«Дар освобождения», курс 11 «Искусство ценить себя и свою жизнь», занятие 1

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 32:23)
It's really, really nice to see everybody here, very beautiful faces. And it was a wonderful talk that we had, two talks this afternoon. Rob's talk was totally awesome and really, you know, I'm the information giver, but he was conveying love, and I think I'd rather be him, but it was awesome.

And that's the kind of feeling that I think we all would like Diamond Mountain to be like Rob, and Gyelse's talk, heart from the heart, and we would like our university to be like that, and I pray that it will always be like that. And it makes me feel like we've come a long way. Maybe without all the trouble we've had, we wouldn't have reached that.

So the rest of us are trying to catch up, okay? So I just think it was awesome, and I thank you for that, especially. Feels like it's a success.

This university, the staff of the university, the board, the volunteers, and the retreatants are incredibly precious and awesome. And in the whole world, there's nobody like you, and you are priceless. In my opinion, you are priceless.

You can look at a pen, right? You got a pen? Do I have a pen?

You can look at a pen, right? This is the most famous teaching of this university, if I may say so. And a dog will see a kyur troy.

A dog will only want to chew it. A human will write with it. They will want to write a letter or something, okay?

And what does a bodhisattva see? They see like an instrument for changing the entire world. I could write things with this that would bring peace to the entire world.

They see something totally different, right? Is the dog wrong? Not for a dog.

Is the human wrong? No, not for a human. Is the bodhisattva cuckoo?

Cuckoo hippie, you know? No, they're just seeing something different. And that's the emptiness of a pen, right?

That's the emptiness of a pen. That's the higher reality of a pen. Can you get angry at the dog that they don't see a world-changing sword?

You know, should you beat the dog? You know, no, I mean, they have to catch up. You know, that's all.

So anyway, I salute you and it's an honor to be here. It's an honor to feel the feeling here. All the centers around the world.

And I'm just really, what do you call? I just, most of the day I'm ecstatic about what you're doing. And I'm just really, I cry a lot thinking about you and how happy I am about what you're doing and everybody here, you know?

Anyway, that's how I perceive it. Okay, so we are continuing through a book. This is the Tibetan book.

I used to hold it up here and open it and read it to impress people, but the computer works better. So usually I just let people, I hand it around and let people look at it. Because of Dan and John's work, we don't need it anymore.

But it sure looks nice. So I'm going to hand it around. Take a look at the book.

My Lama gave me this copy when I became a Geshe. And it's from Tibet. It's on handmade paper made from thorn bushes in Tibet.

And it's a beautiful, I think it's the best book ever written. We were sitting around having lunch and everybody was saying, what's the best book you ever read? And someone was like, War and Peace.

And somebody was like, Jonathan Seagull. And then I was like, no, Nam-dol Lhak-chang. It's got to be Nam-dol Lhak-chang.

This is the best book on this planet. And my Lama taught it to us for 30 years. And it's extraordinary.

It's beautiful. It's a guidebook to enlightenment. From zero to enlightenment.

All the steps you need to get enlightened in this life are there. And they are there in the greatest, the most poetic and beautifully written Tibetan there ever was. And now Tibetan language is being lost in the world.

I called a monastery in Tibet recently, Choney Monastery, to ask about some books. And there was no one who could speak Tibetan. There was one old monk who spoke rather poorly.

So this is probably going to be it. This is the greatest book I think ever written in Tibetan. And it's extraordinary.

So we made a deal, mazal, that I will finish this book. I would like to pass on the transmission in my lifetime before I go somewhere. So I'd like to pass on this transmission, which my Lama granted me so kindly several times.

So you should get the transmission. To hear it on the web and to hear it from a living person is completely different. We don't believe in Buddhism that that's the same thing.

We believe that something happens between two human beings who are alive when one of them gives a transmission of an ancient teaching. So I think if you don't come to these free classes for the next 12 years or so, you're just insane. And I don't go banging on doors in Tucson and telling people they're insane, but they are.

You never get a chance like that. And no one, I mean, my teacher learned it from the author, who was the teacher of the Dalai Lama's teacher. So it's awesome.

