«Дар освобождения», курс 9 «Семь дверей медитации», занятие 6

[Speaker 1]
So, we've been on the subject, and I like this. It feels good to me to have a teaching here under this star. Maybe we do it more often.

We're at a point, we're studying a text which was written by the teacher of the teacher of the current Dalai Lama, who was also one of my teacher's teachers. It's an A to Z presentation of the path to enlightenment. How to get to enlightenment from A to Z.

It's a thousand pages long. We made a commitment to go through the whole thing. It's going to take about 10 to 15 years.

We're in the third year, I think. It's just enjoyable to go through it slowly. My teacher took me through it for 30 years.

So, we're going to go through it. In this particular class, we will follow the Tibetan text. I'll be referring to the Tibetan, mainly for future generations, because there was a big disruption in Buddhism.

Tibetan people lost their country. Their libraries, 5,000 libraries were burned. One million people died.

There's nobody really left alive from old Tibet. My teacher was the youngest you could have been and completed your studies in old Tibet. He graduated four years before the loss of Tibet.

Then he died in 2004 at the age of 86. So, I'm going to follow the Tibetan so that it's recorded on film and you can pass it on in later generations. So, please don't be frustrated with me referring to the Tibetan.

I'm trying to preserve it for future generations. Alright. So, we're studying how to meditate and we're studying certain steps that you do before you do a meditation in the way that you would warm up before a race.

We've been going through pre-visualizations that you do before meditation. We have reached a thing called sok ching, which is a practice where you're supposed to make so much good karma in so little time, just before you start your meditation, that your meditation will go magically well. This is a good practice before meetings with your boss or dinners with your ex-wife.

Any difficult situation you're going into, like a yoga class, you could do this quick little karmic pick-me-up. You collect a lot of heavy karma very quickly and you burn off bad karma very quickly. Then whatever you're going to do...

So, if you have something important that day, if you have a job interview or you're going to ask for a loan or something, if you want it to go well, do your meditation, do your yoga, and do this little practice that he's describing. In this context, it's to be used before a meditation. Just before you meditate, you do this quick little karmic pick-me-up.

It's a picture in your mind where you are honoring your teacher. Whoever that teacher may be. It could be Jesus.

It could be Muhammad. It could be someone who's alive. It could be someone who died a long time ago.

It could be your mother. It could be your high school teacher. It could be your high school boyfriend.

Whoever in your life... The definition of root Lama is whoever opened your heart the most in your life. He defined it last year, I think.

You're supposed to bring to mind the person who has opened your heart the most in your life. My root Lama is not a Buddhist. I bring to mind that person.

I met them long before I started Buddhism. You bring to mind your heart teacher. We're describing how to bring to mind your heart teacher.

It could be someone who's passed away already. It could be someone you haven't met yet. But you bring to mind what you imagine as your heart teacher.

DE YANG Your heart Lama here has a special name. Say Lama, LOS SANG, THUB BU'ANG, DORJE CHANG Lama, LOS SANG, THUB BU'ANG, DORJE CHANG Which is four different names. We're going to go through each one of them.

Number one, DE YANG You got me Nyingpo? Where is Nyingpo? You all right?

He's got the cursor in the right place? You can follow the Tibetan if you want. Just a warning, Tibetan has extra letters in front of letters.

Lama is Blama. But you'll get used to it. It's like Oblama.

You'll figure it out. I expect somebody to be on their iPhone and giving us updates by the way. By the way, tonight is a very important Buddhist holiday.

All these things have come together. It's our first really event, my first teaching here. It's election night.

It's also called, say LHAG PA DU CHEN. It's one of the five great Buddhist holidays of the year, is tonight. This is the night on which...

So Lord Buddha, after he became an enlightened being, at some point his father had already died. He decided it was important to go talk to his father and make sure he was okay and even give him instructions on spiritual life. So he figured out that his father after dying was born on another planet, in another solar system.

I don't know which one it is. We can figure it out someday. But he went there.

With his miracle powers he traveled to that planet and he taught his father. Then obviously his disciples on this planet were a little bit worried that he might like that planet better. So today marks the day that he came back.

So it means the angel descended. It means he came back and he dropped down again on this earth. So I think today is a special day to honor your parents.

He felt it was worth the time. In the middle of his mission on this planet to take... I forget, was it a month or something?

He disappeared and he went to help his father. In Buddhism, as in Christianity, as in Judaism, it's important to honor your father and mother. I guess in Islam also, right?

So it's crucially important to honor your father and mother. So you can think of today as Father and Mother's Day in the Buddhist tradition. So that we have beautiful things happening today.

