are four great protectors called the four great kings.

And that's a long story. You don't want to hear the whole story. But you know this Mount Meru thing.

We do Mount Meru, right? In the middle. Then at the top, there's four, what do you call it, terraces to Mount Meru.

And on the top, there's a special city. And there are four great kings who protect that place. And they are also protectors of this world, according to Buddhism.

Their names are YUL KHOR SUM, which is DIRTHA RASHTRA, PHAGYAPO, which is VIRUDHAKA, CHEN MI SANG, which is VIRUPAKSHA, and NAM THOS SE, which is Kubera or Vaishravana. So you can imagine that these kings are also outside. That huge, now it's getting big, right?

It's getting like a football field, full of people. There's two ways you can seat the four kings. I'm sorry to lay all this on you, but I have to teach the text as it is.

There's two ways to seat the four kings. One is to give them a throne. This is a throne.

Or you can put them on top of cloth, puffy cloth. Why? If you put them on a throne, it's because you're saying that these four kings, who are normally not considered Buddhas, are Buddhas.

If you don't put them on the thrones, you're saying these four kings are just worldly powers, or worldly deities. You can make that. GAL TZAM SOG GCIG RTEN DE'I PA'I TSUL GSUNG BA RNAM DGOS DU MI RUNG It is improper, he says, to visualize these protectors as wrathful beings.

They shouldn't be visualized as horrible looking monsters. There are Dharma protectors, good guys, who look like monsters. But he says it's inappropriate when you're doing this particular practice.

It's called GAL TZAM. GAL TZAM is a very, what do you call, monstrous looking Dharma protector. You shouldn't visualize them that way when you're doing Lam Rim.

GSUNG BA RNAM DGOS DU MI RUNG NGAR TSE CHOG LING LAMA YONGSIN RINPOCHE SOGS SHING ZHIG ZIGSUG PUR BA There was a Lama named Tse Chog Ling. He was showing a painting of this meditation to another Lama named YONGSIN RINPOCHE, ZIGSUG PUR BA GSUNG MA'I NANG TSEN ZHIG ZIGSUG YOD PA LA Then there was one of these good guy, monster looking protectors in the painting. And YONGSIN RINPOCHE pointed to it.

CHAG TSUD ZER TE DE'I TSAB NOR BU ZHIG CI NA'ANG I would like you to paint a jewel over this figure. You see what I mean? I want you to paint something else, a neutral thing over this figure.

I don't want that figure in the painting. CHAG TSUD ZER TE DE'I TSAB NOR BU ZHIG CI NA'ANG ZHIG CI NA'ANG SHES SUM PA RE SKYAB YUL NAM RANG RANG GYI DON NA LO BO RTOG PA'I CHUG KHON BYO YIN PA LA NAM PAR LUNG GI CHUG PUR DIN NAM PAR ZHANG BA Each person in this visualization has a little table like this. And each one of them has a book like that in front of them.

And the book represents their state of mind. They have seen emptiness, which is the subject of the book. So the book is just to make a statement.

They have a book there because they have seen emptiness. Or they've had other high realizations. The book is not protection.

The ideas in the book are protection. Got it? He doesn't even want you to think that the book is holy.

The book is not holy. The ideas in the book are holy. So every person you're taking shelter with, every person you're asking for protection has a book.

But it doesn't mean they can read the book real good or something like that. It means they understand what's in it. And that's protection.

All right. LO BO RTOG PA'I Oops, I'm not supposed to do that. YIN PA LA CHUG PUR DIN NAM PAR ZHANG BA SDONG DANG PHRAG CHEN MED BA SDONG DANG SDONG means face.

DANG means silk. SDONG DANG is a special piece of cloth that you slip in here that hangs down here and has the name of the book on it. Because you can't put the name anywhere else.

So there's a special piece of silk that you write the name on. SDONG DANG SDONG DANG PHRAG CHEN MED BA That is shining with light. DUN RANG LA BSTAN PA SEL DEP You should imagine that they have a book like that.

SKYAB YUL LA KUN DUN NOR BU LUG DANG THO TSA'I SO MANG DU GSUNG KYANG There are many ways to do this visualization. Now it's got complicated, right? There's like, I don't know, there's over a thousand people in this visualization.

