«Дар освобождения», курс 8 «Учимся быть тихими», занятие 13

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 25:32)
We're on day five, right? Here we go. We were in the middle of the story that, if you think that this fourth practice is not very important, we have the example of Je Tsongkapa, who undertook the garden practice, did mandalas, did prostrations, and because of them had a vision of the five greatest masters of emptiness.

We're halfway through the vision. Because he saw the Sanskrit for the Buddhapalita's explanation of emptiness written across the sky, he thought, maybe I should check out the book itself. Up till then, he'd been having some questions about emptiness.

Some things were unclear to him. And he thought, maybe I should check out the book itself. So he decided he would read the whole thing carefully.

Buddhapalita Choma Sikpa. So he started to read it. RGYAL GANG NYID RAB BYED CHOG BSKYED PA'I THEG DU At the 18th chapter.

18th chapter of what? The Root Verses on Wisdom. I think Nancy Karen and I kind of decided that that's what we'll do in New York.

So that'll take six or seven years of three jewels programs. We'll go through the original text on emptiness, which is extremely difficult. It's better to try to read it after you had a glass of wine.

Not that I would ever drink wine. But you've got to be in a separate space to understand it. So it's not been well translated, I don't think so.

Personally, I don't think so. So I think it would be nice to do it. It would be like revolutionary to do it.

Anyway, Je Tsongkapa was in the 18th chapter. UMA THANG RGYAL BA'I LTA BA PHYI MA MED PA RTOG PA'I TSUL BSTAN He TSUL BSTAN, you got that one? TSUL BSTAN means he pretended.

He pretended to have the direct perception of emptiness. Why do they say pretend? We say, oh, he saw it a zillion years ago and he's just pretending.

Everything is just pretending. He's trying to teach us how to be a spiritual person. He saw emptiness a long, long time ago.

So that whole process was a play for our benefit. He was like, oh, I need to go on a retreat. And then he goes on a retreat and says, oh, before I meditate, maybe I'll do all these preliminary practices like mandalas and prostration.

Oh, look, there's all these beings in the sky. Maybe I should read the commentary. And then he reads the commentary and then in the 18th chapter, he's like, oh, look, I saw emptiness.

Then you're supposed to think, oh, if I want to see emptiness, I have to do what he did. Which is what? He studied this visualization, the garden visualization.

So we're going to be working on that. So here we go. BDAG PA'I DRI NA, DE'I NGAG NAS GZIG PA YIN KYANG, DE'I RE THUG RGYUD MIN PAS, DE LTAR RTOG PA'I TSUL BSTAN PA YIN DE'I NGAG NAS GZIG PA YIN KYANG He had seen emptiness a long time before.

DE'I RE THUG RGYUD MIN PAS But he wanted to make a point to us that he had done these preliminary practices. They had ripened his mind and therefore he had seen emptiness. He did a play for us, TSUL BSTAN PA YIN.

DE'I GZHIN DU DANG PO'I KHO MA'I NAM THAR MANG ZHING There's also a lot of stories of other lamas of past, days gone by, who did the same thing. They wanted to see emptiness. In the monastery it's very interesting.

You do 12 years, the first 12 years of the Geshe study are lower middle way. You study slightly defective middle way. Slightly wrong explanation of emptiness for 12 years.

First, your first 12 years, Abhisamala Amkara. Then it's a tradition to go do a retreat. Then you get Madhyamika Prasangika.

You get the higher school. You're supposed to do 12 years of prep on something that's not quite the full thing. Then you're supposed to go do a retreat.

When Khen Rinpoche did his 12th year retreat, he did it in Tibet and he almost died. Something very bad happened to him in the cave. He was in a cave.

He almost passed away. They say that it's some kind of very heavy karma. You're about to study the highest presentation of emptiness and then you go and you purify yourself.

You go out by yourself and you purify. Then you come back and you start four years of Prasangika. There are many stories like that, says Pabongka Rinpoche.

RANG RES SPYOD GYUR GYI RJES KYANG SANGS RTEN ZIN GYI BSKYANG There was also a Lama name in this tradition who was called RJES KYANG SANGS RTEN ZIN. One day he went to DAG PO BRUM PA, which is BRUM PA in the state of DAG PO or the area of DAG PO, on a CHUNG CHOG. CHUNG CHOG means town.

