«Дар освобождения», курс 8 «Учимся быть тихими», занятие 4

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 32:28)
So we left, again just to tell you where we are. We are preparing for meditation. We are learning how to prepare for meditation.

So we're in the part where you visualize the people who can protect you and the things that can protect you in your life. And we just got to the part where you are sitting in front of several zillion people. You're at the vanguard of them and you are leading them in asking for protection.

Everybody needs help. Everybody in the world. I was trying to choose music for the yoga class today.

So there's this Beatles song, old Beatles song, antique Beatles song called Help. And it's help, I need somebody's help. And then when I was younger, so much younger than today, I never needed anybody's help in any way.

I was very independent and now I need help. So I think everyone reaches that point in their life. They realize they need some kind of help.

Then people around you need help also. Everybody. Even the people that look very powerful.

You know like Romney or I don't know, those kind of guys. They also need protection and they need help. And sooner or later everybody needs help.

So then if you study this path, then you're in a position to give people help and share with them something that can protect them. And again it's just understanding that things are coming from you. Then maybe they won't yell back at the boss.

And that's protection. So that's where we left you. You were leading all living beings in the act of protection.

SEM CHEN THAM CHE KYI RGYANG RGYEN DO CHE PA'I SEM DGOS And then everyone behind you also seeks protection. DE YANG TSONG DUN DRAG PAR RGYEN DO ZHIG BAR BRAL NAS GSUNG KYANG Normally when you take refuge in a TSONG DUN. TSONG DUN means when you recite the refuge prayers together in a TSOK.

In a large gathering of monks. GYEN DO ZHIG BAR BRAL NAS Then you would do four combinations of the refuge prayer. GSUNG KYANG, LAM RIM CIG MI GYONG SKABS But when you are meditating in the Lam Rim teachings and you are doing it mentally, MIG PA CHAR DE KHYAD It would be easier if you read it in a TSOK.

So you would, instead of just saying four, instead of combining all four refuges at the same time, who are the four? Sangye? I used to debate with Rinpoche.

It was one of the only arguments we ever had. How many jewels are there? Three, but your teacher also, right?

I never understood why there were only three. Then he'd say, obviously your teacher is the other three or something like that. So in this particular visualization, you would pause on each one of the objects of refuge and take some time with them before you meditate.

How to do that? Just very briefly, in the teachings on refuge, which someday we should do. It's a different text.

It's Perfection of Wisdom. Someday we should go through that text, but it's very, very beautiful. When they talk about the three jewels, they say there's the apparent three jewels and then there's the real three jewels.

So we'll be talking more about that. But Buddhadharma Sangha, the apparent Buddha is all the statues of Buddha and the pictures of Buddha. I think you could even say the historical Buddha's form.

Those are Buddha, but they are not protection. And then the Dharma is... So what's the real Buddha?

It's very interesting. The Buddha that can protect you is your own emptiness. The Buddha which is part of you already.

So everyone has a little bit of Buddha in them already. There's nothing about your body which is enlightened. It will fall apart in time.

There's nothing enlightened about your body. And your mind, most of our minds are pretty confused and full of negativity and things like that. There's nothing enlightened about your mind yet.

But they have the potential to become enlightened. So body and mind have the potential to change. Why?

Because they're coming from you. If they existed out there, that would be a problem because you can't change them. But if they are coming from the seeds that you make by how you act to other people, then you have a chance.

So that fact, which is the emptiness of your body and your mind, is already enlightened. You are already... That's your Sugata Garbha.

That's your Buddha nature. There's a part about you which will not change between now and enlightenment. And that's the fact that you're not coming from anywhere but your own seeds.

And that part of you is already enlightened. It's already a Buddha. And that's what you take refuge in.

That's the Buddha jewel. And that's the only thing. So you're not taking refuge in a picture or a statue or even in a historical Buddha, the form of the historical Buddha.

You are taking refuge in the fact that you have the Buddha. You have the capacity to become enlightened. It's built into you, hardwired into your body and mind.

And you couldn't get rid of it if you wanted to. That's refuge. That's what you go for refuge to.

When you think of the Buddha, and you want protection from the Buddha, you have to think, Buddha's mind and Buddha's body came from seeds that they planted. And not from anywhere else. And I also have that.

I already have that. I also only come from my seeds and not from anywhere else. Like that.

So that when you take refuge, it's sort of beautiful. You're not asking the Buddha, oh please help me. You are thinking, I can become enlightened.

I have it already in me. It's part of me. It's already part of me.