I beg you to get the whole transmission. And I beg you not to miss a class. And I beg you to pass it on as a living being.

I can't do anything more than that. I'll keep my side of the deal. As long as I can.

But you got to learn it and you got to pass it on. It cannot be lost in this world. It must be passed on as much as you can.

As much as you can come here physically, do. If you don't, it's just crazy. I don't know.

It's like somebody's handing out money for free and you're going to work every day. I don't know. I don't understand.

All right, here we go. So we're in a section of the text where we're learning how to meditate. And meditating properly is a lot like running in the Olympics.

I didn't see the Olympics except in the local sports bar, which is the only place you can get any food in my town. And they have 83 TVs going up on the top of the walls. Different programs, different channels.

But anyway, I saw most of the Olympics there by accident because I was eating there, having meetings there. And it's amazing to think that someone would train for their whole life and then it's all over in about two minutes. Like a runner, right?

I know a runner, an Olympic runner. She got up to a silver medal. She trained for 25 years every day.

Like five hours, six hours. My friend is their masseuse. They need two hours of masseusing every day.

Just so their huge muscles don't freak out. And then the race is over in two minutes of their life. It's over in two minutes.

But just before the race, you can see them warming up. And they have this really ritual warm-up. They got to warm up.

And their trainers spend years teaching them to warm up properly. It's hopeless to run a race with all those chunky muscles if you don't warm up first. Meditation is the same, okay?

You got to have a proper warm-up for meditation. A lot of people don't know why their meditation isn't better. It's because they don't know the warm-up, how to warm up before meditation.

So we're in a section of the text where they teach you how to do the warm-up. There's two things you have to know. I'm going to allow, you don't have to, but if you want to, I'm going to say Tibetan words.

You can repeat them. You don't have to. If you prefer not to, that's fine.

You guys have to repeat them. Say, GYOR GCOD, GYOR GCOD, GYOR GCOD, okay? GYOR GCOD means preliminary practices to a meditation session.

GYOR GCOD means six. So there are six practices. By the way, I'll take a break, and I know I talk too much, and that's not unusual.

We'll take a break in about 10 minutes. I'll give you a break in about 10 minutes, and then we'll do some more. I just want to catch you up to where we are.

We are on the GYOR GCOD DRUG. We are going through the six preparations for any meditation session. First one is called, GNAS GANG CI DOR BYED LA GUS SUM THUGS KYI BRTEN BRAM PA It means tidy up your meditation space and prepare an altar, okay?

That's considered the first meditation practice. Tidy up your space and put out, it doesn't matter, a picture of whoever you care about, Jesus or Moses or Muhammad or Buddha or, I can't think, I don't know any modern sports stars. No, that's too old.

Wilt Chamberlain, that's why. No, I'm not going to make it. I don't care, it doesn't matter.

Someone who you respect, someone who you would like to learn from, put their picture on the altar. Put some little nice thing that's important for you there, you know, like fruit or cookie or Twinkie or water. There's bad news about Twinkies, I'll tell you guys later.

Major problem, big karmic obstacle. But anyway, so put out a nice altar, okay? It's not a hippie, stupid thing to do.

It's a very intelligent, advanced thing to do. You are extremely intelligent if you have a little homemade altar there. And I don't care what anybody else says.

They are crazy. They will live and die with no meaning to their life. It's good to put an altar out and it's good to put a picture there of somebody who's uplifting to you and then to put a nice little fruit there or something.

That's a good thing, okay? Okay, number two, NYID PA CHOS PA YOD MED CING YOD MED CING GOS PA RDZAS PAR BSAMS PA Shambha, second step, put out some offerings to that being who you respect and you love. Then put a little piece of fruit or put out some water balls or something.

Change it every day if you can. YOD MED means the offerings should have been acquired honestly and purely, okay? Nothing stolen or on a credit card.

No, we won't talk about that. GOS PA RDZAS PAR means make them pretty, make them beautiful, make them lovely. They can be small and modest, but they should be exquisite.

And simple things can be exquisite and expensive things can be ugly, right? Depends on your state of concentration at the time. Okay, number three, GSUM PA BSTAN DE BA LA LUS SNAM NANG GI CHOD DUN LDAN DUG KUD DE DGE SEMS KHYAD PAR CAN GYI SNANG MED KYAM SEMS SOGS BYA BA Thirdly, sit down on your meditation cushion.

