«Дар освобождения», курс 8 «Учимся быть тихими», занятие 1

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 0:17)
I thought just to get some variety, we'd do some questions and answers. So if anybody has a question, it does not have to be relevant to anything. I mean, you don't have to stick to this subject.

Say it loud so people can hear.

[Говорящий 2] (0:17 - 0:54)
The story you told this morning that you told before about the people who hid under the Buddha's cloak and were still killed, what were they supposed to do? I mean, I know the refuge is in the teachings, but at that moment when they were being attacked and they were racing for cover, were they supposed to study? I mean, what was the right answer for them?

[Говорящий 1] (0:55 - 1:20)
I think you look at the Dalai Lama's own example, right? He had the ability to raise an army at the last minute. He could have raised an armed resistance to the Chinese invasion and he chose not to.

He chose to run to save lives. So I think that's one kind of example for us. Suppose they're right there and what can you do?

[Говорящий 2] (1:23 - 1:28)
But the Tibetans fought. Another Dalai Lama said...

[Говорящий 1] (1:28 - 3:40)
He asked them not to fight, but there were weapons handed out at the Potala Palace during that incident and flintlocks. And some people fought. But I think his own example was to run so that it would save lives.

So I think we can't... This is a very difficult question. You see somebody getting mugged, should you step in?

It came up in my own life. Me and one of my teachers were on a bus in New York. A lady's purse got snatched.

The guy jumped off the bus. We went after the guy. He chased him down.

He got the purse back. All this stuff. And then my other teacher was very angry at me and said he could have had a knife.

He could have had a gun. It's not worth a purse to do that. But we felt it was a statement that you don't stand there while someone's getting hurt.

So, karmically, weird stuff is going on at that moment. Deciding to help someone, even to use force, may not be successful. The other person may have a gun or a knife.

It may turn out to be a disaster. We had a similar incident at Diamond Mountain. Do we be firm with our principles of our university?

And then someone got hurt because of that. But you have to act on the situation as you see it at that moment. If someone is hitting a woman and stealing her purse, you have to try to help her, even though you understand that her karma may be to be harmed.

You see what I mean? But your responsibility is to try to stop the person. And then they say, use the amount of violence you would use if it was your own mother mugging the person.

[Говорящий 2] (3:43 - 3:47)
But those people did run. Yeah, they did run.

[Говорящий 1] (3:48 - 4:51)
And they didn't fight. Their being killed was not because they refused to fight. That was because they fought earlier.

They made the wrong decision earlier. It's interesting, right? So we have to look at the real causes of things.

If you decide to not respond with violence and you get hurt, it's not because you decided not to respond to violence. It's because you did decide to resort to violence earlier. But it's difficult.

In the middle of the violence, it's difficult to do that. Being non-violent cannot lead to injury. If you're injured because you were non-violent, it's not because you were non-violent.

It's because earlier you were violent. But it's a difficult line to hold when you're being shot at. Or something like that.

Please.

[Говорящий 2] (4:52 - 5:39)
You spoke a lot today about demons, angels, and powerful forces. And I was wondering if you could enlighten me a little bit about how that relates to karma and you certainly creating these forces. Because when you say angels and demons, it automatically goes to my Christian perception of them.

And I was wondering, you then say that when you refer to these things, you're referring to these forces that we've created as a collective consciousness then?

[Говорящий 1] (5:40 - 8:37)
Yeah. We have created everything we see around us and everything that we experience. And even the battle of the forces that we're not aware of is also being created by us.

So ultimately, all the good guys and all the bad guys are being created by us. And the war itself is being created by us. There's a joke.

There was a writer called C.S. Lewis, a great Christian writer. A great Christian writer. And he said, in the screw tape letters, he said, the devil counts as his greatest achievement in the modern world, the fact that people don't believe in him.

That's his greatest achievement. And it's true. So we think the idea of evil forces or demons or devils is modern people aren't supposed to believe in them.

And if you go to some country and people talk about devils, then you think they're primitive or something. But they do exist. And if you meditate a lot, you can become aware of them and see.

They're not like, there's a joke in Tibet, they don't have horns. They're like, you're about to do your yoga and your friend says, the Bourne Legacy just came out. There's a four o'clock showing.

If we run, we can make it. And you're about to do your yoga and you go see the Bourne Legacy, which, by the way, was really good. But they say that's the modern version of devils.

It's like that. You decided to be vegan and somebody offers you a pizza and you break down and you eat it. The friendly, reasonable, nice guy who lives next door got you to break your diet.

And right then he's a demon. And he's coming from you. Because you did the same to somebody else, in a smaller way.

You didn't give them a pizza, you gave them a Hostess Twinkie. Something smaller. Really, but you're right.

Yeah, they're all coming from us. And we can defeat them because they come from us. If they didn't come from us, it would be a problem.

And when your meditation gets really good, you will see them. They're for real and they're bad. But don't go around paranoid either.