And you take refuge in that. And you take refuge in the emptiness of the Buddha, which you already have. That's cool.

So really the Buddha jewel is not a person. It's the condition of them, that they don't come from nowhere. They come from how they treat other people.

That's the protection. You can't say, please help me, and they can help you. They can't.

Because they can't save you from your own karma. If they could, then we wouldn't be here in this way. So that's a little delicate.

Then when you take protection in the Dharma, the Dharma is the books, and the information, and the ideas. That's the Dharma. That's the apparent Dharma.

But the Dharma jewel is the understanding of emptiness. And that's all. In a person's mind.

Direct perception of emptiness in a person's mind is the Dharma jewel that when you go for refuge, you're not saying, oh, I hope the books can help me. You're saying, there's one idea in some people's minds. If I had that, I wouldn't suffer.

And it's just an idea or a perception in people's minds. Aryas. People have seen emptiness.

That's the second jewel of the three jewels. Third jewel is Sangha. The apparent Sangha is what?

Everybody who's ordained is the apparent Sangha. The real Sangha is anyone who has seen emptiness directly. Ordained or not.

Male or female. Doesn't matter. So all three jewels are only emptiness or the perception of emptiness.

It's very interesting. They all have to do with the pen. All three jewels are the pen.

Like that. So anyway, he's saying, pause on each one of the jewels and think about who they are. Who they really are at this point.

Chikyong kap, mik pa chak de, kyi re ri ne trang so. So when you're doing Lama Sangye la kyap su chiyo, Chö la kyap su chiyo, Genen la kyap su chiyo, I take refuge to them. While you're doing that, you can focus on each one.

Like that. De yang lama la kyap su chiyo, she pe tse. When you say, I go for Lama, I go for refuge to my Lama.

So in this section of the text, he's quoting a text. He's quoting a text you can use before your meditation called, Dzogchen kelsang dengen. We talked about it yesterday.

It was written by Pabongka Rinpoche's teacher. So he'll be quoting it. And he'll be saying, when you say that line, you should think this.

When you say that line, you should think this. So now he's saying here, when you say, I go for refuge to my Lama, you should think about the five groups of Lamas. Who are the five groups of Lamas?

In the middle, Lord Buddha. On the left, Manjushri, with all the Lamas of that emptiness lineage. And then on the right, Maitreya, with all the Lamas of the, you can think Master Shantideva.

You can think exchanging myself with other people. Compassion teachings. I always make it easy.

Master Shantideva's ideas are over here. Arya Nagarjuna's emptiness stuff, Tsongkhapa's emptiness stuff is all over there. Behind this, all the tantric teachings.

Basically what? You are the last person on earth who didn't get enlightened yet. Everyone.

It's a huge plot. It's Truman's world. You know.

We saw that movie. It was weird. We saw that movie.

We were all like, in New York, we were all like, God, you know. That's so cool. And then we walked home to Sixth Street, to the temple at Sixth Street.

And somebody from like seven or eight stories up dropped an egg. And it hit me right here. And I thought I was a brick.

Like I felt that. It just knocked me down. And it was going like a hundred miles an hour or something.

And it was so weird. You know, it's like, did you get it? And, and, no, I didn't get it.

Anyway, so that's the basic tantra. That's all you need. And then in front of you, who?

Your lama in their current form. In their current form. Okay, so when you take, pause on those five.

So, nama deng la kyep su dorshe. Dutsi bep jang che. Say, dutsi.

Dutsi. Bep jang. Bep jang.

Dutsi. Dutsi. Bep jang.

Bep jang. So this is going to be a practice that we're going to talk about now for probably a couple of classes. Dutsi means a mirta.

Nectar. Okay. The nectar of, we had three kinds of nectar.

What were they? The nectar of no sickness. The nectar of no death.

death, and the nectar of no, yelling back, misunderstanding. Okay, those three, we had three nectars already. So when you take refuge, when you are preparing for a meditation and you are saying, I need protection, something happens.

And duchi comes out of the people that you're asking for help. So nectar flows out of them into you. Okay, so that's called duchi bheb jang.

Bheb means to fall down, descend, and jang means to purify your heart. So this rain of nectar comes out of the people. You say, please protect me, Lama, and then this huge rain of nectar comes out of them into you.

So we'll practice it. We'll talk about it, then we'll practice it, okay? It's very beautiful, and it cleans you.

It cleans you up, okay? So that's called duchi bheb jang. And that goes all the way into tantra.