In the proper posture, there are seven or eight elements to that posture. You all know that. We went through that.

Basically just means sit up straight and suck in your tummy a little bit. And then put your mind through some kind of virtuous thoughts like, I'm doing this to help everyone in the world, okay? I'm doing this to help everyone in the world.

Is it possible to help everyone in the world? I think when I first became a Buddhist, or I first started following Buddhism, they would talk about helping all the living beings in the world. And frankly, I would think that's not possible, or I don't have that capacity.

But there's the thing of a living example, you see? If you become an example of what you talk about, if you truly have compassion, or you personally have kindness, like I think we saw demonstrated in Rob's talk, personally, I saw it that way. If you have that kind of heart, people will be attracted to it, and people will emulate it, and it will spread like a virus, okay?

You can know all the ACI courses, and Sanskrit, and Chinese, and Tibetan, and still have a cold heart. And that doesn't spread, thank goodness. People love warm hearts, people imitate kind people, and then that spreads, and in that manner, you change the world.

Without question, okay? People come and say, what are you doing? We are on airplanes often, and the stewardess will sit down next to us and say, who are you guys?

What are you doing? Everybody wants to join DCI after like 15 minutes. It's just because it feels happy, okay?

So you can save the world by becoming a kind person, right? Because that will spread. That always spreads.

Okay, number three. Four, shipa. SOGS SHING SEMS DEPA Picture all the holy beings of the universe sitting in front of you.

If it's too much to do all of them, do one, okay? I prefer one personally. Somebody asked me today, when they retreated and said, how many, do you do the 64 angel thing, or do you do the 37 thing?

And I'm like, I do the one. And the older I get, the less it gets. And I'm proud of it.

So anyway, picture in front of you a living holy teacher. Whoever you relate to, picture them in front of you. That's step number four.

Step number five is called sak jang. Say sak jang. Sak jang.

Sak means a quick injection of good karma just before you meditate. And jang means a quick cleansing of negative karma just before you meditate. Why just before?

Because you'll make more bad karma if you take 15 minutes. Like you got to do it sak jang fast and then start meditating. So sak means an extraordinary practice to collect a big hit of good karma just before you meditate.

It's like, what's those things that they take just before the Olympic race? Steroids. Like, they take a drug and then they run, and they can run twice as fast as everybody.

In our system, it's legal. Sak jang. Get a big hit of good karma.

Clean some bad karma. Start meditating fast. That's called sak jang.

Sak jang is done traditionally by seven steps. So don't get confused between the six and the seven. There are six general practices for preparing for a meditation session.

The fifth one has seven parts, and that's called yenlak dön. Say yenlak. Dön.

If you keep repeating Tibetan, you get to have your break within the next five minutes. The first one of those is called chak selwa. Chak selwa means bow down to your teacher.

It doesn't mean physically bowing. I got complaints. I was in New York.

This lady reporter runs, why are all these people bowing down? We're Buddhist. People bow down in Buddhism.

It's a custom. In the church, you kneel. In Buddhism, you get down on the ground.

In Japan, you go like that. It's a custom. It's a cultural custom.

And it's what we do. So first one is prostration. You don't have to do it physically.

And in fact, in this case, you are doing it mentally. Because you're on your meditation seat. You shouldn't get back up because you're going to mess up.

The essence of prostration is to admire something in the person you consider your teacher. If you want to learn piano, you don't go to a banjo teacher because they don't teach piano. You go to a teacher because they have something that you want to learn.

And so hopefully, you shouldn't take a teacher unless they have something you want to learn from them. If they're a good banjo player, but they don't play piano and you want to learn piano, you should find a different teacher. And everyone's different.

Everybody relates to a different teacher. There are many fine teachers in our broad umbrella organization, ACI, et cetera, people who have been trained here. There are many fine teachers and there are many, many fine teachers, good teachers.

They are all different personalities. Alhandro and me are different. He surfs better.

