«Дар освобождения», курс 11 «Искусство ценить себя и свою жизнь», занятие 4

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Okay, so we're going to continue with a book. Just a short introduction. This is called Lam Rim.

It's a kind of spiritual literature in Tibet. It means Idiot's Guide to Enlightenment. Somebody asked me to do a program at Shivananda and I said, I'd want to do Idiot's Guide to Enlightenment.

And they changed it. They changed it to Nirvana or something. They didn't ask me, they just changed it.

But that's the name of the book. It's like enlightenment from A to Z. So you take about 4,000 scriptures and you suck out their essence and you present it in an A to Z presentation of enlightenment.

So any normal person can start on the first page and if they practice each step that's presented, then by the last page, they're a Buddha. Which is a pretty wild claim, right? If you just make your way through this book and do some meditations, then by the time you get to the last page, you're a Buddha.

According to Buddhism, all of us will become a Buddha. Male, female, young, old, wherever you live, doesn't matter. Everyone has the capacity to become a Buddha and everybody will become a Buddha.

It's just a matter of time. This book will speed it up a little bit. So I was fortunate enough to hear this teaching from my teacher over 25 year period, over 25 years.

And he drilled it into us. And then I thought that I should pass it on in my lifetime. I should make time to pass it on.

So I'm doing that. And I'm doing it, what do you call it? In a leisurely way.

I'm not rushing and I'm not watering it down. This is my one chance in the year. Four times a year, I have a chance to present hardcore Buddhist teachings and so I'm going to.

And I don't care how confused you look. If you want something more general, come to one of our other talks. But this is for the serious people.

It's not difficult. It's joyful. It's beautiful.

But it's deep. It's deep. So it takes some...

You have to focus and you have to learn it. But it's very beautiful. It's very beautiful.

So I'm going to go through each word of the Tibetan partly to impress you. Maybe mostly to impress you, no. And then partly because I would like a record of these teachings available for future generations.

Because I was fortunate enough to catch a llama right out of Tibet. When Tibet fell, my llama came out of Tibet. One of the greatest llamas of Tibet.

And then I was a stupid hippie 22-year-old and I ran into him and then lived with him for 25 years. So I got a very fresh, unique chance. I wasn't working for the first eight years and I was able to just study all day with him.

And then after that, there weren't any more llamas like that. The last one, the last Geshe from Tibet passed away in our monastery last week. So that was just a unique period of time.

I was in the right, Dr. John, right? I must have been in the right place. I must have been in the right time.

And so I want to record what I learned and I don't want it to be lost. So Rebecca and Gunnar have taken responsibility and I think Jigme is running a backup. But we must record everything.

We cannot lose any of it, okay? Even if it's not video, at least audio. Because no one will ever get this kind of explanation again.

I called a monastery in Tibet recently because I was looking for some books. I just got their phone number and called them, which is weird, right? And I said, in Tibetan I said, I want to talk to somebody about getting this book.

And they're all like, they couldn't understand me. And they forgot Tibetan. And they said, wait, wait, there's one old monk who speaks Tibetan.

And I thought that was so sad. That's like calling Harvard University and there's only one guy left who speaks English. And it was really sad for me.

And so that generation is gone and those times are gone. And at least we should record it for the future. Well, they need money for more cameras.

If you have a zillion dollars and you want to unload some of it, raise your hand. I'm not trying to make money. We do these things for free.

We lose steadily healthy amounts of money. And we just scrape by and we scrape it together and we do it. But this should be recorded properly and it should not be lost because that's it.

And I think it's the greatest book about enlightenment ever written. This particular book, I think it's the greatest book ever written. So to have a foreigner, an American, ex-Phoenix hippie, to explain it in plain English straight from one of the greatest lamas of Tibet, it'll never happen again.

So we should record it. And you should come. Okay, don't be lazy.

You will never get a chance like this. And this won't last forever. I kept telling people at Diamond Mountain during the courses there, this ain't going to last forever.

And they're all like, yeah, yeah, Geshe-la. Now they're all like, it's over. And all things pass.

So you should come and you should learn. Even to come and sit here and not study and not practice, it's still a great blessing for your mind. And you shouldn't miss it.

And it's good, where are we? What do you call that? It's online, right?

Streaming online. And that's good. If you can't get here, that's good.

But human to human is irreplaceable. According to Buddhism, there's a magic that happens between living humans. So try to get here as much as you can while it's live.

Because this particular detail and my training in it is not going to happen again. And not because of me, but because of my teacher. So it would be a shame if you lose the opportunity.

It's not like anything else you can get, I don't think, in the Western world right now. So try to come. Even if you don't feel well or you're very busy or it costs money or it's trouble to come, try to come.

