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

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 0:08)
Anatole has a question. Why can't I do all the poses you taught us today? Karma.

[Говорящий 2] (0:12 - 1:10)
I was thinking a lot lately about um there seems to be some kind of like wormhole to um something that Buddha fasted. At least I was trying to calculate um like it's supposed to take some kind of recount with eons to become a Buddha in a normal way and that um so if if someone was on the Vajrayana track and they saw emptiness in them then they're going to become a Buddha in seven lifetimes. So that means that they're like three eons minus seven.

That's how much merit they collect. And then um if someone was on a lower track and does it take the same amount does it take three counts of eons also to complete there?

[Говорящий 1] (1:10 - 5:03)
Longer. Yeah yeah that's after you get bodhicitta if you don't see emptiness. Something like that.

Okay. Did you ever hear the question? So normally it's said that to reach enlightenment I believe after you get bodhicitta.

I'm not sure. But I might be mistaken. But anyway it's three times ten to the 60th power eons.

Okay and there's a word for that number in Tibetan. Tibetan and Sanskrit has a different word for each multiple of ten. It goes chik chu gya tong chewa bum saya.

Like that. I run out at around 12 of them. But anyway it takes zillions and zillions of years.

And what Anatole is saying is that if you can perceive emptiness directly with the boyfriend compassion thing, boyfriend revolution intention, then you can reach it in seven lifetimes. You will reach it in seven lifetimes. So how do you cut zillions of years off?

It's by having the intention to save the world. Save the world means everyone's in line at the nursing home. Okay.

And then to have that intention and to see emptiness directly. What does emptiness point to an irritating person in this room who's not coming from you? And then you're supposed to go like...

In Tibetan they call it tendu mey pa. It means unpointable. You can't...

That's emptiness. That's the meaning of emptiness. You can't find a person in this room who bugs you, who's not a direct reflection of your own behavior.

They don't exist. Then there's a joke at Diamond Mountain. I mean Diamond Mountain has its problems, but they're pretty advanced in most ways.

And they're like... Somebody starts to say, I'm surrounded by irritating people. And everybody's like, yeah, you are.

So anyway, to see that directly is a different thing. To see that there's nothing around you that's not coming from you. There's a way to experience that fact in deep meditation.

And if you do it, it changes you forever. You become a different being. You evolve to a higher level of evolution in 20 minutes.

And you are billions of years beyond the other people in those 20 minutes. So what Anatole was saying is... He was just saying there must be some kind of wormhole, meaning like a tunnel between universes that makes everything faster.

And it's true. Okay, that 20 minutes chain cuts off billions and billions of years of work. So obviously, studying emptiness is a worthwhile thing to do.

And you cannot perceive it directly unless you are in deep meditation. Unless you are meditating every day, you cannot reach that state. It's not possible.

There's no one in the universe, whoever reached the direct perception of emptiness, without meditating every day. It's not possible. So this becomes important.

To prepare for meditation correctly becomes important. Did you have a question? I think root Lama is a translation of Tsawa Lama, right?

And you talk about root Lama and heart Lama.

[Говорящий 2] (5:03 - 5:04)
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1] (5:04 - 6:35)
And I'm curious if they mean the same thing. Are they synonymous? Did everybody hear?

I like to say heart Lama because Tsawa in Tibetan, the word root in Tibetan means more things than the word root does in English. It seems kind of impersonal for me to call my root Lama root, comparing them to something in the dirt or something. The word in Tibetan for root has many other meanings of essence or essential or source of all things.

So it's a much bigger word than the word root. So they translate it as root Lama, but I think it's a little impersonal to me. And I think the word heart Lama is more close to what Tsawa Lama means.

Yeah, so there is no other Tibetan word like Nying Lama or something. When I say heart Lama, I'm talking about the Tibetan expression Tsawa Lama. But the relationship that I have with my heart Lama, it feels more like something of the heart.

I use the word heart to reflect essence. Any other questions? Yes, Mr. Teddy. I don't understand very well the power of meditation, of visualizing your teacher.

[Говорящий 2] (6:36 - 6:46)
I understand a little bit about how like a tonglen meditation can change your mind or an emptiness meditation can bring impressions on your mind.

[Говорящий 1] (6:46 - 14:08)
But I don't understand exactly what's going on when you just picture your teacher in meditation. Yeah, good. Did everybody hear that?

Okay. When you meditate, you are working close to the, they call it, what do they call it, alaya vijnana, storehouse consciousness. So when you meditate, the activity, the mental activity is taking place very close to the place where all the seeds are stored in your mind.