But each one has their own special flavor and their own special style. Find one who fits you because they have something that you want to learn. And then when you think in your mind, you're nice, I want you to teach me.

It's because there's something about that person that you want to learn. So in the first of the seven steps to collect a fast hit of good karma and clean out bad karma, you're supposed to think about the quality of your teacher that you want to learn. Oh, you play piano so well.

That's a prostration. That's a mental prostration. You don't have to get down on the ground.

If you get down on the ground and you don't have the mental prostration, it doesn't work anyway. Okay, if you do the mental one, you don't have to do the physical one. If you do both, it's better.

It's even better. Okay, so that's fine. So prostration is a mental thing and it's an admiration of a quality that you would like to learn.

Step number two, offering, okay, repeated, but this time it's in your mind. And you can go wild since you're not limited by your budget anymore, which for some of us is a challenge. I like to make nice offerings.

I mean, if I go wild, it can, I don't know, Nicole shops for me. What was the last bill? What was that last one?

Where are you, Vigna? What was the bill for the last trip to Sedona? 300 bucks, okay.

Yeah, you should do some nice ones, but this one you can do in your mind, okay? You can do in your mind, offering. Third part is called confession.

Okay, chaksal washing. Chaksal means prostration. Chöpa means offering.

And now we're on confession, which is shakpa, okay? Say shakpa, shakpa. Shakpa is a word that means to split open a piece of wood with an ax.

And it means to bare your heart and admit the things you've done that are not so good. And that's confession, okay? So in Tibetan, it's called splitting open the heart.

You split open your rib cage and you say, look, I was jealous of somebody 15 minutes ago. And you're showing everything. That's called shakpa.

It's a beautiful word. We are in the middle of shakpa. The essence of the practice of shakpa is topshi.

Say topshi. What's topshi? Four powers, okay?

The four powers of purification. Purifying what? All bad karma.

All bubus. Four powers for bubu purification. It's called topshi.

We finished them already in Guadalajara. He's now going to go on a little bit about the fourth power. Okay, the four powers are DENG GI STOBS Like you rethink out your understanding that the world is coming from you.

Just rethink it out, the pen thing. DENG GI STOBS Then NAM PAR GSUM BYIN PA'I STOBS Just consider how fast the negative seed is going to multiply in your mind. According to the scriptures, it doubles every 24 hours.

Ningbo did the math for me. He's not here because he's in Sibirsk, Nova Sibirsk, getting his rear end frozen off. But what was...

I think it's a... I don't know. It's like a couple million in a month, okay?

You squish a bug on May 1st. By May 30th, it's equivalent to killing a million or two million, something like that. So the second of the four powers is to understand that and to get excited about getting that thing out now, not even waiting until tomorrow.

I need to remove this seed now. It's some kind of feeling of urgency. I need to remove this seed now.

Okay, step number three. NGES PA LAS LANG RDOG PA'I STOBS You make a commitment not to do it anymore. Okay, you make a commitment not to do it anymore.

That's the only thing that stops the bad karma, is a commitment not to do it again. Okay, that's the real power. If you can't remember four, just remember number three, you know?

Okay, if it was lying and you were lying to people, then you make a commitment not to lie for a certain amount of time. Okay, I will try. I will watch my mouth very carefully for the next three days while we're in silence and try not to lie.

You see what I mean? That's the real power that short-circuits the karmic seed. You cannot remove the karmic seed, by the way.

You can only short-circuit it. NGES PA LAS LANG RDOG PA'I STOBS And then, what's the last one? If you tell me that one, you can have a break.

Yeah, go ahead then. What do they call that in Tibetan? KUN DU SPYOD PA'I STOBS NGES PA KUN DU SPYOD PA'I STOBS It means do something to balance out the karma.

Okay, do something to balance out the karma. I was involved in an abortion. That's my famous example.

I was told by my immediate teachers and parents that abortion was okay. So I was involved in one in college. And then I went to study with Tibetans and they told me, you just killed a human being, you know?

And I'm like, wow, I don't want that. So then I said, they took me through the four steps, right? And then part of my reason to become a monk was step number three.

If you don't have sex, you can't have an abortion again. But number four was balancing power, right? So then I worked with children.