It's not for me. I will teach. If one person comes, I'll teach.

If nobody comes, I'll probably still teach. So it's okay. I'm determined.

I'm used to that. But from your side, you shouldn't lose the chance because it may not happen again. And the whole process will take, I think, another 10 years at least.

So don't get nervous. Just come and enjoy and sit there. Get what you can get.

It'll be going for a while. All right. So we were describing how to prepare for meditation.

And there are seven traditional steps for getting yourself ready for a meditation. It's very similar to warming up your legs before you run an important race. And if you don't warm up your brain before you do meditation, then according to Tibetan belief in this tradition, you won't have a good meditation.

It's not possible to have a truly deep meditation unless you know the proper warm-up. Who invented the warm-up in the three heaps of sutra? The sutra is a clue.

Yeah, the Buddha. Sutra means a book taught by the Buddha, right? So Lord Buddha taught the seven steps.

It's not something even that Tibetans made up. It was from Lord Buddha. And we talked about the sutra at Diamond Mountain.

We looked at it. Okay. So we're in, what is it?

We're in the section about that, which is called clearing your conscience before a meditation. Make your conscience clear before a meditation. If you have hurt someone recently, or even a long time ago, and it's still on your conscience, and you didn't apologize, and you didn't face up to it, and you didn't purify it from your heart, it will subtly block your meditation.

You won't be able to have as deep meditation as you could. And you meet people, I mean 99% of people could care less about meditation. They're interested in videos and TV shows.

I went to a friend of mine's house. I don't have a TV. I haven't had, never had a TV.

And I went to his house. He lives in Tucson. And he had his TV going.

And I'm like, I wonder what TV is like. I haven't seen one for 20 years or something. And he was entranced in a game show.

And I was watching him, not the TV. And then he was like, wow, check this out. And they have a lady blindfolded, and she's reaching into a bucket full of something, and she has to guess what it is.

And it was cow penises cut off of cows. And he was so turned on. He's like, check that out, man.

And I'm like, how can you spend your life watching a blindfolded lady reaching into a bucket of this thing? What a terrible tragedy. What a terrible waste of your time.

I can't imagine a worse waste of your time. It's hard to imagine a worse waste of your time. A worse waste of your time.

And so very few people care about meditation. They come home, they eat, they watch TV, they do some Facebook, and then they get old and they die. And life is finished.

So some people try to meditate, but they don't have training, or they don't have a career. It's like learning to play piano. They learn chopsticks and they never get past that.

And you meet them and they play chopsticks for you, and you're like, yeah, you played that for me a few years back. Meditation is a beautiful art. If you learn it with a good teacher, they can teach you many ways to meditate.

And they're very beautiful ways to spend your time. And you go deep, deep inside, and you make huge progress, and beautiful things happen to you. But you need training, and you need proper warmup.

So one of the warmups is confession, or admitting your mistakes that you've hurt people. So that's a tradition. So he's been describing a process of clearing your conscience before you meditate.

And in Buddhist practice, there are names of Buddhas, past Buddhas, that we can chant before we meditate. And we finished that at Diamond Mountain. We talked about the 35 Buddhas whose names you can recite.

And then that will clear your conscience. So I'm just going to go a little bit more on that. It's a little confusing, I'm sorry.

I'm not skipping anything to make it easier. We're going straight through. And then we get to a more friendly part.

So don't worry. DE BZHIN ZHES PA SONGS RGYAS You good? DE BZHIN ZHES PA?

Go down. Yeah, okay. There you go.

There you go. Okay. First line there.

DE BAR ZHES PA CHES SDUG BSNGAL GYI BRTZEN GNYEN NA DE BZHIN ZHES PA SONGS RGYAS BSTENG DU On top of the 35 Buddhas, DE BAR ZHES PA CHES SDUG BSNGAL GYI BRTZEN GNYEN NA CHES means brothers of the same family or brothers and sisters of the same family. It's called CHES. There's a famous KU CHES from ancient India.

Who's the two? ASANGA and VASUVANDHU Okay, they're called the two brothers. KU CHES, holy body brothers from the same body.

Same mother, not the same fathers. And they were called the KU CHES GNYIS, the two brothers. Here we have CHES SNGA.

What's that? Sorry, CHES SDUN. The seven brothers, okay?

The seven brothers. CHES SDUN GYI BRTZEN GNYEN NA If we add those seven names to what? The 35 that we had already.

BSTAN PA'I DUS GNYIS MA RGYUD Here in the GNYIS MA, do you know GNYIS MA? If you fix a good cup of Tibetan tea, you pour black tea into a cup and then you just add hot water. And then Tibetans are really good at sipping around the tea, what do you call those things?