CHO GA means ritual. CHUNG CHOG means you go to town. That was that thing where you go to a sponsor's house and they give you lunch.

You read the Diamond Cutter Sutra and they fall asleep. CHUNG CHOG LA PHAD PAR He went, RJES KYANG SANGS KHAS GRUB LA PAS BLO GYUR ZHIG GYUR ZHOG GSUM PAR He told KYANG SANGS KHAS GRUB, could you go get us a book to read? You choose a book.

I grew up in New Jersey with the Kalmyk Mongolians. They liked the Diamond Cutter. That's how I got to know the Diamond Cutter because we had to read it at the people's houses.

The monks would be sitting around and they'd say, how can we get to this faster? Let's split the book up. Then they split the book up.

They give everybody like 10 pages. You recite different chapters at the same time. Anyway, then you can get out in about an hour.

BLO GYUR ZHIG GYUR ZHOG GSUM PAR KHA DAM BYAS TU ZHIG DPU BAS That monk offered him a book called KHA DAM BYAS TU. KHA DAM means Kadampa, right? From the Kadampa era.

BYAS TU means The Treasured Instructions or The Cherished Instructions. It's a book called The Cherished Instructions of the Kadampa. DPU BAS DE NANG GI LO SBYONG RGYUR BSGOM DOR BYED LU YANG SIGMA THAG Then he was just reading it out loud for the family.

You can do that two ways. You can space out. DBYANG RGYUR DU LTA BA'I PHYI MA MED PA'I RTOGS SU BSTAN BRAL PA DANG NGAG NAS SRIB PA SRIB PA YIN KYANG DER RE GYI RGYUD MIN PA'I DE DAG RTOGS SU BSTAN PA You're checking out their house.

What kind of dog do they have? Or you can actually think about it while you're reciting it. Apparently he was the second kind.

Then he came to a part called RGYUR BSGOM DOR BYED LU YANG This is the song of a Lama named Gyal Gom Donje. SIGMA THAG, BYAMS SBYUG GI SEMS SPYOD MIN THUB RGYUD LA GRUNG Then suddenly he had an experience of bodhichitta. He had a sudden, spontaneous experience of bodhichitta.

What's that? Stirring coffee at the Starbucks. I don't want you to think bodhichitta is like universal love.

It just makes me... It's that vision, you know. I will make coffee for the old lady.

I will find a boyfriend. People will copy me. And then people will copy them.

And then there won't be any lonely ladies in my city anymore. Because I'm stirring the coffee. That's bodhichitta.

He had a spontaneous, direct experience of bodhichitta. Direct experience is different. Direct experience of bodhichitta is different than stirring the coffee.

Direct experience is heavy. Direct experience is that your heart chakra opens. Heart chakra never opens.

Normally the heart chakra never opens. It's got three knots and it's hard. It's very severely constricting the central channel.

But if you can open the heart chakra, which is the purpose of yoga asanas, which is one of the purposes of yoga asanas, especially twists and like that. They didn't do those in ancient times to lose weight. Although it works.

You do it to try to open the heart chakra. If you open the heart chakra, you have a very unique experience of a stream of prana. You see prana for the first time flowing out of your heart directly, like a column or a pillar or a bar of prana.

And then it triggers clairvoyance, some kind of clairvoyance. The human mind is capable of seeing other worlds. If you see one, you might as well see a billion.

It's the same principle. It's not harder to see a billion than one. If you can see one other planet with people living on it at the same time as you're sitting here eating a hot dog or something, then there's no problem to see a billion other planets.

At that moment, when you have the first direct experience of bodhichitta, you can look into the faces of countless living creatures, not just humans and aliens too. All kinds of creatures on countless planets within a minute. Your mind has this capacity.

The normal state of your mind is to not be limited by time or space. The knot in your chakra, which causes the chakra, limits you to one moment in time, like whatever time it is, 2.38 on Thursday. You are limited to one time and place by an accident of your chakras.

If you could open them, you would be back to your normal self, which can see all things in all times. If you open the heart chakra, you have this direct experience of the faces of countless beings on countless worlds at the same time, or within a minute. They kind of go pretty fast.