In the highest tantras, they do this practice. So this is a little bit of tantra that's mixed into the Lamrim. Deyang chen kor chik tabu duna.

If you recite, if you have your rosary, and you are saying, I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha, I take refuge in my Lama, right? And then you move a bead. That'd be four prayers and then move a bead, right?

So he's assuming you have 100 beads on your rosary. So if you were practicing, we call trang sok means, sometimes you say, I'm gonna do 100,000 refuge, right? In the mundo practice, I'm gonna do 50,000, I'm gonna do 2,000, I'm gonna do today, I'm gonna do three rounds on my rosary, okay?

100 beads. 50 beads should be devoted to cleaning, and 50 beads should be devoted to loading up realizations, okay? Half of the beads are, get rid of my bad stuff.

Half of the beads are, get new things into me, beautiful new things into me. So that's what he's saying, that ngak chit sam means about 50 beads. Mi chun chok jong, meditate that the nectar from your Lama and from the other five, those five Lamas, right?

Five groups of Lamas, that the nectar is cleaning out your negativities, okay? For 50 beads. And then for 50 beads, imagine that their good qualities are filling you up, okay?

So in tantra and in the guru yoga practice, what's it called, Lama, Ganden Hagyama, right? You see, it's called mar, mar de yan de. Mar means you clean out, down, and we'll do it later, but you imagine all your negativities are coming out of your rear end into the earth in this form of scorpions and snakes and spiders, like evil things, and that there's a huge wolf underneath the ground and he's eating them.

And that's the death, death. And then you imagine that it fills, the new nectar fills you up and it comes out the top of your head and you're all clean and bright. So that's called yan de mandro, okay?

Ntam bu nga chu tsam. De dangpo ni dujikabwa she cheway na nga u ser dang che pa pap ne. So I'll say it and then we'll practice it.

For the first half, the cleaning process, there's rainbow light coming from your teacher, the five groups of Lamas, okay? There's rainbow light coming, five colors. But white is predominant.

Okay, there's more white than blue, red, green, yellow, okay? There's a lot of white. And that means purifying your negativities.

Like if you did some nasty stuff when you were 16 or stuff like that, then you can imagine that the white color is purifying you, mostly. But all five colors are there. Dang che pa ne rang shen tham che kyi lug.

It not only enters your body, but whose body? Yeah, you got zillions of people behind you. So everybody's body is being cleaned up.

That's a beautiful practice to imagine hundreds or thousands of people, their bodies being cleaned out with this light, okay? And you're the one who started it. You asked the Lamas for light and they sent light.

And now it's filling up all of this, it's cleaning out all of these people. Tok me ne, so it's not just you, it's everybody else. And it's tok me ne sak pe dik dip.

It's all the bad deeds they've ever collected in their past lives also. It's not just whatever they did in this life. It's everything they ever collected in countless lives.

Tok me ne means you have been alive forever, okay? You have been alive forever. You have seen countless galaxies.

You've done every terrible thing. You've done almost every good thing. You've been Miss America a zillion times.

You've been President of America a billion times. You've done everything, almost, except for sea emptiness and things like that. All right, dik duk chi dang.

So anyway, all of those negativities are being cleaned out. Kye pa du, la me ku la, du pa. Sung chak pa, tuk du pa, ma te nye.

Ma gyi pa la, sok pa. Then during this process, you have to especially be sensitive to the fact that the rainbow light is clearing out mistakes you made with your teacher, okay? Any mistakes you ever made with your teacher, okay?

Those are the most serious negativities, okay? What are they? Ku la, du pa means you endangered their health.

Like you didn't take care of their health. That's called ku la, du pa. Sung chak pa means what they asked you to do, you broke that.

Chak pa means to break. They asked you to do something and you broke it or you refused or you argued with them like that. Tuk du pa means you upset them.

They can't really get upset in that sense, right? If they're a good Lama. But they can get, what do you call it?

Disturbed that you are hurting yourself. You see what I mean? It's not like they're mad at you or something like that, but they are disturbed that their heart is disturbed by the fact that you are hurting yourself.

Like a good parent would be, like a mother would be. They're not really angry at their children. They're concerned when they're doing something that would hurt them.

And then they don't have any peace of mind. They don't sleep well because they're worried about you, okay? Like that.

So things that you've done. Nyi ma gyi pa means you said something negative to them. You said something.

Nyi ma means either verbally or mentally. You thought something bad about them. You thought something impure about them, like that.