So when you meditate, that's planting more powerful seeds than anything. So any action you could do with your body, anything you could say with your speech, or even just normal discursive thought, they don't plant the kind of karma that meditation plants. So meditating is extremely powerful way to plant the seed to change reality itself.

So when you meditate, you are close to the place where the seeds are stored and you are affecting that place very strongly during meditation. So the idea is, you know, why do you spend so much time, why is the highest Buddhist meditation just to meditate about your teacher? It's to create a divine teacher in your life, okay?

It's a practice of creating, making them more than they are now. So if you have a, let's say you have a teacher who teaches you Tibetan, or you have a yoga teacher, and you like them, you know, I'm glad you taught me a handstand, you know, I feel better, I'm thinner than last year, I have muscles now, you know, thank, I'm grateful to you, right? So you perceive that yoga teacher in a certain way.

You have some affection for them, and you respect them, and you are grateful to them, but you don't see them as the savior of the universe or something like that. You mean, you love them, you like them, but you don't think that this person single-handedly could save this planet. You don't think of them that way, you don't look at them that way.

The reason you meditate about your teacher is to try to, you see, I'm not going to say you're trying to change your perception of them to think that they are like the savior of the world or something like that. You're not trying to change your perception of them, you're trying to change who they are. You're trying to change them into the savior of the world by meditating on them as if they were.

Because you are working close to the root of the mind, to the place where the seeds are stored. By imagining a being who is perfect, you will meet one. By meditating constantly on a being, what do you call, idealized being, they're not perfect yet, but by continuing to meditate on them, they will change because they're coming from you.

Your teacher is coming from you. Then I had this guy, I forget who he was, let's pick a neutral country, I won't offend anybody here. That's getting harder and harder.

Probably Moscow, but not probably. But let's say somebody raised their hand and said, wait, you're telling me I'm creating a teacher who can teach me what I don't know? It doesn't make sense.

And I say, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. When you take the person to Starbucks to give them financial advice because you're broke, it's the same thing. You're trying to help them because you're broke.

And you're trying to help them not be broke, but you're the last person who should be giving them advice. But the attempt to give them advice changes your finances. And the attempt to help them.

So the attempt to picture a perfect being makes your teacher, your yoga teacher who used to be just a person that you liked or who was pretty nice, becomes an angel in your life. Becomes a really divine being who's trying to help you. And you're causing them to change.

They're not changing. It's not that they were an angel all along and you didn't see it. It's that by meditating on them as perfect, they become more perfect.

Because they're coming from you anyway. Is that right? Don't look so worried.

Be happy. No, right. It's not a question of perception.

You're not saying, I pretend that you're a nice person. Or I'm trying to see you as nice when I know you're a schmuck. Oh, in the meditation.

And then when you open your eyes, they're changed because they're coming from you. Every time you meditate on something happy, the world becomes a happier place. Because the world's coming from you.

That's the whole point of the fourth step of a karmic path. Before you go to bed, before you sleep, take your mind like a wild elephant. Your mind wants to go to, I'm tired.

This person was mean to me. This person said something bad about me. This person gets more attention than me.

This person, so many things wrong. That's the wild elephant mind. Take it and grab it.

There's a hook, right? In the scripture, there's a hook. They put it here, in the ear.

And you're a mahout. You're an elephant rider. And you say, god damn, you're going over here.

And you take your mind and you say, let's think about the good things we did today. And the beautiful people we saw today. And all the wonderful things that happened today.

No, no, he doesn't like me. No, no. And that's meditation.

That action is meditation. It's nothing else. Meditation is you say to your own mind, I'm the boss.

I'm the driver. We're not going to go to bed thinking about all the problems we have with People Magazine, etc. And we're going to think about all the beautiful things that are happening in our life.

And your mind is like this, and you're like, no. Think about the beautiful things that are happening. And then they get reinforced, and then more beautiful things happen.

It's very powerful. That's meditation. Forcing the mind to go where you want it to go.

Especially before you sleep. And then the reality changes. It's very beautiful.

Okay? Si, senor.

[Говорящий 2] (14:08 - 14:11)
So, I'll go. I'll continue with this line.

[Говорящий 1] (14:12 - 14:12)
Okay.

[Говорящий 2] (14:14 - 14:15)
I see a contradiction.

[Говорящий 1] (14:16 - 14:16)
Yeah, okay.

[Говорящий 2] (14:17 - 14:27)
Of course. So, if I meditate on someone, anyone, then they can turn into an angel.