And the election of a new leader. I propose that we dedicate this class, this time together, to the success of the new leader, whoever it is, whether it's A or B, that we dedicate the good karma of this class to that leader being wise and compassionate and helping people. Maybe we can affect what happens.

All right. DE YANG LAMA ZHES PA What does Lama mean in the word Lama Lo Sang Tu Bon Dorje Chang? Lama means Ranggir Lama.

What's a Ranggir Lama? Your own personal teacher. Again, it doesn't have to be Buddhist.

It doesn't have to be a human. It could be a dog. I had someone who would passionately believe that their root lama was their dog.

And I'm fine with that. Whoever is your personal teacher. Lo Sang refers to Gyalwa Tsongkapa.

In our tradition, the founder of the Dalai Lama's tradition was named Tsongkapa. He lived from 1357 to 1419. He was just a cool guy.

He helped spread Buddhism in Tibet. He helped get there. I guess you could think of Tsongkapa as the person who has carried on the tradition of wisdom in your world.

It could be somebody else in a different place or a different time. But in our world, this particular tradition of wisdom was instituted and carried on by Tsongkapa. THUB BU'ANG ZHES PA STON PA ZHAG GI THUB PA THUB BU'ANG, which means Lord of the Able Ones, which is Muneshvara.

By the way, THUB, those of you who care, is a translation of MUNI. In the old days, the Tibetans a thousand years ago decided that MUNI is one of the words for a Buddha. So the Tibetans decided that it meant THUB PA, which means capable, or able to do some THUB.

SNGA MA BYAS SO THUB BSAR BA'I Would you be able to bring me some dessert in the break? Then you say, THUB ZHAG I can. I will be able to.

Then DBANG means, in this case DBANG means the leader or the head. THUB BU'ANG means, THUB BU'ANG sort of means the Buddha of all Buddhas. But the original Sanskrit is MUNI.

Some of you may know the word that derives from that, which is MA'O NA. Do you know MA'O NA? It's the spiritual practice of silence.

So you decide, for one day I won't talk. Or I won't talk before 10 o'clock or something like that. You can keep MA'O NA.

I kept it for three years. There's this yogi outside of San Jose, at Mount Madonna. What's his name?

What's his name? Lama Haridas. He hasn't spoken in 50 something years.

He writes everything. So MA'O NA can be a heavy practice for learning to be in insight and not to talk so much. So that was the original meaning of it.

There are scriptures which explain the word in that sense as applied to a Buddha. Someone who doesn't chatter and who's keeping purposely silence. It's a nice practice.

Sometimes you can try it for a weekend or something. All right. THUGS PA'ANG ZHES PA STON PA When we say THUGS PA'ANG here, it refers to STON PA means the teacher, capital T, SHAKYAT THUB PA, which means Shakyamuni, which was the historical Buddha in this world.

In this context, you can think of it as the person who teaches you in an explicit way, in an external way. They come with books and slide projectors and microphones and they teach you in a group. You can think of it that way.

People in a church speaking at the pulpit or something like that. I went to church on Sunday. It was really fun.

That's another story. DOR RJE'I CHANG ZHES PA So DOR RJE'I CHANG means BADZRA LTA which means the one who keeps the diamond. DOR RJE'I means diamond.

This refers to RGYAL BA DOR RJE'I CHANG which is a form of the Buddha in which they give secret teachings. Secret teachings. What would be an example of a secret teaching?

The Buddha might emanate as a dog. When all the people in the center seem like they need somebody to talk to, the dog follows them home. Then the dog kind of changes the atmosphere of the center and makes it a little more homey and friendly.

We had a dog. We had four brothers and no sisters. You're right on time.

Of course. We had a dog. His name was George.

He was a bathing hound. Of course we had a lot of problems with four brothers. We would fight a lot.

But if you were sad, you could just go hold George and he would listen to you for hours. He changed the whole family. I don't think we could have survived without George.

He was there our whole childhood until we went to college he survived. But in the secret teachings you could say that George was a Buddha who decided to come and diffuse our family problems. Like that.

So secret teachings, the keeper of the diamond means someone who comes and gives teachings in a very unexpected way. Like that. Those are the four elements of this person whom you are visualizing.

DE'I RTZOGS GZHAN GYI RTZO BAR BSAL DAG PAS YIN DE'I ZHIG NGO YER MED These four beings, meaning your own personal teacher, meaning the person who's opened your heart the most in your life. And then secondly, the founder of whatever tradition you're following. And then thirdly, people who give you formal spiritual instruction.