Or you said something impure. Gyi pa la so pa, et cetera. Do na lama la tenpay dik de tam je.

So all of the negativities, all the mistakes you've ever made towards your teacher. Dukkhu dang sul khu nam par chok tun. Dukkhu dang sul khu means they come out in the form of like black smoke or coal, some kind of really evil black stuff coming out of you.

In some traditions, it comes out of the bottom of your body, okay? And then you have to think the rainbow light has come. It has cleaned you.

And then all of this crap is coming out. This bad stuff is coming out. I used to clean the...

Rinpoche made me... I was his slave for 25 years. And he used to...

People would come to work on the house. Like the guy would come to clean the... In New Jersey, you have...

What do they call those things? Heater, boiler. It's a boiler.

It runs off of this really terrible fuel oil. And everybody has one in the basement. And the fumes come up to the house all winter.

It's very cool. And so the first time they cleaned it, he said, you watch the guy and you steal it. You learn how to clean it, because it costs like 50 bucks for the guy to come.

So I sat in the basement with the cleaner guy and he cleaned out the boiler. And it's really... It's terrible work.

It's like all soot, black crap, and everything's covered with it. The guy comes out all covered with it and his face is all black and covered with soot. And then I had to do it for 25 years after that.

But then there's this process. You clean, you clean, and it gets cleaner and cleaner. And then finally you can just wipe your hand on it.

You could wipe... What do they do in the military with a white glove? And there's nothing there.

It's totally clean. But it takes a long time and you have to keep cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. So this is like that.

When the nectar comes down through first, there's terrible, terrible deeds come out. Terrible things you said to your Lama, things you said about your Lama. Terrible bad stuff comes out.

And then you keep cleaning. And then you get down to little things you said, like that, or little things you did. And then finally you know you're clean.

Okay, and like that. DE NAS MYUR PA BYED So then you have to think, all the soot is out of me. DE NAS NYID PA DRIN CHOG RGYAS PA NI DRIN CHOG RGYAS PA NI And then after the cleaning is done, they have to fill you up with nice things.

Okay, so the rainbow light will come and fill you up with nice things. DRIN CHOG NGO'I LAMA'I KUSUM THUGYI YONDAN NAM The way, the good qualities of how your Lama acts, the good quality of how your Lama speaks and how they think. Be careful who you choose as your Lama, right?

I'm just teaching you text, right? Your personal teacher, your personal Lama. Find the one that fits you.

And take a lot of time. And be careful. And choose them wisely.

And don't put yourself in a position where later you are trying to deal with stuff that you see in them. You see what I mean? Like, don't be lazy when you choose a teacher and then spend 20 years trying to not dislike them or something like that, or not see them in a bad way or something like that.

Like, it would be wiser, I think, to take a long time and find a teacher who you really respect and someone that you think is really a good person, rather than quickly taking a teacher and then struggling with your own heart for a long time about things you see in them, that you think you see in them. So be very slow about taking a teacher. And it's like getting married, right?

It's more serious than getting married. And it's not wise to get married quickly. Like, you should take your time and really check the person out.

Maybe live with them for a while and see how it goes. See them on a bad day. Rather than putting you and them through the pain of you struggling and doubting them and having problems with them, you should think carefully before you take a Lama and take a long time.

And then there's a part in the Lam Rim, Pabongka Rinpoche's look says, look, spend a couple of years looking for the perfect Lama. When you don't find them, take the best one you can find. He's like that.

He's like pretty practical. But once you take them, then don't have this, what do you call it? You're doubting them and then they have to babysit you all the time.

And choose wisely, choose with your eyes open and then commit and then go for it. And don't sit there and struggle all the time about it. You know what I mean?

Like that. Find the best one you can and then commit and then deal with it. You know?

And don't like agonize for the rest of your life. Again, whatever you see in them is ultimately coming from you, right? Their qualities will ebb and flow according to your own karma.

And if you realize that, then you'll be happy. It's like you get married. It's the same with your husband or wife, okay?

It's the same thing. You get married, they seem really perfect. And then after a couple of months, you start to see some flaw in them, which tend to escalate.

And at that point, you have to grab yourself and say, this is coming from me. Then what do you do about it? So my husband, when I met him, he was so supportive.

And now he's, he was so, what do you call that? Affectionate. He would hug me every time I came home.

Now he doesn't even look up from his computer. Or he puts the newspaper between me and him during breakfast. The whole breakfast, there's this, I have to read the back of the newspaper, the advertisements.