Tea leaves. They sip around the tea leaves and then they set the cup down and it's just tea leaves left. When you set the cup down and there's all that junk in the bottom, that's called GNYIS MA.

GNYIS MA means the crap at the bottom of the cup. And these times in history are called GNYIS MA. Our time, the present time is called GNYIS MA.

In the history of mankind, we are in the GNYIS MA. We are in the times when people will spend the precious hours of their life watching a blindfolded lady pull bull penises out of a bucket. That's GNYIS MA.

These are bad times in the world. These are sick times in the world. GNYIS MA.

BSTAN PA'I DUS GNYIS MA RGYUD MUN NAM NAM DUG PAR GSUNGS Here in the days of the dark, if you add the seven Buddha's names to the 35, when you sing your bad deeds, then your MUN NAMS will droop, even in these bad times. What's a MUN NAMS? Your prayers will droop means come true, SIDDHA.

They will come true. So if you add the seven names, your prayers will come true. He doesn't give you the seven names, so I went and got them for you.

I'll try to put them on a piece of paper. I owe some other things to you. A couple of mantras.

I'll try to do it tomorrow sometime. But I'm going to give you the seven names. Where did I get them?

There's a Lama named Moochudharmabhadra, Quicksilver, who wrote a nice commentary on them, a nice explanation of them. Is the air conditioning going? You got it?

Okay. It'll come. It's broken?

Okay. That's why they turn the lights on me. Okay.

He lived 1772 to 1851. He was born around the time of the American Revolution in Tibet. And here's his version of the seven.

There are two versions of the seven. In all the versions, they say there's an eighth. So actually, I'm going to give you eight names.

But there's two versions of the seven. There's always the same eighth. So here we go.

The first one is called MEN LA, MEN LA. What's that mean? Yeah, Medicine Buddha.

It actually means Medicine Lama, MEN LA. They never call him Medicine Buddha in Tibetan. I think that's some American thing.

But it is a Buddha. And if you have a medical problem and you recite their name, it can help your medical problem. That's called MEN LA.

These seven Buddhas, eight really, are very useful for people who have a serious medical problem because you can recite these seven names or eight names and it will help your medical problem. The first one is called MEN LA. I think it would probably be more powerful to recite their original names in Sanskrit.

So I'll give you that. MEN LA is BYA BYA BYA. I'll give you a piece of paper tomorrow, so don't stress.

BYA BYA GURU. GURU means teacher, right? Medicine Lama, BYA BYA GURU.

That's the first of the seven brothers, Buddha brothers. It's like the Blues Brothers. Number two, SNGON KHAN RGYAL PO.

ABU'I RGYAL NA RAG CIG ABU'I RGYAL NA RAG CIG It means King of Total Knowledge. King of Total Knowledge. It's not bad to recite their names in English.

If you want. And I'll give you tomorrow, I'll give you a piece of paper with the right spelling. Number three, PHYIR DAG RGYA TSO YANG DHAR MA KHYIR TI SARGA GO SHA DHAR MA KHYIR TI SARGA GO SHA DHAR MA KHYIR TI means the fame of the Dharma.

And SARGA means ocean and GO SHA means the song of the ocean. The beautiful sound of the ocean at night. Is the name of that Buddha.

That's number three. Number four, I'll also give you, if you're interested, I'll give you what they look like. If you want to picture them.

NYANG NGAN MED CHOG PA'I A ZHOG DGOS DTAM MA ZHIG A ZHOG DGOS DTAM MA ZHIG A ZHOG DGOS DTAM MA ZHIG And I'll give you tomorrow a piece of paper. Don't stress. NYANG NGAN MED means no more sadness.

And in Sanskrit that's... No, in Sanskrit, A ZHOG DGOS The name A ZHOG DGOS means no more sadness. NYANG NGAN LAS BDE PA means Nirvana.

NYANG NGAN MED PA means no more sadness. So the famous King A ZHOG DGOS, his name means no more sadness. There's a long story and I can tell you about the Sanskrit, but you'll fall asleep.

Okay, SHRI means shining. So his line is shining highest freedom from sadness. Shining highest freedom from sadness.

What's the word in Spanish for dry? SECO SECO, good. Yeah.

In Russian it's SUKHOI. In Russian it's SUKHOI. It's a SUKH.

It's some kind of SUKH root or SAKH root. We have desiccated in English. So SAK comes in from Sanskrit SHOK.

SHOK And in A ZHOG means no more dry. Why dry? You cried too much.

So no more sadness means no more dryness. A ZHOG or A ZHOG. So same.

Fifth one, right? SER SANGS RGYUD MED SUBARNA BADRA VIMALA SUBARNA means good color. Varnish comes from that.