Rinpoche used to brag about how many he could see at one time. But anyway, there's a, say, KUN DUN NOR BU LUG KUN DUN NOR BU LUG There's a way to wrap the whole thing into one person. That's called KUN DUN NOR BU LUG So it's allowed.

It's legal. If you don't want to visualize 2,000 people one by one, you can just... KUN DUN means wraps all of them into one.

NOR BU means a jewel. LUG means the way. So there's KUN DUN NOR BU LUG means...

And that's what I personally do. I just picture my Lama. That's all, my heart Lama.

That's all I ever did. I didn't try to get the thousand Buddhas and the eight Buddhas and the sixteen elders and the eight Bodhisattvas. It got too complicated for me.

They are all holy beings and they all really exist. And maybe it would be useful to try. But I just didn't have the power to do that.

Okay. KUN DUN NOR BU LUG DANG THO TSEGS means instead of putting them out in all these circles, you can pile them up like a skyscraper. You can have this group here and this group here.

That's another legal way to do it. So MANG DU GSUM KYANG RANG LUG DI DAG ZAS PA'I KHYAB YUL KHO NJUR GSUM GAG TZANG BA'I DON DU YIN But we're going to do it this way. And he says, why?

And he says, it includes all three of the jewels. The three jewels. So you are supposed to be taking shelter in the three jewels.

And in fact, that's what makes you a Buddhist. In Christianity you have what? Baptism, right?

You get baptized, you're a Christian. I did the other thing too, but I forgot. Catechism.

You do the catechism, then you're allowed to take the body of Christ. I don't know, I was like 14 or 15. Then I had to memorize 20 things, and then they let you have the wine and the bread.

In Buddhism, what makes you a Buddhist is not like baptism or catechism. It's do you take refuge or not. If you take refuge, you're a Buddhist.

And if you don't, you're not. And then, there's a joke. We were in a country, which I won't name, where I'm not allowed to wear my robes.

And we got a thousand business people in the room to understand that you shouldn't yell back at the boss. Because if you do, you make more bosses for next week to yell at you. And they got it.

Which means they are Buddhists. It's kind of awesome. You see what I mean?

Why? Not because they accept some Lama, or they have a certain picture in their house. That doesn't make you a Buddhist.

If you yell back at the boss, you're not a Buddhist. And you can have dialogue pictures all over your house. There's a joke at Serra Monastery one day.

One monk who had, what do you call that? Clairvoyance? He said, the abbot of Serra is not a Buddhist.

Because he yells back. He doesn't get it. He doesn't understand it.

It's very interesting. So this whole big picture, he says, is to remind you not to yell back at the boss. Because the picture doesn't protect you.

They have a book in front of them. That's the understanding that there's no yelling boss in the world who didn't come from you. That's emptiness.

There's no such thing as an irritating person in your life who's not being directly produced by you. That's emptiness. You don't have to go to some Zen temple and meditate for six years.

Emptiness means every irritating person in your life is coming directly from you. And if you ask me to identify one of them who's not coming from you, I have to go, and that's emptiness. That's all emptiness means.

That's what the books mean in the picture. The people reading the books are all Buddhas. Why?

Because they didn't yell back at the boss for a long time. Okay? It's very interesting.

And the Sangha is anyone who gets it. Whether you're from China or Pakistan, or we were teaching Muslims in Jakarta, it doesn't matter. If you get it, you're a Buddha.

And so this whole visualization is all about these ideas, about the boss. The whole visualization is meant to trigger in you. When you look at the book, you're supposed to say, that's the book about emptiness.

What's emptiness? It's the lack of any irritating person in my life who's not coming from me. The whole picture is meant to protect you.

You're not supposed to make sure this guy has a red hat and this guy has a blue robe or something. It doesn't help anything. You're supposed to look at these people and say, they're teaching me that the boss is coming from me.

And that will protect you. So I think it's enough to visualize your lama sitting there saying, I know there's an asshole in your life. Everybody has one.

But they're coming from you. You know what I mean? Like that.

That's enough. Then this is a refuge visualization. If you get the 14 arhats correct, and you get the 12 Buddhas, and you're still yelling back at the boss, you don't have refuge.

It's not a practice. It won't help you. You can have all these pictures and it doesn't help you.

They're all meant to trigger the understanding that the poop in your life is coming from you. And you can stop it if you want to. That's all.