Then a Buddhist, a Buddhist person thinks, this is coming from me. How can I fix it? I have to be more warm to people.

I have to be more warm. A Buddhist person's reaction is not, put the goddamn newspaper down and look at me. A Buddhist person's reaction is, is I'm not being warm enough to other people.

They look immediately to themselves. And then they make a big effort at work or in the grocery store to smile at people. Do you need to know where the toilet paper is?

It's on aisle four. Be more friendly to people. And fix the husband that way.

That's how a Buddhist person deals with things, with their husband or with their Lama. I must not, my Lama seems a little cold or distant. I should be more warm.

That's just a Buddhist person's way of thinking. And it's different from other people. They don't say, oh no, my Lama's not what I thought they were.

And it's the same with your husband or your wife. They're not what I thought they were. Now what do I do?

And a Buddhist person thinks, whatever you see wrong, then you have to think, well, then I should do the opposite. And rather than being an agonizing process, that's a happy process. That's a fun process.

If you have trouble with your husband is not affectionate anymore, then the solution according to Buddhism is you be more friendly to people at the market. And that's fun. The solution is always fun.

It's not like this, oh, I don't know, Lama's so, you know, like that. You're thinking, okay, so I have to be more honest or I have to be more affectionate or you, and then it's fun. The solution is enjoyable.

If it's not enjoyable, then there's a problem. Okay, all right. Okay, let's see then.

Let's see then, Chöpa Nei Bapme. Dutsay Serpa Sheche. So when the nectar comes to fill you up with nice qualities, Nanga, it comes in five colors, but the yellow or the gold is predominant.

Okay, so for cleaning, the white is predominant. For giving you nice qualities, the gold is predominant. Okay, but they're still all five colors.

Chöpa Nei Bapme. RANG BZHIN SEMS CAN THAMS CAD KYI TSE DANG SON NAM LUNG RTOG GI YON DANG CI DANG SKYES PA DANG LAM MED KUSUM THUGYI BYIN NA THOB PAR BSAM Then you have to think that you and the other people's life, obstacles to your life, long life and health have been cleared away. SON NAM, you have gained new good karma, lots of new good karmas filling you up.

LUNG RTOG GI YON DANG LUNG means your knowledge of the information, spiritual information is filling you up. You have all the spiritual information, which doesn't do any good unless you have, what did he say? Yeah, you have to be practicing it, right?

Learn it, practice it, right? On the seat, on the meditation seat, do both. So those are filling you up.

The ideas are filling you up and the practical implementation of those ideas is filling you up. You know what it is to be a good person and you're trying to be a good person. Sometimes there's a disconnect between those two.

I know the 14 ways to become a good person, but I'm a creep. Okay, like that. It's a little dangerous.

And most especially, your Lama's qualities are filling you up. So let's do one short meditation and then, how's the, what time am I supposed to stop? I'm supposed to stop at 10?

Let's do one short meditation and then we'll take a little break. Clean you out and they fill you up, okay? And you get from them, the nectar supposedly makes you act like them, talk like them and think like them.

So if you don't want that, don't make that person your Lama, okay? I think sometimes it's useful to think of it that way. They say that if you take a person as a, my friend Art Engel, who translated this, he started to channel his Lama.

When he teaches, he talks just like Ken Rinpoche and he grew a mole in the same place where Rinpoche had one. I mean, really, and so I, be careful. All right, yeah.

[Говорящий 2] (32:35 - 32:47)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

[Говорящий 1] (32:55 - 46:18)
Yeah. So Tim's question was, when the Lama's clearing you out of the bad stuff, and maybe you find spiders and roaches and centipedes and all this, they're kind of useful, I think, scorpions, but when they come out, does it have to be things you remember doing towards your Lama? I don't think so.

And I think if you can just surrender to them and say, clean me. You know, you take Kuni Lama, Kuni, that prayer we did Friday night, the most famous lines are, and in Tibet, it's a, what do you call it? It's an expression.

Kuni Lama, Kuni Lama. You know, just do the necessary thing. I don't know anything.

Clean me. Clean me out, you know? I don't remember what I did and I'm too stupid even to know when I misbehaved to you.

So just, can you clean it out, you know? And it's Kuni Lama, you know, you're the boss. Just take care of it.

Okay. I worked for the Library of Congress briefly and the boss there used to tell me, do the necessary. So anyway, yeah.

Did you have a question? Is this meditation, the cleansing is immediate or do you just plant the seeds? Is the cleansing immediate or do you plant the seeds?