And then fourthly, strange people who show up in your life, and birds and dogs, and the sound of the wind, and the sound of the waves at the ocean, who teach you secretly. They speak to your own heart secretly. These are the four aspects of the being whom you are visualizing right now.

And they are, ZHIG NGO YER MED means these four are indivisible. They are all combined in one being. BYAS PA STE DE'I RTZOGS GZHAN GYI RTZO BAR BSAL DAG PAS YIN And that's who you're supposed to visualize when you want to make heavy good karma.

Visualize a person who is your own teacher combined with the teacher of your tradition, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Tsongkapa. Then they should be the person who has taught you formally, maybe a pastor, or a rabbi, or your lama. And then all the people who have taught you secretly, George, and other people who showed up in your life.

Got it? This person is all four, combined into one. And that's who you're supposed to be visualizing.

BDIN DAG GIS THAR BDE PA ZHIG CI THU BDE PA BSAM DGOS PA YIN NA SHES NA You may ask whether, okay, so am I supposed to be imagining that these four people have mixed into a single being? Someone poses a question to the author of our text. And he answers, BDIN DAG BSTAN NAS MA YIN BDIN DAG BSTAN NAS MA YIN MA YIN means, it's not.

BSTAN NAS means at all. No, that's totally wrong. You know the word BSTAN if you know the three principle paths, the first text in the 36 courses of the ACI program, the first text, the last line says, BSTAN GYI SDOD MA NYOD DU GRUB ZHIG BU Anybody want to take a shot?

Huh? BSTAN GYI SDOD MA NYOD DU GRUB ZHIG BU It's the last line of the three principle paths. That's a secret teaching.

I'm not kidding. You got to think like that. BSTAN GYI SDOD MA means the ultimate hopes of a human being.

NYOD DU means quickly. GRUB ZHIG BU means achieve it, my child. Go after it.

Go after your wildest dreams. It's the wildest and wildest dreams. It means the ultimate.

Who's the child in this case? Now I'm DRAG PA. Who's that?

The friar from SACO. He was a student of Tsongkhapa. Tsongkhapa sent him to Glendale.

He never got to see Tsongkhapa much. Tsongkhapa went toured the world and Ngan DRAG PA got stuck in Glendale. Then he just got occasional letters from Tsongkhapa.

Emails, I guess. The three principle paths was one such email. 14 verses.

It ends with BSTAN GYI SDOD MA NYOD DU GRUB ZHIG BU Achieve your ultimate dreams, my son, my child. So BSTAN means ultimate. When he says BSTAN NAS MIN MA YIN, what's he meaning?

Nothing could be farther from the truth. It means completely not. Utterly not.

What? That we are mixing four people together. He says completely wrong answer.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. RGYUD THAR DE'I PA ZHIG RANG GI GCIG DU BYED KA KHALA NUS KHALA is a colloquial expression that means how on earth. KHALA NUS means possible.

How could you ever mix four different mental continua together? Come on. It's not possible.

You are going to mix Tad and Darcy and come out with Parsi. It's not possible. In Buddhism it's not possible.

Each person collects their own karma. And so person means the flow of karma. And they can never be intertwined.

It's not possible. We each make our own bed and we sleep in it. And you can't mix those beds.

So KHALA NUS means how could you mix four people together? It's not possible. DE NA DANG PO NAS NGO BO GCIG YIN YIN PA LA DE NA, therefore, DANG PO NAS means what?

What's DANG PO? First, DANG PO NAS means from the beginning, from the outset. NGO BO GCIG YIN YIN They are, they are.

YIN YIN They are one being from the beginning. They were never separate. They were never separate.

You are not engaging in an exercise where you pretend that four people are one. They have never been four people. The perception that they were four people was always mistaken.

YIN YIN They are, they are. They really are. YIN DA YIN, say YIN DA YIN.

Are you going to get some free hamburgers tonight? YIN DA YIN You bet. So if you want to know a nice colloquial Tibetan phrase, YIN DA YIN means yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

YIN DA YIN RANG GI RGYUD THA DAD DU GSUNG BA DE DE'I LUNG DANG RIG PA'I RANG GI RLUNG NGO CIG TU DUS PA'I NGES SHES BRTAN PA YIN So you should use LUNG and RIG PA to prove to your own mind that they have always been the same person. What's LUNG and RIG? Yeah, you should use scriptural authority.

Quote the Bible. And you should use RIG PA, which means it makes sense that they should have always been the same person. The person who showed up in your life, and when you were a kid at the church, I was deeply affected by two or three of the priests at my church.