I think it was 15 years I worked with children. I had a children's group in New Jersey and that was a balancing karma until I felt the karma was finished. And there are signs of that which we went over already in Guadalajara, which are you feel a great lightness in your heart and you have a small exquisite disaster in your life because the power of the seed is released in a single day.

So if you were supposed to get in a car accident and die because you were involved in an abortion, if you do a good four powers, then you'll just get, the Buddha in the Diamond Cutter Sutra, Jinkanjin says, you'll get a migraine for 24 hours, an intense migraine that you never had before. And then you're done. Then the seed is, the power of the seed is wasted, is spent.

And you will never have any other. Fourth chapter of Yoga Sutra, you will, I don't remember. You'll never have to pay those debts back.

It's finished. So we are on the wrap up of that. He's about to tell us more.

He's going to give us a list of six things you can do to balance old bad karma. Six things you can do to balance old bad karma and that's where we're at. This is a short quotation from Je Tsongkapa.

The Gompa Rabsel, which is the greatest book ever written on emptiness. And it says, karma is where your karma stays. So we have a year to figure that out.

Gunnar, are you ready? Here we go. Even in this, the master gives us a lesson.

If you really love your family, if you really want to help them, then leave and perfect your own heart first in deep retreat. I didn't set that up. Okay.

That's the quotation that Rob was giving this afternoon. That's like a miracle. Nah.

I didn't set it up, I swear. Okay. Okay, then.

You can wait till they're finished, okay? Then you got some place to do it. All right.

So we got just a few minutes. We'll just get started. NYEN PO KUN ZHUGS KYI STOBS LA TSOR GRUGS GSUNGS PAS Mainly there are six different practices suggested for power number four, for the purification of all bad karma.

The balancing power, right? SNGAR BYAS PA LA RGYUR PA'I SGO NAS With sincere regret about what you did before. DNGOS SU BDAG PAR BYAS PA'I THABS Here are some methods of directly cleaning that karma.

Okay, number one. DE BZHIN SHES PA'I TSEN means reciting the names of the Buddhas. Okay.

This is a powerful practice which we have not done much. We've been concentrating on other forms which he'll mention. But I'm kind of into this one this week.

So I thought we would go over that a lot. And this is called YUL GYI RTOG YUL GYI RTOG means this purification method is powerful because of the person's name and not because of any intention from our side. So you can have a lousy, weak intention and it still works just because Buddhas are so powerful.

To recite the names of, in this case, 35 beings plus eight more, which I'll tell you about later, who have already done what we seek to do, is of extremely great power because of the power of them and not because of our goodness. Something good or something bad done towards an extraordinary person gives great results no matter what your intention was. You can have a good result.

You have a good intention and hurt a spiritually advanced person and you will have a terrible result. Or you can have a bad intention or a weak intention and say a Buddha's name over and over and just the name will be enough and you don't have to worry so much about repeating the bad deity in your mind as you're doing the purification. This is what I do.

Okay, got that? All right. It was a dark participant.

Second one. GSUNGS RGAGS DANG Saying special mantras like Vajrasattva mantras, which you've heard about. MDO DANG Reciting sutras.

Reciting great, great, like Heart Sutra or Diamond Cutter Sutra. SHIN CING JIN GANG CING Okay. SDONG NI This is the preferred method at Diamond Mountain because you are highly trained.

And it's... And Je Tsongkapa himself says this is the highest one of the six. He mentions the six.

He goes through the six. And then he says, if you are NOVA, it means if you are a practitioner of higher capacity, then meditate on emptiness. Meditate on the emptiness of the pen.

And that things are, what Venerable Gyelse talked about today. Just do those meditations and dedicate it to purifying your negative karma. And that's the highest.

But only special people can do that if they've been trained and if they have a good capacity, good mental and spiritual capacity. Number five, make offerings. Number six, number six says KUSUG LA BSTAN PA.

KUSUG LA BSTAN PA means to rely on an image. And I was kind of going to fudge that one because I wasn't sure what it meant. But then during the 10 minute break, I thought maybe I shouldn't fudge it.

And I'll go look it up. And I wanted to thank Ted Lemon. He's our resident programmer.