SUBARNA And BADRA you know from VIRABADRASANA in yoga, right? BADRA means good or excellent. VIRABADRA means the pose of the excellent warrior.

VIRABADRASANA Which yoga teachers in America say VIRABADRASANA which means something like I lost my tea. Anyway, SUBARNA BADRA VIMALA means free of all stain. Immaculate.

Immaculate. So that Buddha's name, that Medicine Buddha family brother's name is Immaculate Buddha of Purest Gold. Immaculate Buddha of Purest Gold.

Next Buddha, number six. DAL YANG RGYAL PO SVARGOSA RAJA SVARGOSA means holy sound. GOSA means throat or song.

And RAJA means king. So it's the king of a song of sound. The seventh one, his name is SEMS LEGS YONG DRAG PA'I which in Tibetan, in Sanskrit is SUBARI KIRTITTAN SUBARI KIRTITTANA NAMA SHRI Holy shining name sung to the skies.

Holy shining name sung to the skies is the name of that Buddha. And I'll give you a list, don't stress. There's an eighth Medicine Buddha which you can add.

He mentioned seven, but there's a boss. Boss of the Medicine Buddhas. And that one's name is MEN PA'I RGYAL PO MEN PA'I RGYAL PO which is VAIDYA RAJA VAIDYA means the science of medicine in India.

RAJA means king. So you can call him king of healing. King of healing.

What's another name for medicine in Sanskrit? It's the science of medicine. AYUR VEDA So AYUS AYUS means life.

VEDA means the knowledge of something. VIDEO comes from that, to see. And AYUS means life.

Before a V, an S must change to R in the rules of Sanskrit. So it becomes AYUR VEDA. So those are the eight Medicine Buddhas.

Seven plus the boss. So you got a bonus Buddha tonight. You were only supposed to get seven and you got eight.

Some people list MEN LA as the extra, as the boss. The first one I gave you. Some people say that's the boss.

So there's two different versions. RANG CHAGS PA'I NYON DANG BYIN NA MYUR BA DON DU NYER BA'I If you're hoping that your spiritual practice will be more effective for you, and if you're hoping to get blessings which are faster, why? DER STAR DER STER BYAN MA VEDA NYES What is that?

Where does that come from? Yoga Sutra, right? DER STAR DER STER BYAN MA VEDA NYES means you can do nice things to other people and stuff will come back to you like a boomerang.

DER STER or A DER STER? Seen in this life or not seen in this life? Meaning you might have to wait ten lifetimes.

Then how do you change them from A DER STER to DER STER? You have to sing the names of Buddhas and stuff like that. So he's just saying if you want to speed things up a bit, I don't know, I teach business people how to use karma to increase their income and they do because they do it quickly.

They make it come faster. DE SHES CHE BDUN GYI TSE NYANG DER BCUG DE CHAG BYA If you're interested in your karma's ripening more quickly, I suggest that you recite the names of the seven Buddhas also. BCUG DE means stick them on to the end of the other thirty-five.

Add them, append them. BCUG And then CHAG. What's CHAG mean?

Then bow down to all forty-three. Forty-two. It sounds complicated but don't stress.

I'll give you a list. When you're bored and you're in traffic you can pull it out. I like big traffic jams because I get to do so much practice.

So that proves that traffic jams are empty. I enjoy traffic jams. I enjoy flight delays.

I love them. You're going to be stuck in Newark Airport for an extra six hours. Great.

I can do extra yoga today and translate some books. Like that. It's useful.

DUNG BZHAG GI DE BZHIN GZHAG PA ZHES PA MANG BA'I MDO LAS Those of you who got the Thirty-Five Buddhas page recitation, anybody have a copy? Can you just... Thank you.

This I handed out yesterday, I think or the day before at Diamond Mountain. These are the Thirty-Five Buddhas. I'll get some more printed.

If you have made a mistake in your life, if you really hurt someone by accident, it happens. I had a woman come to me. She's just a normal person, but she looks old.

I said, there's something going on in her life. I didn't know what it was. Then one night she told me she was just driving down the street and a man stepped in front of her car.

She killed him. It wasn't her fault. But it changed her life.

Her whole life changed. It ruined her whole life. She got very old very quickly.

There's a way in Buddhism, if you've made a big mistake of some kind, you hurt somebody really bad. Usually it's by accident. You're kind of angry and you do something and then suddenly they fall down and something bad is happening.

You can clean it. You can clean it. This is one way.

You can recite these Thirty-Five Buddhas names. I'm just going to give you an example of two or three of them because he talks about it. He's going to talk about it.

Here's the first three of the Thirty-Five Buddhas. I bow down to the Buddha, Nagesvara Raja, Lord and King of the Nagas. If you want to skip the Sanskrit name, I don't care.