Don't go around like that. The way you fight a demon is you be nice. And you be a good person.

And that's what hurts them.

[Говорящий 2] (8:40 - 8:48)
Yeah. Yes, please. Remember back in China, you were talking a lot about when somebody uses their dead body.

[Говорящий 1] (8:49 - 8:49)
Yeah.

[Говорящий 2] (8:51 - 9:04)
So my question is, for example, some people want to help on a homeless shelter. Yeah. And then you go in and help, but you don't include them.

So when you're collecting their phone, but they're using their dead body.

[Говорящий 1] (9:05 - 9:08)
Yeah, that's true. You're forgiving them, right? Yeah.

[Говорящий 2] (9:08 - 9:19)
Is there a way that you can help these people, but not make them use their dead body? Because if you help them at that moment, they will go actually to death, right?

[Говорящий 1] (9:19 - 9:20)
Yeah, good, yeah.

[Говорящий 2] (9:20 - 9:24)
It's a temporary help. It's going to cause more harm in the future.

[Говорящий 1] (9:25 - 9:25)
Yeah.

[Говорящий 2] (9:25 - 9:31)
How you make you get a bit more of a helping, but then them getting a bit more of a sometimes.

[Говорящий 1] (9:32 - 13:39)
Did everybody hear that? Okay. So if I go to a homeless shelter and help somebody there, on the theory of the debit card, I am putting more cash into my account by helping the people at the homeless center.

But the people whom I help, by me helping them, are losing more money on their debit card. So is there a way to make it win-win, for example? Is it always have to be, I'm adding to my credit card, debit card, by them losing on their debit card?

They are accepting, they are using up karma by accepting food from you. Yeah, it is true. I think so.

It depends on what their motivation is. But that's the Michael Wick parking lot, parking space. Do you know the Michael Wick parking space thing?

There is this really bodhisattva guy in New York and he refuses to take the first good parking space he sees because he doesn't want to use up the karma. No, he does that. Recently he denied it to me, but I heard that.

Anyway, yeah, I would say that all you could do, I think when you are generous to other people, you are always making, for the right reasons, then you are always making, your debit card is getting more cash in it. I like to think that if you help somebody long enough, like with the computer project, if you keep helping someone year after year and supporting them, that sooner or later they will respond to your example. And they will start helping other people.

I think there becomes, what do you call it? It becomes fashionable to help other people. If you are in that climate where someone is constantly helping you, like I have a friend who likes to cook, and they are constantly cooking.

Then finally I am like, okay, I will cook something. And then I started cooking and handing out food to people. So I think maybe when you help a person who is homeless or something, maybe in your mind you think, I hope they will follow the example.

And then my experience with the input project is that there are three levels of helping people in my mind. One is just give them money. And then second is what Dan is doing.

You pay them to do something good. So he is paying people to save Tibetan literature. And I think that is level two.

And then level three would be to, after you have built up the trust by giving them money or by teaching them how to make their own money, then you say, now you want to know the real way to make money? And they are like, okay, now I trust you because you gave me money for years. Then you gave me a skill.

Now I trust you. Then you say, you teach the other refugees to do what you do with the computer and let them compete with you. And then they are like, wow, that is going too far.

No, I mean, they will trust you if you have given to them for years. And then if you have given them a skill, then it builds up a certain amount of trust. And then you say, okay, now it is time for you to sacrifice what you know and give it to someone else.

And you will be more successful. So I believe it is a trusting. And during the first two steps they are losing.

Their debit card is going down. But then you catch them on the third one. It is a process.

Other questions? Other questions? You guys can ask a question.

Pasha.

[Говорящий 2] (13:40 - 13:48)
I actually just wanted to clarify the question because you didn't do it. Could you speak up, please?

[Говорящий 1] (13:48 - 13:50)
I will repeat it if you want.

[Говорящий 2] (13:51 - 14:02)
It is surprising to me that if you are doing a good thing, the goodness of your heart or meeting people necessarily means that somebody you are seeing actually gets their time.

[Говорящий 1] (14:03 - 14:34)
It depends on their motivation. I can't control. Pasha is saying, if I give money to a poor person, I am always loading my debit card more.

But is it always at their expense? Are they always losing debit card? Anytime you use any food or drink or money, you are losing debit.

You are losing. Anytime. Then there is a Bodhisattva vow about that.

Do you guys remember?

[Говорящий 2] (14:41 - 14:41)
No.

[Говорящий 1] (14:45 - 17:33)
Yeah, in the Bodhisattva vow. Or is it Tantric vow? I don't remember.

You are not allowed to eat or wear a piece of clothing or use a car without thinking, how can I use this to help somebody? Like if I put on these pants today, what will I do today that will help somebody? There is a Bodhisattva vow that you are not allowed to use your debit card without intending it to help somebody else.

And then you are not using your debit card. Then you are piling up new debit, new credit. Okay?