They were not, what do you call it? Naughty priests. They were amazing.

I'm sorry to hear problems with priests, but the priests at my church were awesome. And they were unbelievable. And so was my first teacher.

And so have all the secret teachers in my life been. You see? And I met them at different times and they seemed to have inhabited different bodies.

But if I think about it logically, they were probably the same person in different forms. So we're not undertaking an exercise to pretend that four different people are one person. They always were, and you didn't recognize it.

But if you think about it carefully logically, and if you study the scriptures, you can conclude that they were always the same person. They just came in different parts of your life. LO NGOR GCIG TU GRUB PA means to your own mind.

NGOR is a difficult word in Tibetan, N-G-O-R. NGOR means the face or surface of your mind. LO NGOR NGOR is a locative meaning to the surface of your mind, you should prove that they were always one.

So to yourself, you should prove that they were always one being. GRUB PA NGES SHES means a conclusion. You should come to the conclusion that they were always one.

RGYUD THAR DE'I TU GSUNG BA means those people that you always thought were separate. You should now come to a conclusion, logically and in your heart, that they must have been the same person all along. That's kind of sweet, and you sense that that's the case.

All the cool people who have affected you in your life, who really guided you through your life, they were the same person taking different forms. Sometimes that's a dog. George.

NGOR SHES BYAS SHES BYAS SHES DE'I ZHIG I'm going to move. DE'I ZHIG Is somebody watching the time? I don't know.

Do you care if I run over? Neither do I. All right.

We'll keep going for a while. But I will give you a break. PP break and rehydration break.

LAR MO'I break. LAR MO'I LAR MO'I means sweet. It's a Tibetan word for dessert.

DE'I ZHIG NGO BO GCIG YIN TE Now he's giving a logical argument. DE'I ZHIG NGO BO GCIG YIN TE In Tibetan monastery, there we go. These four are one.

These four are one person. Why? RANG CHAG GYIS DOR JI CHANG ZHES PA KUN SDOG DNGOS PO DOR BRAL GSUNG BA SNGON DGOS CHAGS RANG CHAG means us guys.

Us normal schmucks. When somebody says Vajradhara, the Buddha in his tantric form, DOR JI CHANG When somebody says DOR JI CHANG to us, ZHES means they say. KUN SDOG means the color...

Guard dog. KUN SDOG means the color of their body. DOG means color.

KU means holy body. The color of their holy body is DNGOS PO. They are blue.

They are blue. We always say, don't think they are painted blue. Don't think someone came with blue paint and painted them blue.

And if they could just get it off, they'd be whatever again. They are shining like a sapphire, like a neon light from the inside. They are made of blue light.

They are not painted blue. Anyway, somebody says Vajradhara, then into our mind pops a blue guy. DOR RGYUL GSUM PA Holding a DOR JI and a RGYUD BU.

A bell and a Vajra. SNGON DGOS means the form that the Buddha takes in their own paradise, which is sexy. Silk, long hair, jewels everywhere.

Moving like a dancer. Very, very sensual and beautiful. SNGON DGOS CHA CHE means all got up like a paradise Buddha.

GCIG DANG In our mind we see a being like that. Someone who knows what Vajradhara is supposed to look like sees as something that looks like it came out of GQ or Vogue, but thousand times better. Like that.

Like somebody really, wow. Sensual and beautiful. Then when you say CHA KYA THUB PA, you say CHA KYA MU NI, well, you think of U REG.

What's U mean? What's U MA mean? Middle way.

But in honorific Tibetan, in high Tibetan, for noblemen or for lamas, U, U is the honorific for NGON. NGON Head. So U is the honorific for head.

U REG U REG means shaved. REG means to touch, right? But here it means shaved.

Meaning you could touch their skull and you wouldn't hit any hair. So shaven head. ZHAB BYIN ZHAB means, it's the honorific for GANG PA.

Feet. An attendant in Tibet is called a ZHAB BYI. I was Rinpoche's ZHAB BYI for 25 years.

And the people kept calling me ZHAB BYI. And I'm like, what's that mean exactly? Well, ZHAB is Rinpoche's foot.

I said, well, what's BYI mean? It says wipe. You wipe his feet.

I'm like, okay, I'll be a ZHAB BYI. That's the name for an attendant in Tibetan. So ZHAB means foot.

DZIN means naked. DZIN PA Like if you eat uncooked something. What's something that you would normally cook?

Like broccoli. If you decide to eat the broccoli uncooked, it's called DZIN PA. It means naked or uncooked.