I don't think they would care. They know all things. You could say their name in Eskimo and they would be fine with that.

They would know that you're calling them. If you don't want to deal with the Sanskrit, I don't care. I doubt that they care.

But it makes you look cool. Nagesvara Raja, Lord and King of the Nagas, who has gone that way. The Buddha who has gone that way.

And then you say their name. I bow down to the Buddha, Shakyamuni, Abel, one of the Shakya clan, who has gone that way. That's the name of our own Buddha in this world.

I bow down to the Buddha, Vajragarbha Parmarthi, the Buddha who uses the heart of diamond for total destruction, who has gone that way. And then you recite the rest. And you think about the big mistake you made when you were 16.

Between 16 and 19 seems to be a prime time for this kind of thing. You can clean those things. And if you recite these Buddha's names and you clean them, you will feel different.

And you will feel younger. And your body also will change. It's very strange.

It's a burden that's been on you and you didn't know until you cleaned it. And it's like somebody took a big 80-pound backpack off of you and suddenly you're walking around like, I feel 10 years younger. It's like that if you clean them.

Sing the 35 Buddha's names. Throw in the eight Buddhas if you want it to work a little faster. But now he's going to say, SDUG BSHAG GI DE BZHIN SHES PA SHES PA MANG NGO Why do they keep repeating who has gone that way?

They say the Buddha, who has gone that way? Why don't they just say 35 guys' names and get it all over with? Why do you have to keep saying the Buddha so-and-so, who has gone that way?

Why do you keep reciting the Buddha who has gone that way? DE BZHIN SHES PA SHES PA MANG NGO MDO LAS DNGOS SU MIN BYUNG That is not the exact wording of the sutra itself. The sutra only has it once.

In the first Buddha's name. It doesn't repeat the Buddha who has gone that way. So then our author, who was the teacher of the teacher of the current Dalai Lama, and who was the teacher of my teacher, teacher's teacher.

So he's your great-grandfather. And he's the Dalai Lama's grandfather. We are the same lineage, teachers.

SDUG BSHAG GI DE BZHIN SHES Why do they give these extra words for each Buddha if they don't occur in the sutra except for the first Buddha? YANG STOD PA MED PAR BRTZEN BRJAN PAR BRDOD PA MI RUNG It's improper in Buddhism to refer to your teacher lightly. You don't say Mike.

You don't say Robby. If your teacher is Rob, Haggerty, you don't say, hey, Robby. In Buddhism, it's considered, mi rung wa means improper.

It's not proper. It'd be like meeting Barack Obama and saying, hey, dude. I mean, you can say that and I don't think he will mind.

And we don't live in a country where they will lock you up for the rest of your life. And there are countries where they will. Should I mention?

No. I've been to a country like that. You can get locked up for years for referring to the king lightly.

It's a modern country. Noblesse oblige, something like that. It's a law.

But in Buddhism, you don't say your teacher's name lightly. You don't ever make light of your teacher's name. I had a student who referred to my teacher in a taunting way and I told him you can't come back for a year if you're curious why that particular person wasn't allowed to come to class for a year.

It was a single word in reference to my teacher's name. So in Buddhism, that's an extremely serious thing. ,GZHAD PA MANG BA'I RDO LAS, ,SNYING ROL SEMS MI'I SBYUNG YANG, ,STOD PA MED PAR RTZAN BRJAN PA, BRJAN PA means naked, unadorned.

Like you don't go to work in your underwear and you don't say your lama's name without some fancy stuff on it. Same thing. ,BRJAN PAR BRDOD PA MI RUNG BA, It would be in wrong.

,JES CHAGS SU LTAR, We are following the custom of the teacher of His Holiness the First Dalai Lama, which is Jetsun Khapa. ,TSANG MED UR, At the beginning of each lama's name, each Buddha's name, we therefore say the Buddha who has gone that way. In English, because of English word order syntax, we put it in between the Buddha Shakyamuni who has gone that way.

But we are following the tradition of the Dalai Lama's lineage that we don't refer to high beings with lightly. We did an ordination today. We ordained a nun.

It was supposed to take 45 minutes. It took four hours. She was a hard one.

Wasn't she? She was there. It was beautiful.

It was a stunning ceremony. I always cry. I just think, okay, I'll be late to Phoenix.

Let's just sit here and enjoy this person becoming a nun. It's so beautiful. In Buddhism, the ceremony is very beautiful.

But in the ceremony, you're supposed to call on your teacher for help. And then in the ceremony it says, whose name I say only in great need. It means I'm not even worthy to say my teacher's name out loud.

I shouldn't say my teacher's name even out loud except that it's an important ceremony. I want them to come. Okay, I will say their name.