So it is possible to use things which would normally make you lose karma in a way that actually increases them. Yeah, that's not bad. A really good way to help people would be to teach them to help other people so that when they use the help, they don't lose credit on their debit card.

That's okay. There is a cool thing like in tantra where if you have a really close heart lama, and I'm not suggesting that it's me. I'm just saying, if you can find your heart lama, then you should always spend your money for them.

And you just keep getting more and more money. It's really weird. You know, like you have a choice to take them to an expensive restaurant or to a cheap restaurant.

You take them to the expensive one because it honors your heart teacher more and you get much more money later. It's really weird. I'm not saying that with regard to myself, but with your own teacher, whoever is your own teacher, the more generous you are, the more financially independent you will be.

And it's a cool practice. It's an interesting practice. Give them the best and you will never want more money.

It's very interesting. But that's a dangerous teaching because you can't get up and say, you know what I mean? I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying, I personally give my lama the best. And I... You always have money.

It's because of the karma of giving them the best, right? Okay. Maybe one more question.

Yes, sir. Loud.

[Говорящий 2] (17:34 - 18:06)
It sort of goes off the same question. Okay. The fly on the cow hat and circles the stupa.

Yeah. Even though the fly is not aware of what's happening, they're somehow collecting the karma. Yeah.

But the fly doesn't... I see the stupa as something that would have the high... It's a high holy object, right?

But the fly doesn't see that. So how does the fly collect the karma?

[Говорящий 1] (18:08 - 21:49)
Okay. So, this is an old story that... I forget, though, how it went.

But anyway, some guy said, this guy has no good karma. He never did anything good. Why is he having this nice thing happen to him?

And then some lama said, ten lifetimes ago, he was a fly. And he landed on a cow pie. And there was a big rainstorm.

And the cow pie got carried down towards a temple. And then the water went around the temple. So he circumambulated the Buddha, riding on the cow pie.

And... And... So he has some good karma in his mind.

So Tim's question is, but the fly doesn't have any perception of the good karma. It doesn't have any perception of the holiness of the place he's circling. So, I like to think...

I'll give you a rikpa gotsu. What is that? Parallel reasoning.

Somebody asked me, if I walk a... Do you know that the monks used to do a summer retreat? Even in Sara.

We do the ritual for the summer retreat, and then nobody does the summer retreat. But in the old days, monks spent the summer indoors. They made an agreement to spend the summer indoors.

Do you know why? Because of bugs. Yeah, because of air conditioning.

No. Because they would step on more bugs. They would kill more bugs if they were walking around in the summer.

So they would make an agreement. They stay for two or three months in retreat in the summer, just to protect the bugs. Then the question comes up, if you walk across the lawn and you kill a bunch of bugs, do you collect bad karma or not?

There's no intention to harm anybody. You don't see anything get crushed. You're just like trying to stop the ice cream truck or something, and you're running across the lawn.

So there's no evil intent to hurt anybody. Do you collect bad karma? Then if you had come to the Guadalajara teachings, and if you had one of those orange cups that said, shi sampa jorwa tar duk, so they did a very cool thing.

They made cups for all the participants in the retreat that had the four steps to a karmic path. So there are four steps to a complete karma. And they are recognizing the object correctly.

Well, I shouldn't say that. Having a powerful karmic object, doing it towards a powerful karmic object, having an intention to hurt them, then actually hurting them, and then afterwards owning the action, saying, I'm glad I killed them. So in the case of walking across the lawn, are any of those four present?

There's this one. You did kill them. You did kill them.

It wasn't intentional. You didn't select them. And you weren't happy about it afterwards.

But you did kill them. So you get some karma. The main karma though is intention.

So you will get some karma. From walking across the lawn and killing creatures, without thinking about it, you will collect some karma. And by circling a stupa and riding a cow pie, you do get some karma.

[Говорящий 2] (21:49 - 21:52)
I guess my question is that a stupa is not a stupa.

[Говорящий 1] (21:54 - 23:27)
Yeah, I know. He's saying that the only thing that makes a stupa holy is the perception of the person who's relating to it. Something like that.

A stupa is not self-existently holy. I think maybe you could say that because so many people consider it holy or something like that. And you're in that place.

Like that. There's nothing self-existently holy about a Buddha tooth or something. That's true.

Or is there? I don't know. Is there some power to the Buddha's tooth by proximity to a holy being after a certain amount of time?

I don't know. Is a Buddha's tooth holy? I think so.

Just by proximity. By being around it. Like they say, if you get a chance to meditate where a holy being has meditated, that something has rubbed off on that place.

And the opposite also. How about that? Whatever's in the stupa, what makes the stupa traditionally is that they'll use the bones or the teeth or something of a holy person.

I think there is some vibration there of goodness from that person.

[Говорящий 2] (23:28 - 23:29)
I think so.

[Говорящий 1] (23:33 - 23:35)
Okay. But it's a good question.