Raw. So ZHAB DZIN means? Barefoot.

Here's this guy, he's just barefoot. His feet are always sticking out from under his robes when he's on his lotus feet. So here's this baldy with bare feet.

So that's the image. He's being funny. This is the image you have when you think of Gautama Buddha, the original Buddha.

In our country, he's got a big belly and he's got a bump on his head and long ears. He's barefoot. So then, CHUG KU'I RNAM PAR CAN This is another form that the Buddha takes, which we call emanation.

This is the form that they took when they sent a body from their paradise body to teach in India. They sent somebody who looked like an Indian. So people could relate to them.

That's called CHUG KU'. You know TOL KU', right? That's TOL KU'.

CHUG KU'I means the body that you emanate to relate to normal people. The form that you take to relate to normal people. CHUG KU'I RNAM PAR CAN DU GSUNGS NAS He took on that form.

DE NYID PHAN ZIN BSTAN NAS MA BRAL PA LTA BU SAM YANG And in our mind, the two could never meet. What two? The GQ one and the baldy one.

Right? You couldn't imagine His Holiness wearing a Gucci... What's the suit that I was accused of wearing?

Armani. Yeah, which I've never seen one. The Armani.

Trying to imagine His Holiness in an Armani suit, you would say that's ridiculous. I mean he's... Or with some cool sunglasses and some cool Italian business shoes or something.

You'd say, yeah, but that doesn't mix. Either you're the Dalai Lama or you look like a mafia guy from Ukraine. They don't mix.

MA BRAL PA means you couldn't mix those two. He says, DE DAG MIM PA What? You're wrong.

You're wrong. If you can't imagine His Holiness with a... What's that guy?

Gray hair, cool actor. Not that one. I said cool.

Clooney. Yeah, yeah, George Clooney. Could you imagine His Holiness being George Clooney?

You see what I mean? We say no. I mean His Holiness is shaved head and he's got these robes on.

Clooney's always in a hip suit and he's just kind of cool in my mind. But you couldn't imagine them mixing. And then our author says, you're wrong.

SANGS RGYAS KYI, BDUL BA DANG, MDO DE GSUNGS PA NA The Tibetan has a mistake here. It says GSUNGS PAN or something like that. P-A-N That's a mistake.

It should have been P-A space N-A. GSUNGS PA NA Means when the Buddha comes to teach BDUL BA The Vowed Morality. You could say the Ten Commandments.

Or MDO DE The Open Sutras. The Open Sutras. Heart Sutra.

Diamond Color Sutra. When the Buddha comes to teach those things, CHOG KYI CHUG KUN NAM PAR BSTAN He appears in the classic Buddha form. Like a monk and shaved head and bare feet.

A yogi. Then SNGAGS KYI RGYUD GSUNGS PA NA What's SNGAGS? Tantra.

When he teaches the secret teachings. GSUNGS PA NA There's the correct spelling. GSUNGS PA NA MDO DE BYANG GI RNAM PAR BSTAN Then he appears as George Clooney.

But in this case, flowing hair, silk robes, jewels, like a dancer. Appears like a dancer. So when he teaches certain teachings, he appears as a monk.

When he teaches other teachings, he appears as like George Clooney. Got it? Or somebody very sensual and fashionable and graceful and sensual.

Like that. DE BZHIN DU When he teaches SANG DU The tantra called SANG DU. What's SANG DU?

Guhya Samaja. Guhya Samaja. Which is one kind of tantra.

The secret collection. When he teaches that, he appears as George Clooney, but with GZHEL GSUNGS. GZHEL GSUNGS Three heads.

CHAG GRUG GRUG Six heads. GRUG in number ten. When he has to teach that particular tantra, he's got three heads and six arms.

No problem. DE MCHOG GI RGYUD GSUNGS PA NA When he teaches DE MCHOG, CHAG GRUGS SANGS PAR Then he looks like Heruka. What's Heruka look like?

GZHEL GZHIG Four heads. CHAG CHU GNYIS Twelve arms. CHU GNYIS KYI RNAM PAR BSTAN PA SOGS RDO RGYUD RANG RANG DANG THUN PA'I KU'I RNAM PAR MIN DRA BA THA YOD PA He can appear in infinite forms, depending on what he's supposed to be teaching and the angel who's supposed to be connected to that teaching.

If that angel is supposed to have four hands and he says, okay, I'll grow two more arms. Or I got to grow ten more arms. Or I need an extra head.

You know? Okay? Even when he appears as George Clooney, he could have three heads.