I think it depends on how much faith you have in your Lama. I think it could be immediate. I suggest surrender to them.

Clean however much you have to clean. And then instead of trying to direct the cleaning, just surrender to the cleaning and feel it, almost feel the nectar, tactile sensation of the nectar coming down and just tell them to do it as long as you think it's necessary. And then relax and let them do the cleaning.

Okay, like that, okay. Kusumtuki junna. Deshindu sanghi lakyap suchiyo.

Now we go on to, so first you would say, I take refuge in my Lama. And then you'd say, I take refuge in the Buddha. And now the Buddha's gonna clean you, okay?

So that's the second one. Shepe kab ngakluki gyudeshi yidam dang. There's a mistake in the Tibetan.

It should be yidam ningbo with no, yeah, Y-I-D-A-M. Then there's a damkha here. Damkha means you have a choice in the visualization.

When you do the Buddha, you can imagine that a tantric angel is cleaning you, or you can imagine that the cult classic Buddha is cleaning you, okay? It's up to you. You can do it.

If you have an initiation, you can request them in the form of a tantric angel to clean you, okay? Shepe ngakluk means you can do it the tantric way. Gyudeshi means the four classes of tantra.

Yidam, you can choose which angel you have the connection to. Or you can go doluk. Doluk means you can follow the sutra system, the open system.

And chokyi tukul, which you can see there in Ningbo's guna. Chokyi tukul means, chok means supreme. Tukul means emanation, right?

Like they call high lamas tukuls nowadays, right? So chokyi tukul means the classic historical Gautama Buddha shape, okay? I like to call it cult classic.

Chokyi number 10, nam la, dutsi bep jang che, then the same thing, the same nectar comes. Sangye la tenpe dikpa ni. Now there starts a kind of a depressing section.

If I had written it, I would have put some happier things in there. But he's gonna list all the bad things you could do towards the three jewels, okay? And which you should clean.

And that's on your homework, okay? Just cause it's a list and I like lists. So there's gonna be a list of mistakes you can make towards the three jewels.

And then you have to imagine you are cleaning them. They are being cleaned, okay? Number one, de shin shek pe ku la ngen sem gi chak jenpa.

This is one of the five immediate, these are one of the five most serious bad karmas you can do and this one is called drawing blood from an enlightened being in malice, okay? In malice. And the in malice is important because if you are, or read, and you are taking a blood sample, you are not breaking your vows.

You see what I mean? It has to be out of malice. So anyway, that would be the first example.

Trying to harm an enlightened being, okay, physically. Number two, ku la leg ne ki ched dak pa. Now they're getting into the apparent Buddha, okay?

And they're talking about images of the Buddha, statues or paintings or things like that. And then we're not supposed to try, we're not supposed to say, that's it. I like this Tsongkhapa.

I like his ears. Or we're not supposed to say his nose is a little big. But like that, then you've made some bad karma towards the Buddha jewel.

So to judge the quality of representations of an enlightened being is a special bad karma, okay? To say, this is a cheap, this is one of those Nepalese thangkas. The Buddha's ears are too small and like that.

We'll talk more about it. But to critique images of an enlightened being is a special bad karma, okay? Ku la leg ne ki ched dak pa.

Number three, tamar dopa means, in Tibet, this doesn't happen so much in America, but in Tibet, an image of a Buddha was one of the only expensive things that a monk would own. So your robes are worth nothing. And your bowl is a wood bowl, it's not worth anything.

But you might have a nice Buddha image in your room. So then if you have to borrow money from somebody, you might put it up as a collateral. You might say, you can keep the image if I don't pay you back.

And then that's a special bad thing, okay? So number three is, what do you call that? Using images for collateral, okay?

Okay, pawning, yeah, pawning, yeah. Pawning images, like treating images as financial capital. What do you call that, capital, right?

But it's not wrong to do that if you have to do it. But to think of them as capital is a mistake. To think that, you don't think I have a nice Buddha image on my altar.

You think I have about $48 there at the pawn shop, okay? It's okay to, if you're desperate, it's okay to do something like that. But you shouldn't think of the image as that, as its potential pawning value, okay?

Number four, song gi du she, nyo tsong che pa. This is interesting. It says, nyo tsong che pa means to buy or sell images.

To buy or sell images. But then it says, song gi du she. Song gi du she means with a, what do you call that?

With a conception that this is just commodity. This is a commodity, okay? Why did he add that?

It's okay to sell images, and it's okay to buy images. And it's okay to make them for your business, okay? Or books, Dharma books.