You have this intense love for them at that moment. You have this knowledge and you have the vision that you will take care of all of them. Those kind of three things happen.

You see their faces. You have this intense love for them. You realize that you will be taking care of them personally, each one.

That's cool. That's real bodhichitta. The stirring thing is like warming up.

So anyway, he had a... SPYOD MIN in Tibetan. You got it?

SPYOD MIN means the real thing, not over coffee. He had the real thing. SPYOD MIN GZUGS RGYUD LA THUB PHYIN YIN GYOR GCOD GZUN BDEBS SKABS The next day he was reciting the preliminary practices, which is what we're studying.

GRO KUN ZE BA'I BYED DANG RGYAS BA CHEN When he got to the lines which say to have the goodness, to care for every living creature and love them. When he got to that line, DE'I RDZE BA PO'I RTZEN GCOD PA NA'ANG Even if someone would mention the name of the person who wrote that prayer, GCOD GCOD TSA LING LING BYAS SU GCOD GCOD means here. What do you call that?

Third eye. Westerners call it third eye. He would get a very unusual sensation of heat here.

He would get a very strong sensation of warmth here in his forehead. TSA LING LING BYAS SU DE NA RGYUD MIN PA NA RKYEN DRANG BA LA BRTEN NAS RTOG PA LOG PA DU SKYE BA LA BA DE LTA BU RE If you make the blister ready to pop, then even a few words of a prayer can send you over the top. That's like a rap song.

How do you get the blister ready to pop, to go over the top, is that you do these preliminary practices that we're going to talk about. You do that too. LOG PA DU SKYE BA LA BA DE LTA BU RE DUL PA'I GZHAN NAS KYANG There's a Lama called Dulpa.

He said, SHAR LA TSOGS SOGS DANG DRID PA BYUNG PHRA DANG LAM MA LA GZOD DAB ZHING ZHING ROL ZHING DANG There might be a mistake there, I don't know. GZHAN NAS NEN DANG GIS TZAM NA LOG YANG YANG MI SKYE YIN YANG PA ZHIG KYANG DU BYED SO NA MI DUS PA'I CI ZHIG LTAR BA SKYE BA YIN This Lama said, DUS PA ZHING NAS KYANG SHAR LA TSOGS SOGS DANG DRIS PA BYUNG If you take the time before you meditate to collect some fast good karma with the garden and to clean out your negative karmas, and if you go ahead and do this supplication to your teacher and your close angels, then if you really put your heart in it and concentrate, then there could be a state of realization that you think you couldn't get even if you sat there for a hundred years. Like somebody describes that bodhichitta, right?

Real bodhichitta. And you hear somebody describing, you say, if I worked for a hundred years, I don't think I could get that. There can be a state of realization where you see every living creature in the universe directly.

And then you think to yourself, okay, that sounds good. I sort of think it might be possible, but I just think it would take me probably 200 years to get to that. Something like that.

DU BYED SO NA MI DUS PA'I DU BYED means anything that was caused by causes. Anything that has happened because of causes. SO NA means, those of you who are studying Tibetan, SO NA is a very profound ancient word.

SO NA means primordial state, something like that. It's a very, very difficult word in Tibetan. SO NA means like the state from the beginning with no time.

The condition from the beginning with no time. SO NA MI DUS means things don't sit there in some primordial condition. What it means is all things change.

Nothing stays the way it was a billion years ago. Even billion-year-old things change. What's he talking about?

My inability to have a direct experience of bodhichitta. Okay, you've had that for a billion years, no problem. The nature of things is to change.

Even if it's been that way for thousands of lifetimes, billions of lifetimes, you can change it. It's changeable. SO NA MI DUS.

Time doesn't stand. That's kind of the feeling of that expression. Time doesn't stand still.

Things move on. If a monkey bangs on a typewriter long enough, a novel will come out. Just randomly, for a million years.

At some point, it'll happen. This is supposed to be encouraging words. It'll come.

It'll come. You'll get bodhichitta. ZHES DANG.

DAM PA'I KHO MED MED SNGAGS KYI GSOS NYID DU'ANG The advices of our tradition say, SRAB BYANG DANG GSOL BDAB DU BZHIN DU GAL CHE Collecting some good karma just before you meditate. Doing some quick cleanup of your negativities just before you meditate. Asking your lama for help just before you meditate.