No problem. Even more handsome. DRA BA THA YOD PA RANG RGYUD RANG RANG DANG THEN KYANG means, the KYANG means, what's KYANG?

But, he's still, DUN DU means in reality, he's still Shakyatupa. He's still Shakyamuni. He's still Gautama Buddha.

He's still that guy with the shaved head and the bare feet. Don't think he's anybody else. Don't think they're two separate guys.

George Clooney is the Dalai Lama. Now you laugh, but that means you didn't really think. You got to internalize this point.

He is the Dalai Lama. It's not like they are similar or you're trying to mix them. They've always been the same person.

RANG YIN PAS BDAG GIS BYANG DAG SHAL GYUR THOD PA ZHES NGO GCIG NYID LA LAS RGYUD THA DE MED PA Those of you who spent time with me, you know, ZAS GCIG RDOG PA THA DE The same junk in the same package. That's how Rinpoche described 7-Eleven and Circle K. My teacher, this old, old Tibetan guy, he walks into Circle K and says, ZAS GCIG RDOG PA THA DE I said, what's that mean?

It's the same crap in different packages. It's all salt, sugar, flour, white flour. Everything in the store.

Everything. It's just in different shapes. It's a joke in Tibetan.

Anyway. Here we have the same idea. NGO GCIG They are the same thing.

GCIG NYID NYID means only, just. They are just one thing. RGYUD THA DE MED PA They appear like different people, but they are not.

They are the same person. George Clooney and the Dalai Lama are the same person. In different packages.

Same stuff in different packages. This could get interesting, right? Here we go.

ZHAGS RGYAS BSTOD PA RANG NYID DGOS DNGUL GYI DU BYA RDZOGS NAS So, Gautama Buddha, Shakyamuni, Rangyi, his own gu, his own standard body, DNGUL GYI DU BYA RDZOGS NAS There were no more disciples who could sustain that vision of that body. It wasn't that he died. There were no longer any disciples around who could perceive him.

The disciples were no longer fit. So, he RDZOGS and he NYANG NGAN LAS DE Yeah, this one means he disappeared from this world. He reached his quote nirvana, meaning he disappeared from this world.

BZIN NAS KYANG BZIN NAS means even after that. BZIN means past tense, past participle, lesser. BZIN Past tense of BZIN It's weird.

BZIN BZIN BZIN means... Yeah, it means held, but as a verbalizer it means ED at the end of a verb. He passed.

BZIN NAS KYANG But, THAG YUL DU In the land of the unrealized beings, the Aryas, India, which is another word for India, he appeared in the form of many PEN and DRUG. What's PEN mean here? What's the PEN in Panchen Lama mean?

Pandita. It means Pandita. So he appeared as many...

Are you guys warming up? He appeared as many pandits, wise men, wise women. By the way, tomorrow we have a sutra called The Wise Woman, right?

Is it tomorrow? Yeah, so Mercedes, she's been translating a very rare sutra called The Sutra of the Wise Woman and it's a conversation between Lord Buddha and a woman who's very special. She's finished it actually.

It still has to be edited. She'll be teaching selections from it tomorrow. Anyway, he appeared as men and women saints and DRUG means...

DRUG CHOG means Siddhas. Siddhas. Yogis, high yogis.

MANG PO'I GUR TEN He appeared in the form of many people and he CHOS GSUNG He spoke the Dharma. What's the GANG RGYUR? Yeah, these are books that we still have that were teachings given by the Buddha himself or by other Buddhas.

What's the RTEN RGYUR? These are the ancient Indian commentaries on those. There are four and a half thousand total that we survived from ancient India.

The distinction between the GANG RGYUR and the RTEN RGYUR is that the GANG RGYUR is spoken by an enlightened being and the RTEN RGYUR is spoken by someone who's not enlightened. Right? So after Lord Buddha had already passed away, he appeared as many saints in India who wrote the RTEN RGYUR.

Okay. PO'I RGYUR BSTAN PA SNGAGS DANG PO'I RGYUR, what's PO? Yeah.

The B-O-D came into Italian as B-E-T when the first Italian priest got to Tibet and they called it THOD BOD and then it became Tibet. There's no word in Tibet like Tibet. It's POD.

It's Tibet in Tibet is POD which means to call. The Tibetans say that their country was called to call because you could stand in the Holy Land and if your voice was loud enough, if you were standing on the border, you could yell into our country. Okay.

This is from India. A stone's throw. It means a stone's throw.