But in this ceremony for making a new nun, you call on your teacher and then you say, I'm sorry to use your name so boldly, but I need you to come. And then it just shows how you feel about your teacher. And I'm not talking about Geshe Michael.

You have your own... Everyone will connect with their heart teacher. But when you find your heart teacher, pay them respect and never refer to them lightly.

That's just a Buddhist tradition. Okay, SANG MO'OD DE BZHIN ZHES PA'I ZHES PA'I PHYED DU DI BYAR DGOS PHYED DU means, PHYED means big. DU means praise.

So you have to stick some big sharp words on their name. You don't say, Hi, Mike. If your teacher is Geshe Michael, you don't say, Hi, Mike.

You say, you know, respected Geshe-la or something like that. La means respected. So Geshe-la is just a nice way to say it.

Or if Nick is your teacher, you don't say, Hey, Nick. You say, Oh, Teacher Nick. I love it when we're in China.

They refer to all the DCI teachers as, what's the Chinese name for teacher? Yeah, they say Shifu Mercedes or they say Shifu. They never say Mercedes and they never say Jigme or something.

They always say, they always go Shifu. They give you a title. They're calling you, Oh, Honorable Mercedes.

And they never say anything less than that. And I like it. To me, it's very elegant and intelligent.

Is that the right word? There's another word, right? Lao Shi.

Lao Shi. Lao Shi. They say Lao Shi and it means respected teacher.

But they will not call even a foreigner from America who's called Nagu Chebo in parts of China, those big noses. To us, their noses look small. To them, our noses look like Pinocchio.

But they never say anything like that. They say Lao Shi. Even an American who shows up, a big clumsy American, demanding clumsy American, they will say Lao Shi, Lao Shi.

And I like it. It's elegant. It's classy.

And it's good karma. GZHAG BSGOS GZHAG BSGOS means you must apply extra words to your teacher's name to show respect. That's also a tantric vow.

It's a tantric commitment. Once you enter the higher teachings, secret teachings, it becomes a high commitment. That means if you do it properly, you can become a Buddha in this life.

So that can be a cause of becoming enlightened in this life. And it's a commitment in the higher teachings to refer to your teacher with respectful additional words of respect. DE'I PHYI Uh-oh.

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My computer just freaked out. Hang on.

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DE'I PHYI PHYI ZHAG LTA BU BSTOD NAS After that, if you would like, you can do PHYI ZHAG. I'm not going to teach you PHYI ZHAG. PHYI means all purpose.

ZHAG PA means confession. It's a very short prayer of confession that the monks do every two weeks. It just goes like this.

I screw up all the time. I can't even remember all the times I screwed up. I hurt people all the time.

All day long, I disappoint people. I judge other people. I hurt other people with my unstoppable mouth.

And whatever I messed up today, I confess. Instead of one by one counting them, you just say, all the mess ups I did today, I confess. That's called PHYI ZHAG.

It's a beautiful custom. Very efficient. PHYI ZHAG LTA BU BSTOD BSTOD means recite it.

You can recite the PHYI ZHAG after you do the 35 Buddhist names and the eight extra Buddhist names. Seven plus one. Here's the PHYI ZHAG from the GYOR GCOD.

GYOR GCOD means there's a separate prayer, a book, a small prayer book called GYOR GCOD. All six of the preparations for meditation are in that short ritual. It's a custom in our lineage to recite that, to sing that book before you do a meditation.

He doesn't give the book. He refers to it, but he doesn't give it. So I got a copy.

It's a very messed up copy, tattered copy. It's my copy that I took notes on in 19, I don't know, 04 or something. But it's all yellow and the notes are messed up all over.

It's all messed up with notes. I asked, who's doing that? Ningbo, is it?

And somebody else. Ning. So they are retyping it in Tibetan.

If they ever finish, I will teach it to you. I think it would be wonderful to sing it together in English. So it's a beautiful little ceremony.

It takes like 10 minutes and it's really beautiful poetry. It's like the psalms or something. I'll teach it to you.

The deal is you finish typing it and I'll teach it to you. I suggest by the next time we meet which is in August or something. Is it August?

Yeah. Okay. In the meantime, he quotes one verse from that work now.

So you get one verse for free even without finishing the typing. ,DOD CHAGS SHES DANG ZHES SOGS, ,ZHUNG LTAR SBYUG CING, You can recite now at this point in your preparation for your meditation one verse from that ZHUNG LTAR from the book of the song that you do before meditation. Maybe we could set it to music sometime like Spanish music or something.

But it would be very nice. We had a student who set part of it to music in Ireland and it was very beautiful. But I think we should do some Spanish music for it.

It would be nice to do it that way. It should be sung. They can translate it in half an hour.