And if you don't get that when you picture it, then you're doing it wrong. And it's not going to protect you. It's not just some visual.

What he's trying to say is that let them talk to you. When you visualize them, help me. Oh, what kind of help do you want?

There's a person in my life that's really bothering me right now. Really hurting me. Yeah, so who created them?

I did. Well, maybe you could stop doing what you're doing to create them. Okay.

Then you took refuge. That's protection. That's all.

Forget all those pictures. Okay. Okay.

Okay. No, the pictures are supposed to make you think like that. And if they don't, then you're just doing it wrong.

And it's not going to help you. It'll just confuse you trying to picture all these guys. Okay.

Okay. The reason we do the visualization this way is we can get in all three of the things that protect you. The three jewels.

DE DAG KYANG GUS TANG LTAR LEP CHA I like this part. And we have ten minutes and that's nice. GUS TANG LTAR LEP CHA MA YIN PA The holy beings that you meet in your meditation are not flat like a photo.

Okay. They're not flat like a painting. It's like you look at the side and they're only this thick.

It's not like that. They're not two-dimensional. LEP CHA MA YIN DE DAG KYANG GUS TANG LTAR LEP CHA MA YIN But they're also not three-dimensional in the way that a statue is.

Okay. They don't have guts and bones and flesh. Okay.

They are not two-dimensional and they are not three-dimensional in the way you think of three-dimensional. They are made of light itself. They are made of light itself.

They have widths and they have height and length. If you look at them from the side you can see ribs and things like that. But the ribs are made of light and the head is made of light and the body is made of light.

Everything is made of light. So I really get irritated by people. When they're visualizing like tar they're like, should it be green tar?

Yes. So I'll paint green paint on tar. White tar, I will put dark green paint on her.

And you're like, no, no, it's not that. She's made of light. It's like looking at a candle flame.

It's not looking at a picture of a candle and it's not looking at a painting of a candle. It's a candle flame. They are made of flame like that.

It's beautiful. So my ,DANG SREL GOS KYI RANG BZHIN BYAS KYI BYAG DUS They have a rainbow body which is made of crystal light. So don't visualize your Lama as has flesh and blood.

They are made of light. And when you see those pictures of Buddhas and they're blue, try to think of a light bulb behind there. They are shining in light.

They are not painted blue. People tend to see them as pictures. They're not pictures.

They're people who are made of light. BZHIN DU'I BAR BA They are blazing in light. DU BA LUNG LAS DU BA LUNG is an old Vinaya scripture.

One of the ones in the Kangyur. ME LUS KYI YIBS DUG PA LTA BU ME CHE MAR GYI DAM PA LTA BU MAR ME SREL GYI NUS DU SHAGS PA LTA BU In that scripture, there are three metaphors or examples which are given for how they look. I looked it up for you.

There's four. There were four. But anyway, I'll give you all four.

Traditionally, there are three examples given in Lamrim. The ancient scripture has four. First one.

ME LUS KYI YIBS DUG PA LTA BU They are like a tongue of flame in the shape of a person. When you visualize your Lama, think of flame in the shape of a person. Number one.

Number two. ME CHE MAR GYI DAM PA LTA BU They are like a flame of a butter lamp where you throw... I don't know.

We're going to have a fire offering, right? The first fire offering we ever had was in Godstow, which was a weird place. And we had trouble with everything there.

So the first time we had a fire offering, it hailed the whole time, heavily. It hailed the whole time. And we couldn't keep the fire going.

And then finally, John Stilwell walks out with a five-gallon gasoline can. He says, Let's not around. He threw gasoline all around.

It's like boom! And then... That's the second example here.

You take ghee and you spread it all over the place on the butter lamp. And you pour new ghee into it and it shoots up. The flame shoots up.

Number three. MAR ME SER KIN NUDI SHARPA You take a bowl. You make a bowl out of gold metal.

And you polish it to a high... What do you call that? Luster, sheen.

And then you put a butter lamp inside that. And it's like really beautiful. Bright, golden, warm, sunshine color.

That's how your lama's body should be visualized. The old scripture gives a fourth example. What is the...

Oh, as if the wick of a butter lamp were sparkling in the colors found inside of jewels. So inside of rubies or sapphires or emeralds, there's a spark. I used to buy 30,000 colored stones a day.