They called their country a stone's throw from the Holy Land. PO'I RGYUR BSTAN PA The teaching, this is an important word for those of you who are learning Tibetan. Say NGA DAR.

NGA DAR. DAR means to spread like BSTAN PA DAR GYI or something. NGA DAR means, NGA means early.

DAR means transmission or spreading. So this is the earlier part of Buddhism in Tibet. So Buddhism in Tibet is divided into NGA DAR and CI DAR.

The earlier spread of Buddhism in Tibet and the later spread of Buddhism in Tibet. The NGA DAR got corrupted at some point. People started to misbehave and then CI DAR happened.

Then Je Tsongkapa came along and re-established, re-cleaned up everything. So that was called the CI DAR. But in the NGA DAR here in Tibet, KHYEN LOB SOGS KYI GUR BSTAN NAS Lord Buddha also emanated as teachers and disciples of those teachers during the earlier spread of Buddhism in Tibet.

GUR BSTAN NAS CHOS GSUNG And CHOS GSUNG, NGES CHOS GSUNG taught the Dharma. CI DAR LA in the later spread, he appeared as Jowo Chompo, Lord Atisha, around 1000 AD, 998 or something like that. And as Je Tsongkapa, etc.

So he appeared in both the earlier spread of Buddhism in Tibet and the later spread of Buddhism in Tibet. SKAD RUB means wise women and men. And RUB means SIDDHA, high yogis.

DUM MA, as many. KUR, he appeared in their bodies. BSTAN NAS, and he CHOS GSUNG.

He spoke the Dharma. So they keep repeating, he spoke the Dharma in these different forms. YIN PAS, therefore, BYA TSUNG BLO SANGS DRAG PA NYID KYANG we can say that Je Tsongkapa himself, BLO, in his essence, is Shakyatuba, Shakyamuni, Gautama Buddha, RANG, himself.

Got it? Therefore, Je Tsongkapa has always been the Buddha. All right, here we go.

How are we doing? Give me ten more minutes, I'll give you a pee-pee break. All right.

SANGS RGYAS KYIS MA'ONG BA NYID MA NGAG DO BA'I DUS DUS THUB DBANG DOR BYED CANG Is that it? No. How's that go?

SANGS RGYAS KYIS MA'ONG BA NYID MA NGAG DO BA'I DUS Then what's next after DUS? THUB DBANG DOR BYED CANG THUB DBANG DOR BYED CANG Okay, good. RANG NYID LA MED NAM PAR BSTAN NAS BYIN PAR GSUNGS PAS The Buddha himself said when he was still on this planet, in the future, when things get bad, I will come back as your teacher.

As Vajradhara Karma, your teacher. He said that. Even after I pass away from this world, when things get bad, I'll be there as your teacher.

The Tibetan for when things get bad in this world is NYID MA NGAG Say NYID MA NGAG I like it. NYID MA It keeps people awake during the teaching. NYID MA NGAG NGAG means what?

Yeah, five. NYID MA means dregs like in the bottom of a cup of tea when all the junk goes down to the bottom. It means...

NYID MA means junk at the bottom. Although I don't want to translate it that way. And there are five.

It means in the days of darkness. The Tibetan word for days of darkness is when the five things get bad. So I went and looked it up for you.

Of course. Here they are. These are the NYID MA NGAG the five things that went bad.

We are in the NYID MA NGAG now. We are in the bad days right now. DUS NYID MA DUS NYID MA The times are bad.

DUS Times are bad. Meaning TSUN LDAN TSUN LDAN means these are the times of strife in the world. Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa.

People are still having wars in this world. So the first one is here. Number two.

SREG NYID MA MA RGYUD KYI RTZOGS BLO RGYAL PA It is said in the Buddhist scriptures that lifespans begin with tens of thousands of years. In the Garden of Eden, and there is a Buddhist equivalent in the third chapter of the Abhidharmakosha, people lived for tens of thousands of years. And then slowly, because of people's bad behavior, it drops to roughly a hundred years.

Meaning we are there now. People's average lifespan is 50, 60, 70 years. So we are at the bottom of lifespans in history.

That's number two, lifespans. Number three. LTA BA NYID MA CING GIS BLO RGYUR BKA' BA LTA BA means people have wrong viewpoints that are spread throughout the world.

What's an example? We've been mentioning an example of where you're having trouble with your spouse or your partner. Perhaps they are criticizing you, right?

So in an enlightened world, the way you would deal with a spouse who was critical, criticizing you, would be that you would investigate your own behavior and stop criticizing someone else in your life. Maybe you're criticizing your kids or people you work with in a small way, which always expands. Karma expands wildly.