The name of that book, by the way, is, ,GAL SANGS SDUG BSNGAL, ,GAL SANGS means lucky people. In Buddhism, what's lucky? In Buddhism, there's no such thing as lucky.

There's no such thing. If things are going right, it's because you were nice to other people. So, ,GAL SANGS means lucky people.

But it means people who have good karma because they were nice to other people. That's called ,GAL SANGS. ,RDZIN means your throat.

,RDZIN means, what do you call those things? A necklace or a chokra. Chokra sounds kind of negative.

I don't know. It's true though. I like those pearl ones.

But it means a necklace for people who have enough good karma. Why is it called a necklace? Because the song is your necklace.

It's coming out of your throat. The song's name is a necklace for people with good karma who get to sing it. Then it's kind of like you have this necklace coming out of your throat.

Here it is. Here's the verse. Then maybe we'll take a break.

Because I know it's been a long day. Some of us have had a very long weekend. It was so happy that it was exhausting.

Does that make sense? It was totally draining. ,DOD CHAGS ZHES RANG BSTAN PA'I DBANG GIS NI, ,LUS DANG SNGAGS DANG, ,DE GZHAN YID GYIS KYANG, ,DIG PA BDAG GIS GYIS PA, ,CHI CHI PA DE DAG THAMS CAD, ,BDAG GIS SO SO ZHAG Rinpoche made us memorize that song before he would teach us the higher teachings, secret teachings.

We had to memorize the whole song. ,DOD CHAGS means I want things and I hurt other people to get them. ,ZHES RANG means I want to get away from certain things and I hurt other people to get away.

,SRID MUG means I don't understand how stuff works. Otherwise you wouldn't hurt anybody. You lie to somebody to get something.

Doesn't work. Karmically, when you lie, it causes someone else to lie to you a week later. If someone believes your lie and gives you what you wanted, that's because you told the truth last week.

Lying is not immoral. It's just dysfunctional. It doesn't work.

You might as well stop lying because it doesn't work anyway and it just makes bad karma. But we don't understand that. We have wrong claims of liking things where we hurt people to get them.

We have wrong ways of not liking things where we hurt people to get away from things. Then we have the basic misunderstanding that underlies those other two. ,DBANG GIS NI means controlled by those emotions.

I committed bad karma in my body. I hurt people physically. In my speech I said bad things to other people.

And mentally I got irritated at people. Is it bad karma if you get irritated at your partner but you keep your mouth shut and you don't whack them? It's still bad karma.

In fact, it's more powerful than saying something to them or whacking them. To think this person is a real idiot is more bad karma than saying it. Which is bad luck for us.

Especially me. I'm good at not saying it, but I'm not so good at not thinking it. ,YIN GYIS KYANG, ,DIG PA BDAG GIS GYIS PA CIG PA, Any times I hurt other people, any mistakes I've made, ,DE DAG THAMS CAD BDAG GIS SO SOR ZHAG, I admit them openly.

The big thing about cleaning your bad karma is to be willing to tell other people, you have it. That's a big deal. It doesn't have to be a priest.

It doesn't even have to be your husband or your wife. Tell it to anybody. Stop somebody at the gas station and say, can I just tell you what I did yesterday?

I got to get it off my chest. We say, if the person understands it, the karma is wiped. The karma is cleaned.

So try to tell somebody. Somebody asked me, can I tell my dog? The scripture says it's more powerful if the other person understands what you're saying.

I think a dog can feel what you want. They feel that you feel bad and you want something. Maybe you get some credit.

Probably a lot. I'm guessing a lot if the dog really loves you, they can feel it. But tell somebody, anybody, oh, I had an abortion in college.

I tell people that. I did. I was involved.

I didn't know what I was doing. I was not taught properly when I was growing up. And then it feels good to me to tell people because it's off of me.

It's like, okay, I messed up. And it's better than hiding it. When you hide stuff, then it festers.

Karma festers. It's better just to be honest about who you are and not to pretend you're better than who you are. It's more comfortable for everybody.

And then we're all just who we are. And that's just easier for everybody. There's another extreme, which is people run around and tell you everything about their personal life.

And that's also irritating. So, I mean, don't do that to people. Tell them shortly, sweetly, I messed up.

I'm working on it. Thanks for listening. Would you like a donut?

I mean, don't go into this sob story about your life, which is also just irritating to other people. Be honest, open. Be who you are.

It's a lot easier. And you feel a lot happier. Don't pretend to be someone you're not.

We're almost done. One more sentence. And then we'll be on to the next part of the meditation warm-up, which is appreciating yourself, which is the theme of our course.