BZHIN DU GAL CHE. They are very important. DRA SA CHEN PO TSOS PA KHO NA CHE PA MIM PAR DRA means a corner of a wall.

The word for a monk in colloquial Tibetan is DRA BA. Say DRA BA. DRA BA It means walled one who stays in the walls of a monastery.

See what I mean? In Tibetan, the word for a monk, the ancient word is GELONG or BIG ZHU like that. But the modern world, they'll say, Are you a DRA BA?

Meaning, do you live inside walls? Here it says, he's talking about a DRA SA What's DRA SA mean? DRA SA Yeah, it means Los Angeles.

DRA means Angeles. SA means the place of the angels. DRA SA means the place of the angels.

The British misspelled it like they did so many names, like Moscow. L-H-A It should have been H-L-A. DRA SA So they're stuck with it forever.

DRA SA DRA SA means place where the DRA BA stay. It means a monastery. DRA SA is a colloquial word for a monastery.

DRA SA CHEN PO means in the great monasteries, which in our tradition refers to the three great monasteries, which is, the greatest is Sera. Then it doesn't matter, Ganden or Debu or Debu or Ganden. They're pretty much the same.

These are called DEN TSA TSUM. These are the three great monasteries in our tradition. DRA SA CHEN PO, in these great monasteries, TSOS PA, what's TSOS PA?

Not SOS PA, TSOS PA. TSOS PA TSOS PA, TSOS PA TSOS TSOS PA is the Tibetan word for debating. TSOS PA TSOS, to debate a debate means to debate.

TSOS PA means argument or disputation. It can also mean a quarrel, but it's the Tibetan word for debating in a monastery. In the great monasteries, TSOS PA CHEN PO MIM PO, we don't spend all our time only on debating.

We also go to TSOGS. What's the TSOGS? TSOGS in the monastery means to go and do your morning prayers together.

And CHU RA, what's CHU RA? Debate, debate ground. Again, CHU means Dharma, DRA means wall.

CHU RA, which we pronounce CHU RA in colloquial, is the debate ground. It's a beautiful place in Tibet. It was a large square, like all the space outside here.

It was covered with a gravel, a fine round gravel. Then you would sit on the gravel and you would debate for... Normally a debate is maybe three hours.

You have to go out and debate for three hours. There's a whole system. You begin with an individual debate with somebody who's either above you or below you in the class.

So a freshman has to pick a senior and debate with them. That way the seniors keep up their knowledge of what the freshmen are doing. And the freshmen get to hear something that they have no idea what the guy's talking about.

And they debate. The debate master comes around and tells everybody to get in their class. Then all the sophomores get together, all the freshmen get together, and then you debate in your class.

One guy defends, or two guys defend, and maybe 30, 40 guys attack them. So that's CHU RA. So he says, in the CHU RA, we do Sheldon Mung.

Sheldon Svadhyaya from the Yoga Sutra. One of the Niyam. Svadhyaya means, they call it self-study, right?

It means reciting. In the monastery, we will do 18 Heart Sutras back to back. ,DES KYI DAG GIS YOD PA'I RIGS NA, ,BYOD PA'I RIGS NA, ,BYOD PA'I RIGS NA, You have to do 18 back to back before you can debate.

You're not allowed to debate until you do 18 back to back Heart Sutras. Then you do a bunch of tantric reciting. You do Senge Dong, the lion-faced angel.

Very powerful prayer. Dukkha, the white umbrella. Very powerful tantric prayers.

And then you're allowed to debate. You have to sit there for like two hours before you're allowed to debate and chant these prayers. If you're American and you don't know them all, you can go, Okay, anyway.

He says, Why don't we just go to the debate ground and start debating? Why don't we sit down for two hours and recite things? Why is that?

TSE MA YANG DE GNAS YIN PAS Because it's so important to collect good karma and clean out bad karma before you do something important. You should do that before you do something important. So DE GNAS YIN PAS That's the GNAS that means marma.

Crucial point. That's crucial point. GNAS YIN PAS DE LA GNAN TEN ZE DGOS You guys should work hard on the recitations before you do other things.

I'd like to do a short meditation. And then we'll take a break. We'll take a walking break.