He has refined the tools for using the half a million pages that have been input for 25 years. I can check all the sutras that ever existed in India in 10 seconds and look that up. And I did.

Okay. So you got to realize that's something else that's coming out of this university. The work being done here and by the people from here is unmatched in the world in that sense.

Those tools for using that research, being able to look up KUSUG LA BSTAN PA. So you want to know what it means? It means, out of admiration for the Buddha or any other holy being of your choice, you sculpt or paint or draw again.

Okay. You make a religion. That's another subject where we could have a discussion.

[Говорящий 2] (32:25 - 32:26)
That's a good thing.

[Говорящий 1] (32:26 - 42:31)
All right. Last one. Oh, that is six.

Sorry. I just don't want to keep you late. I know these guys are going to be totally burned out tonight.

I've been there. I know how hard it is. You just be, you'll be fried.

Okay. DE TZAM MA ZAD Not only that, THU LO ZHAG SO ZHES PA'I TSIG SMOS SU MA GCOD KYANG SDIG PA BDAG PA'I CHOS DU So there's a famous confession. All Buddhist monks, twice a month, we get together and do SO SBYONG.

And then you do a thing called LTUNG ZHAG which means you confess mistakes. In the old days, the monks would sit around in a circle and they would actually say what they did. I checked out a lady in the bus station on Thursday.

Something like that. They would admit it to each other openly. And there was a high degree of, what do you call that?

When you don't spill the secrets of your small group. You respect integrity or, what do you call that? There's another word for that.

People trusted each other that they could say the terrible things they did and thought to the other members of their sangha because they knew that it would be kept, what do you call it? Confidential? No.

Discreet. Yeah. I mean, so in the old days, in sanghas, it was considered very important that you would share with each other your worst thoughts, your worst deeds, the blackness of your heart.

And then you would all keep it carefully and respectfully just out of honor for the system. And then the system broke down at some point, I think. And now in the monastery, you just have, in my monastery, Serna, we do sojong together.

Serje, Serme. That's about the only thing we do together. We do sojong together and it's ...

And then you go home. And it means I openly share what I did wrong. I openly confess.

because if I share it with my brothers and sisters openly, I will feel at peace. And if I don't, I won't. But then they don't share it anymore.

So anyway, I think it's a good custom. Anyway, he says, with step number four, you don't have to say, THU LO BZHAG SO, I open my heart, I confess everything. You don't have to go through that.

,GZHAD PA'I TSUG SMOS SU MA GCOD KYANG, Even if you don't go through the recitation of it, ,DIG PA BDAG PA'I PHYIR DU, if you undertake certain actions to purify your heart, which include MA NI DRANG BA, just saying OM MANI PAD MI HUNGS on your rosary, MA NI DRANG BA. TSUN, starting with that kind of little tiny thing you can do up to greater virtues, much higher virtues. ,GZHAD KYANG NGAN PO KUN TU SPYOD PA'I STOBS SU BRAL BA, It can be number four.

It can be number four. Every effort you make in your spiritual practice all day, everything, washing dishes quickly so you can get back to your meditation, or making a fence to keep the pigs out of your kale crop. Those are cute fences I saw today.

All those things. He says, ,RANG CAG BDAG KYANG LTA BU, Even like meditators, hermits, people who live on their own in solitude, ,LTA BU, ,CHOS DAG LA BRAL BA'I TSE, Even if they go to the debate ground, when it's too hot or when it's too cold, you should grab that discomfort and use it for power number four. All sweat, every difficult thing that you do in your whole day, which you guys do hundreds of, every one can be power number four, which I really like that.

So really now there's seven. There's the six traditional ones. I forget who taught them.

I'll tell you tomorrow. But the seventh one, which is available all the time, even to CTs for example, is every trouble you've gone through in the last year, every single little hardship you've gone through, you can grab onto that and use it. You can get mileage out of it.

It can be power number four. So if it comes up in your mind, just say, yeah, I dedicate that for power number four. I dedicate that hardship I had to purifying mistakes I made earlier in my life.

Cool? Anything you do for your practice, you can use for power number four. And you just think of anything, even hard times, especially hard times.