Rubies, emeralds, sapphires. And you look for this spark. You have to pick them up and there's a spark inside.

So you have to imagine that their body is like all spark. All ruby spark, sapphire spark. That's the fourth one.

SUMGYI NGAG PAS KU PHEN ZIN ZHUG GI THU'O THI LEN ZE But this gets me on to another subject. I'll start it but I won't finish it, okay? Because we only have five minutes.

Maybe I will finish it. What the heck. You're pretty tired and it's hot.

But I don't care. Khen Rinpoche taught in New York briefly. He taught in the village on McDougal Street near NYU in a tiny little loft.

I think the third time he went in he got into a car accident. His head went through the windshield. That's why his nose was a little crooked.

That's why his voice was raspy. It crushed his voice box. And so he never went back to New York.

Then he said, I'm not driving to anywhere. If they want classes, they can come here. So anyway, one night at McDougal Street, there were like three students from NYU that were having him teach and it was cool.

Somebody asked him, after everyone gets enlightened, what do Buddhists do? Like, are they unemployed? And he's like, what, you think they're going to retire?

And here's something interesting in the text here. It says, CIGGI THIWA THI LEN ZEPA The beings in the visualization should be popping Dharma questions to each other. Like, one Buddha is asking another Buddha, are there three metaphors or four?

And he goes, four. And they talk about Dharma questions. Like the questions you asked me today.

They keep going. They don't stop. Because they just love to hear the Dharma talk.

They know what the guy is going to answer. And they knew a billion years ago. But they still ask each other the question.

Because they just like to hear the Dharma talk. And I think our practice can be similar. I used to have this pressure if I didn't come up with a new yoga series every year.

I wasn't a good teacher. And I would try to make a more exotic yoga series each year. And then I'm thinking, what if we all just did a really nice yoga that we all knew together at the retreat?

Is that so bad? I mean, does it have to be an older text that I found? You know what I mean?

Could you just practice together and be happy? And maybe somebody else teaches. And then I sit and listen.

That's kind of nice too. I think it will get that way. Like that.

It should be that way. It's just nice to hear it said by anybody. Okay.

So, I'm going to say the rest of it also because it's kind of cute. We have one minute which is going to stretch out. ,,GAL PO PO DANG GI DGOS TZANG,, ,,GAL ZAD KYI CHA BA,, ,,DUG BSIN NAS TSUL DBANG PA DANG,, ,,DUG DGOS BAR DO BA MANG DU,, ,,RUN ZIN YOD PA LTAR,, Never see, when you visualize your Lama or any other enlightened being, never see them as static.

It's not boring. They are static and nothing's happening. You're sitting there visualizing and nothing's going on.

He said that's a big mistake. They are sending out avatars constantly like a train station. Like a really busy train station.

There's departing trains and there's incoming trains. They are like, oh my god, they need an avatar on this planet. Let's send one.

You get down there quick. Every moment there are hundreds of avatars flying out of them. Then there are avatars coming back.

Hey, I finished my job. I got that planet enlightened. They're like coming back into the Lama's heart.

Lama is sending out thousands of emanations every hour. Like a busy train station. Then there are guys coming back all tired.

Okay, I emanated. I saved the world. They get to come back in.

It's like the White House. He says it's like the White House. It's like a very, very busy office.

You're like, can you get down there and take care of this? Yeah, I got it. I'm on it.

This guy is coming back. You have to see this hustle and bustle going on. He's sending out thousands and thousands of emanations every few minutes.

You've got to see this thing going on like ghost spirit figures coming and going from them to different worlds. It's not like you're sitting there and just looking at each other. I like that.

I think that would help a lot. You should try it. Yeah, we'll stop there.

Okay, and we'll talk more about it. These are all when you visualize your teacher. It's not some boring thing to sit there with them.

Personally, I also like to sometimes just sit with them anyway, and they're not doing anything special. They're just loving me, and I'm enjoying being near them. I think sometimes you have to do...

It's hard for Facebook-raised people to do that. You think you have to text somebody during the visualization. Or there's nothing going on.

It should be that you can sit with them quietly and enjoy them. You should learn to enjoy your lama and be with them quietly and just be grateful and think about the cool stuff you're doing together. You don't have to do anything special like that.

Okay? You want to take a shot? ...

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