So you slightly judge someone at work or you slightly judge other people constantly and then suddenly a newspaper article comes out about you. You see what I mean? And the cause of that is that you have slightly judged people all day long and then karma expands.

You were slightly critical to someone at work and then you come home and your husband's criticizing you for hours. So that viewpoint is correct. That viewpoint works.

If you stop criticizing other people or stop judging other people, people won't judge you or criticize you. That's a correct viewpoint. But we're in the days, we're in the time in history where no one understands that.

They will fight the person who criticizes them. How do you make money according to a Buddhist worldview? You give away money.

And that's like the farthest thing from a corporate person's mind. Let's give away more cars so our stock will go up. They just would never think of that.

So these are days in the world when people are, the way people think is wrong and they won't get what they want because they're thinking backwards. I have to compete with other people or I have to fight with my husband who's critical to me. Like that.

That was number three. Okay, number four. NYON MONGS GNYIS MA NYON MONGS GNYIS MA means negative emotions run rampant in current times.

People are more likely to be impatient, nervous, stressed out, have anxiety, overdo it with their iPhones. Overdo it with their iPhones. People are more likely to be, to go on the internet and watch sex or they're more likely to argue with other people.

These are not good times as far as people's mental level is low. In Tibetan, that's described as SNGAR PHYAG LA YON RING BA It's not in the text. SNGAR PHYAG LA YON RING BA YON RING BA means when people get upset in modern times, they hold it.

Who's that nun in Washington State? What's her name? Thubten Chodron.

I heard her give a nice talk in Tucson like a hundred years ago. She was laughing and she was describing how she had trouble memorizing Tibetan and stuff like that. But she could still recite word for word what her former husband had said to her 34 years ago when they had their last fight.

She could still recite it word for word. I don't exactly remember if it was a former husband or what it was. But anyway, she was like, we hold on to the injuries done to us by others.

In modern times, we have a long memory. YON RING BA means a long memory. What's SNGAR?

Here they use the word SNGAR. It's the first time I've ever seen it not in a practice of meditation. SNGAR means, what do you call it when you do something to the steel of a knife?

Temper. Temper it? You like put it in the fire twice or something?

Yeah, that's called SNGAR. It's a word which describes a state of meditation. Like when you jack up your meditation, which is called in Tibetan, BOK CHEN PA.

That's why I use that word for those courses. You reach SNGAR, which means, I don't know, extra bite in your meditation. Super sharp in your meditation.

I've never seen it before used in another context. Here it is. SNGAR BDAG means, in modern times, people's negative emotions are SNGAR.

They have SNGAR. They are sharper. And they are stronger.

More intense. That's number four. Number five.

Then maybe we'll take a break. We got to see who's ahead. The last time I did this was in 1970, Phil.

1970. I campaigned for McGovern for like a year. They were all sitting in front of the TV like, how close will it be?

He lost every single state. He won one state and we were ecstatic. We were throwing confetti.

It was like 49 states to one. I think the state that he came from, they were just trying to give him one state. Anyway, that was the last time I did this.

SEMS CAN means people's nature. It's SDUL KHA. They are difficult to tame.

Remember Jesus used to say tame. It's difficult to help people in modern times. Most people are difficult.

You can't go into a wine bar and have a conversation with someone about why they shouldn't be mad at their husband or how they could make more money if they gave way more money. People are not into it. They're just not into that kind of stuff.

They just wouldn't relate to it. That's a people. Those are the five signs that we are in the days of darkness.

Then there are lamas who say, and then we'll stop. There are lamas who say, F that. You've never seen better times.

You are extremely lucky. These are not the days of dark. These are the days of hope.

We are in really good times. There hasn't been a major religious war. We are able to have this teaching here without worrying about the police coming and hitting everybody with sticks and saying, why are you not doing the government religion?

We can communicate with any other person on the planet for free within a few seconds. We can express our opinions globally. And we eat every day.

These have never been times like this in the history of mankind. There has never been such wonderful times for the Dharma. We can practice as we wish.

We have food. We are well educated. We have our parents caring enough to create schools and send us to those schools.

There are basic freedoms here. They just can't just come and... In the old days, what was a king?

A king came to your door and knocked on it and said, give me your wife. And you had to give her. We are living in the best of times.

We are very lucky. The big lamas say, forget the five. That's not true.

We are in good days. We are having good days right now. For us, it's perfect.

If we fail, it's only because of us. Sometimes a little suppression is really good, but we don't have any. Okay.

We'll have a break.