[Говорящий 1] (14:28 - 14:28)
Yeah.

[Говорящий 2] (14:29 - 14:33)
Right? So, why don't Buddhas meditate on me and turn me into an angel?

[Говорящий 1] (14:34 - 16:10)
That's a good question. There's a beautiful, beautiful thing about when you become a Buddha, you have four bodies, right? Or three bodies.

One of them is called Sambhogakaya. It's the body you have in heaven. And it's defined as NGES PA NGANG DENG GIS KU.

The body which has five certain things about it. There are five certain things about that body. One of them, of the five certainties, is that you are surrounded by high-level bodhisattvas or better.

A Buddha cannot meet directly a person who's not a high-level bodhisattva. And they are sitting in this room. They are sitting in the same room as we are.

And they see everybody as a high-tentric deity or as a high-level bodhisattva. They don't have the karma to see us as the schmucks that we are. They can't do it.

Even if they wanted to, they can't do it. They would walk into this room and see everybody's already enlightened. Or at least a tenth-level bodhisattva.

So to them, yeah, you would be. They made you already a tenth-level. But to yourself, so their emptiness means that the way you perceive yourself can be completely different from how another person sees you.

Positively and negatively. See what I mean? I could see you as a Buddha.

You could see you as a normal person. And somebody else could see you as a devil. And all three are correct.

[Говорящий 2] (16:11 - 16:13)
Did you see me as a Buddha and they tell you, no, no, I'm suffering?

[Говорящий 1] (16:14 - 17:05)
They always say that. If you've been around Buddhas, they always say that. No, no, I'm a normal person.

Yeah, yeah, right. Didn't you see me go to the dentist last week? They always say that.

That's probably a sign they are a Buddha. No, but the point is, one person can be experienced in three different ways by three different people, including themselves. I see myself as a normal person.

If a person is a good student, they see that same person as a Buddha. And if that person is like a whiny person, they see that person as a creep. And all three are correct.

So do you want to be around creeps or do you want to be around Buddhas? You have to decide. That's another question.

Okay, one last question. Yeah, Manny.

[Говорящий 2] (17:05 - 17:31)
I'm on the same line of thinking. Is the difference between visualization and sort of normal, wishful thinking the meditative component? I mean, because visualization gets a little close to just blue sky thinking, which is pretending you can change your karma in the moment, which you cannot.

Do you follow? So is the visualization component what makes it? Yeah.

Is there something else about visualization?

[Говорящий 1] (17:32 - 20:28)
Well, as far as technique, what is it that makes the person change? What you might call daydreaming, I think is a high form of meditation. People are like this, right?

And they're thinking about some girl, right? Some guy, and they're like... That's really good concentration.

That's often, it's very good concentration, right? So the state of mind of a deep meditator and the state of mind of a person watching Born Legacy, and the state of mind of a person daydreaming about a boy in high school, they are very similar. Those are all states of concentration, deep concentration.

So from that point of view, it's all concentration. It's all meditation. Daydreaming is meditation.

Fantasizing is meditation. Being engrossed in the movie is meditation. But I think what you're asking is different.

You're saying, is there a distinction between saying, deluding, yeah, like deluding yourself. Like, okay, I'm going to think of my boss at work as a nice guy, even though he just killed three people. You know what I mean?

Like that. If I meditate on him, if I just pretend he's a nice person, is that going to be enough? So I think you're right.

I think there's a distinction between deluding yourself or trying to pretend that someone is nice when they're not. And then this practice, which is more purposeful, meaning I know he's not a nice person, and I know he's coming from me, and I know I can change my seeds, and I know he will change. When I say I know, I know, I know, that's Prajnaparamita.

That's the perfection of wisdom. So what I'm suggesting is there's a difference between a person who's doing wishful thinking you know, I wish my boss was nicer. If I think positive, he won't cut my salary next week, which really works, which doesn't work.

Or the other person, I know they're coming from me, and I know they're cheap, and they won't give me a raise, and I know that's coming from me, and I'm going to picture them as more generous, and I'm going to be more generous, and I will plant new seeds, and then next month they might give me a raise, or something like that. So one is more, what do you call it, educated. One is a result of training.

You are changing them by meditating on them in a different way. But it's not the...

[Говорящий 2] (20:28 - 20:31)
It's not the meditation, it's the knowledge, it's the education.

[Говорящий 1] (20:31 - 21:20)
Yeah, it's the education and not the level of concentration. The level of concentration is the same. That's a good question, and it's a nice distinction that you drew, yeah.

We got to go to bed. Mr. Lima, you have something? Go ahead.