It's okay to do that, but the du she has to be correct. See, the du she cannot be, how much can we make from this particular book? It should be, we wanna help people, we wanna spread the Dharma.

We have to charge enough to keep the publishing house going, like that. But you don't think of the thing as a business. I'm in the business of helping people, and I need to sell the book because I get charged for the paper.

Then that's okay. But you're not thinking of it as, just as business, okay? We have a publisher in Latin America who, apparently, I don't know them personally.

I've met them, but their only interest is how much money they can make or how many books we'll sell. And so you, it's okay to buy and sell books or images, but it should be with the intention to help people. And it's okay to make a profit and support yourself and keep your publishing house going, but it shouldn't be with, it should be with the intent to help people.

And you have to be extremely careful about it. Because I think at the beginning, you're always, what do you call it, idealistic? And you start the publishing house, and then after like 10 years, you're like, damn, we're not making enough money.

You know, your mind changes. So you got to be really watchful when you get into the Dharma business, not to make it a business, okay? All right, number five.

Tukten ngen sen di shikpa. Tukten means, we had kusum tukten. A foundation for the body, speech, and mind.

What's that mean? It's the Tibetan word for an altar, okay? The place where the body, speech, and mind can rest is called an altar.

It's the Tibetan word for an altar. Ngen sen di shikpa means to destroy it out of malice, okay? To destroy a temple or a church or a synagogue or a mosque or an altar out of malice, okay?

Why did he say out of malice? Yeah, sometimes you got to move it, or they're building a new mosque in Marseilles. They're tearing down the old one.

That's okay. You have to tear down the old one. That's okay.

It's not ngen sen. It's not out of malice. It's so you can build a new one, okay?

Sokien, et cetera, okay? Then there's probably a thousand more. He gave five.

Now he's going to discuss those five. So we'll start the discussion, but then we'll stop, okay? The dhammo ni le jing gi do gyok pang te ku la trak chung ma tabu yin pe rang re min jung.

Technically speaking, the act of drawing blood from a Buddha out of malice must be done towards the historical Buddha. That's just the scriptural description of it. It has to be done towards Gautama Buddha.

To do the real one. It should be done towards Shakyamuni Buddha. So we are lucky because we can't do it, okay?

He's gone, all right? So he says, historically, le jing, which is Devadatta, this is the half-brother of the Buddha who was extremely jealous of the Buddha and constantly trying to hurt him. So one day he tried to assassinate the Buddha, and he made a catapult with a big stone and he tried to kill the Buddha with it.

He waited until the Buddha got to the right place. And it didn't hit the Buddha's body, it just hit his foot. And it caused a small cut on his foot.

So technically he broke that vow. He did draw blood from the Buddha, from a Buddha. Trak pang te ku la trak chung ma.

Then there's thousands of debates about can an enlightened being get their foot cut by somebody? I'm not gonna go into that. When I teach the Abhidharma, which will take 30 years, we won't do that, okay?

Chung ma tabo yin pe, rang re min jung yang. So we can't do this bad deed, but yang shen nam jung te, but we can do the other ones. And obviously you could hurt your lama or some other high being, right?

You could draw blood from them out of anger, okay? Chung ma tabo yin pe. So that's one of the most serious deeds you can do.

Lek ngen kyi che tak pa ni. So now he's on to the second one. What does it mean?

What was the second one? Yeah, what do you call it? Critiquing the quality of a Buddha image, okay?

Che tak pa ni kun dai so yip la kyun tak pa te refers to seeing faults in the, the, what do you call it? The fashioning of an image of an enlightened being. Did you have a question?

[Говорящий 2] (46:19 - 46:28)
So for example, like that tanka, like now there's a winged tanka with a wheel of, right? With the pig and the snake.

[Говорящий 1] (46:28 - 46:29)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mixed up.

[Говорящий 2] (46:30 - 46:30)
Yeah, mixed up.

[Говорящий 1] (46:31 - 54:03)
He's gonna talk about it. It's coming. Nara Neljor Chambu, there was a great yogi in, he's gonna tell a story about that.

There was a great yogi in Tibet. Cho la jamyang kikushik siksaput. He showed Atisha, Lord Atisha, an image of Manjushri, right?

Siksaput, so you don't say show in Tibetan, you say he offered it to his honorable eyes. What do you think of this Manjushri, okay? Di lek ni jindal lek.

Do you think this is a pretty good Manjushri or not? Lek na, if it's good. Romba gar geway jimbe ser so shi jin ne.