He's saying especially hard times and dedicate it to purifying all bad karmic seeds. ,GA BYED ,GA BYED means ,GA THUB, which is tapas, right? Difficult.

,GA THUB means difficult practices, like sitting in a little retreat hut when it's 110 outside. We always have record hot spells when you guys are in retreat. ,GA BYED BYAS PA'I KUN KHYAM GDUG PA'I ,BDAG PA'I PHYIR DU BSAM NA If you dedicate it to purifying your old bad karmic seeds, it will work.

You can use it. ,BDAG PA RGYUR RO ,BDAG PA RGYUR RO means they will be purified. I got two more minutes and I'm not wasting it.

Okay, here we go. ,DE YANG RTOGS SHES TZAM BAR BYED DGOS But you must have all four powers complete. You can't leave one out.

All four have to be there. ,GONG GI GRUB PA'I SNANG NAS Of the six which we mentioned before, ,TSAN LA BSTAN PA'I BRAS GRUB DE ZHING If you think about it, practices like just sitting and reciting the names of former Buddhas is easy. It's not like you have to...

What do you call it? Control yourself. You just recite holy names.

This is the easiest type of power number four. ,DE ZHING, ,THAR BAR BSGOMS PA'I CHAGS SU BZHIN In the custom of our immediate lineage, the holy lamas of our own personal lineage, which our lineage is extensive. Our lineage goes back unbroken two and a half thousand years.

We can recite, and we do recite twice a month, the names back at least to India. You are in an unbroken pure lineage which has gone on for two and a half thousand years. In that lineage, it was always a custom that when you wanted to purify a negative deed that you did in the past, you could prostrate at the same time.

So prostration combined with, for example, reciting the names of the Buddhas is a powerful way of purifying things. It was a custom to combine the two. So you are bowing down to the Buddhas as you recite their names and you are dedicating it to purifying certain bad deeds.

I gave you a reading which I translated from several sources. We'll go through it tomorrow. We're going to be going through the practice of the 35 Buddhas.

They are there in that poster, by the way, upper left. There's a big circle in the upper left. There's 35 little guys there.

And Je Tsongkapa had a vision of these 35 Buddhas. It's very important in our lineage to recite the names of the 35 Buddhas. And each one has a special power for certain kinds of bad deeds.

So we'll get into that tomorrow. Dukshat, but you can prostrate physically while you are reciting the prostrations. It also makes you buff and keeps you slim.

Dukshat and Dawaichat. Rinpoche did it a lot. He had a special board made.

Maybe you saw it. Dukshat and Dawaichat were on... So you recite that.

That's actually a selection from a sutra. Vinaya, an old sutra on the Vinaya. And we'll talk about it tomorrow.

We'll go through that tomorrow. It's a very wonderful practice. And I think it'd be useful to focus on it for maybe a couple of weeks or months, a couple of months.

And you could try it. And see if it gives you a breakthrough that you haven't had yet. What prevents you when you get to a certain meditation level and you level, what do you call it?

You level out, is some kind of subtle karmic block. And I was thinking that this particular practice, which was one of Je Tsongkapa's favorites, could break through that last veil or something. Like stop the plateau and keep you peaking in your meditations.

So if you have time and if you have desire, I thought you could use this practice. And we'll talk more about how to do that tomorrow. All right then.

Are you ready, Grandpa, other Grandpa? I'm number one. You're number one, Grandpa.

I'm number two, Grandpa.

[Говорящий 2] (42:31 - 45:20)
Okay. Okay. NAMASKAR NAMASKAR NAMASKAR NAMASKAR NAMASKAR NAMASKAR NAMASKAR NAMASKAR NAMASKAR NAMASKAR NAMASKAR NAMASKAR NAMASKAR Okay.

Have a good night. You guys have to sleep early.

[Говорящий 1] (45:22 - 45:50)
Be sure to do your practice in the morning. Meditation and especially yoga, because otherwise it'll be so tiring, the whole weekend. So you got to take care of yourselves.

Eat well, and eat well. You guys too, you have to practice tomorrow morning. Otherwise, it doesn't sink into your head.

Everyone, please come for meditation and yoga in the morning. All right, good night.