Yes, you said that we can, let's say, tonight before I go to bed, I can think about something that I did like two years ago. Or ten years ago. Ten years ago.

Is that seed as powerful as if I do it the same day? Yeah. Did you hear?

It's the same power. So Will asked, is it the same if I did a good deed ten years ago, and I did a good deed this afternoon, and I meditate. Before I go to sleep, I think about the good thing I did ten years ago.

Is that as powerful as the thing I did today? Yes.

[Говорящий 2] (21:21 - 21:25)
Yeah, and even if I did it ten years ago and I didn't apply the technique.

[Говорящий 1] (21:26 - 22:55)
Yeah, even if it was by accident or something like that. I'll tell you something interesting. You can do coffee meditation.

You can do your going to bed meditation about good things you've done that you don't remember anymore, and you can do it based on the evidence of your life. It's very interesting. I'm human.

I'm surrounded by loving people. From when I was born, I was surrounded by, for example, in my case, nice teachers, good teachers, my whole life. So I can do going to bed meditation on the good karma that Joe did.

Okay, who's Joe? This guy, I have this student in Australia. His name is Salim.

I used to tell him, Salim, you're like, you have such faith in lamas. You have such unshakable faith. You're such a nice person.

He said, Geshe-la, it's not me, it's Joe. And I said, who's Joe? He said, that's my path of life.

I used to be Joe. I was born like that, so it must have been Joe. So you can also be happy about good karma you must have done that you don't remember, based on the life you have now.

That's cool. That one's really cool. Yeah, okay.

[Говорящий 2] (22:56 - 22:59)
So to see it's already ripened, you can start rejoicing?

[Говорящий 1] (23:00 - 27:45)
Yeah, you can make it happen again. Like, I'll give you an example. I had a person come to me and say, this is a real life example, okay?

My wife used, when she wanted something from me when we first got married, she would get up off the couch, walk down the hallway, come to my room where I'm working, and say, hi honey, I want to ask you a question. And then half the time something else would happen. And now he says, now she sits on the couch and she yells through six walls.

She just yells, honey, where's the peanut butter? Through six walls. She doesn't even walk down the hallway anymore.

She just screams through the whole house. The doors are all closed and she screams through six walls. She won't come even to see me anymore.

He says, what happened? And I said, well, before you met her, you had a karma to have a person who would talk to you sweetly. And you met her.

And in the first years of your marriage, she would talk to you even in a sexy way. She would come down the hallway and be like, honey, where's the peanut butter? And that karma must have been made before you met her.

Because she was saying those things early in the marriage. So that karma was made before you met her. Every time she came up to you and said, where's the peanut butter?

You used up some of that karma. And then it got used up. And now she's screaming through six walls.

So what Will was saying, you can be, well, what you were saying, that karma has already worn out. But before you go to bed, if you think, I must have made some goddamn good karma before I met my wife, because when I met her, she was so cool. If you're happy about the karma that you had before you met your wife that made her so cool, even though that karma is already exhausted, you can renew it.

You replant it by being happy about it. So my advice to the guy was, don't talk to her. Don't tell her it's lousy to yell through six walls.

I can't hear you anyway. All I hear is some noise. Don't argue with her, because that doesn't fix it.

Replant the karma that you must have had before you met her. And he's like, how do I do that? Then before you go to bed, think, I must have had some karma of, I talk to people in a very beautiful way.

Gentle, beautiful, happy, exciting, stimulating way. Then I'm happy. I'm glad I did that before I met my wife.

And then you can be happy about a karma that's already gone, but which you must have had. And then more of it will come. And she will stop yelling through the wall.

It's very interesting. You're being happy about a karma that's already gone. Okay, got it?

You don't have to restrict yourself to this lifetime. You can be a detective and say, I must have been good to my teachers in my past life, because when I was born in first grade, Mrs. Melvin wasn't so bad actually. Okay, and then you can be happy about the karma Joe made in your past life, okay?

It's all relevant. By the way, Joe means Joe, right? Me.

It's true. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, absolutely.

You used up your karma to have your partner wash the dishes. Yeah. So if, what would the example that we're giving here is, perhaps you were neat.

Perhaps you cleaned your room before meditation, before you met the first partner. So maybe you should be, you know, now you have to do more of that. I like this stuff.

I think you learn as much talking to people as you do in a class. And so I encourage you guys to ask each other questions and thrash out questions together. That's what we do in the monastery.

We debate together for many hours. We learn more in the debate ground than we learn in the classes. From each other.

Okay, so do that.