If it's good, I'm gonna use the four gold coins I got from this other monk and I'm gonna buy it, okay? Ne lemba, lemba la shupe, I'll buy it. I'll get the four coins from this monk and I'll buy it.

Jo shel ne, and Lord Atisha replied, jetun jampa yu yang gi ku la lekpa me, mi lekpa me. It's impossible for Manjushri to have any problems with how he looks, okay? All right, Manjushri is perfect, physically perfect, okay?

You don't have to worry about it. Me, fa sol ni ding. The skill of the artist was only middling.

Middling, I mean average. The skill was only average, okay? You can criticize the artist, but you can't criticize the image, okay?

There was a funny joke between me and Mama Chuky about the skill of the Madana maker, but we'll talk about that some other day. Anyway, you can criticize the skill of the artist. You can say the artist was not so skilled, and that's a big joke in the monastery.

And people say, do you like the Thangka? The artist is not so skilled. Je balay ku la kyun do mi rum.

So it's improper to criticize the image itself. It's a bad karma to say the ears are too big, but it's acceptable to say that the artist didn't know what they're doing about the three animals in the middle of the Wheel of Life. So I wouldn't suggest buying it, because it's true, okay?

Dhamma jopa, so he's on to the next two, which are to use it as a collateral, and to engage in the business of selling images with the conception that they are only objects of trade. Okay? Nyo tsong chepa shintu mangwa thong.

Shintu mangwa means there are lots of people doing that, and in Tibet, of course, it was a big, huge business, making images and selling them. It was a huge business. Like you go to, in Mexico, you go to those, where was I?

I was in Guadalajara, I think. Mexico City. I'm telling somebody, I want to go to a churreria.

Churreria. And it's the only Spanish word I can pronounce all around. And then they took me to a churro-selling store.

But next door, there's a big church. And of course, there's like five folding tables and people selling rosaries and selling Jesus. We were in Jerusalem last month, and it's a huge business around the place where Jesus was crucified.

We went to see that place and to honor the place. And then around it, there was thousands of guys selling, and my rosary's cheaper than his rosary, and like that, anyway. And holy land from the holy dirt in the rosary, and then you're wondering, I wonder where he got it from.

But anyway. So that's it, Tsongkha Dushan. Chittare.

Tongche. You see Tongche? You got it, Ningbo?

What's tongla? Path of seeing. So tong means to see.

Che means what? Dharma. But che also means existing thing.

Tongche is an idiom in Tibetan that means you see this going on everywhere. It's a perceivable thing, meaning you see this everywhere. Tongche means you see this every day.

People making money off of images. Selling, people making a business out of images. Tongche tarte.

Gendar shindu dzem gu. You must avoid that kind of thing, okay? And again, people like us, we start out making a Dharma press.

We have a good intention. We lose money, usually. Or we just squeak by.

But then after 10 years, your mind changes. Something happens in your mind, and you're like, god damn, we're not making enough money off this book. So you have to be careful in time.

The motivation is fragile, okay? You have to keep the motivation. It's okay to make money.

It's okay to make a living off of it. Because you're spreading the Dharma. But be very careful, okay?

All right. Dzem gu. Ge be kap top chu.

Min jig pa shi ma de pa chop ge sok. If you want to do a more, what do you call it? Detailed visualization of what you're getting from the Buddha, right?

Like now we're into the section of what you get. The nectar has finished cleaning, and now the nectar's filling you up, okay? So what's gonna be, what are you getting from the Buddha?

From the Lama, you're getting how they act, how they speak, and how they think. What are you getting from the Buddha? Then from the Buddha, you are getting the 10 powers, the four kinds of fearlessness, and what are called the 18 unique qualities, okay?

So I'll say it again. 10 powers, four kinds of fearlessness, and then 18 unique qualities. He doesn't name them.

I would like to do it, okay, in the next class. So we'll stop there, but I'm gonna go on a huge detour, and I'm gonna take you through the qualities of an enlightened being, okay? So he just mentions the names of them, but he doesn't tell you what they are.

So I went and pulled them out for you, okay? So in particular, I enjoy the four forms of fearlessness, like Buddha's not afraid to say, hmm. Like Buddha's like, hmm.

They're all with regard to what the Buddha's not afraid to say in public, which somehow appeals to me. So I like those qualities. So I thought we would go through them and talk about them, okay?

And then we'll do that. We'll do that in the next class, okay? So have a good yoga class.

Sashi.