And it's what we're going to spend the most time on. How to learn to appreciate yourself, which is one of the biggest karmas there is. One of the biggest good karmas in the whole world is to appreciate yourself.

And we're going to get into that. That's going to be the big deal of the next few days. He's going to teach us how to appreciate ourselves.

And you just change. Your whole life changes. If you learn that little meditation practice about appreciating yourself, your whole life changes.

And you become a different person, and a happier person, and a better person. But we got to finish the confession part. We got one more sentence.

Then we'll take a break. DE YANG RGYUD THUGS SUM DANG, MGO LUNG NA YI SUM DANG, NGO MI DGE BA SO SO SHAR PA ZHES SDOM TSUM SO SO LUG LTA SHAR PA DON YIN This little tiny verse from the song, the pre-meditation song, it has three sets of three in it. And the author wants you to be aware of that.

He wants you to think about three sets of three that are in that little tiny prayer of confession. Here's the first set of three. THUGS SUM Say THUGS SUM THUGS SUM What's THUGS SUM?

The three... THUGS The three animals in the middle of the wheel, what are they? The three poisons, okay?

The three poisons. These are three poisons inside the mind. What was it?

I had a friend, oh yeah, John Bentham, Xia Liang's husband in Oslo. He got bit by a spider. Well, before we got there, bit him in the chest and it spread, the poison spread.

And he had to go to a hospital and they had to do surgery to get the poison out of his chest. And that's the meaning of poison, okay? These three attitudes are poisonous to your mind.

They spread to your mind. They spread to the bloodstream of your thoughts and they poison them. They poison your thoughts.

What are they? I'll say them again. GYUR CHAGS To want things and be willing to hurt other people to get them, which is just stupid because when you hurt other people you don't get things.

Got it? We can call it stupid liking. Is it wrong to like things in Buddhism?

No. Do you want to go to heaven? Yes.

Do you like to go to heaven? Yes. Would you like to help everybody?

Yes. Would you like to become a Buddhist so you could save the world? Yes.

Is liking wrong? No. Is it wrong to like a pizza?

No. You see these paintings of heaven and there's pizzas everywhere. It's not like you go to heaven and they say, we don't allow deliveries here.

It's so dumb to think like that. Oh, I shouldn't like ice cream. I'm a bad person.

I'm attached to ice cream. That's just bohaki. Ice cream is good.

You should have a little bit in a wise way when you feel like some and you should enjoy it. Only a spiritual person truly enjoys things. You should enjoy things.

But you shouldn't be willing to hurt other people to get them because then you won't get them. That's all. If you like them, you should get them and you shouldn't do things that prevent you from getting them.

Got it? Intelligent liking is wonderful. How do you get pizza, for example?

You buy pizza for everybody at the teaching and you hand it out and then you'll have pizzas for like 10 years. That's intelligent pizza enjoyment. No, really.

And it's also fun for everybody. I'm not suggesting, okay? Maybe I am.

The three poisons are liking things and being willing to hurt people to get them because then you won't get them and disliking things, trying to get away from them by hurting other people. Somebody at work criticizes me, so I'm going to tell the boss about all the mistakes they make. The karma of telling the boss about all the mistakes they make will make people criticize you more.

It's just stupid. If you don't like them, be nice to them and the karma will change and they'll go away. That's the right way to dislike somebody.

Is it wrong to dislike an irritating person? No. You should get rid of them.

What's the best way to get rid of them? Be nice to them. Duh.

Okay, number two. Number three is just thinking right. Right thinking?

Good thinking. If I want something, I should give it to someone else. If I don't want something, I should stop doing it myself.

That's right thinking. The opposite of that is dumb thinking and that's called dimuk in Tibetan. Those are the three poisons of the mind.

Why are they called poisons? Like John Bentham's chest, when you get bit by them, it spreads throughout your mind and it poisons your mind for a few days. If you get really angry at somebody or you like someone's girlfriend and you do something to hurt their relationship, that's a poison in your mind and it will make you unhappy.

Like that. DGO LUS SNGA YI GSUM So we have three sets of three, right? First three are the three poisons.

Second three are the three doors of expression. How do you express yourself? Body, speech, and mind.

You do stuff with your hands and arms or you say things or you think things. These are the three ways to make karma. These are the only three ways to make karma.

DNGOS MI DGE BA The essence of all these things is non-virtue. Wrong. What do you call it?

Right and wrong. In English language, we say right and wrong. When in Spanish?

I don't know. BUENO Y MALO But does it mean morally? Yeah, also.

Right and wrong. Good things to do and bad things to do. Then in Tibetan it's very weird.

When you say BUENO Y MALO it means anything which hurts you is MALO and anything which helps you is BUENO. What's the test of a thing being morally correct? Anything which will come back to you as happiness is morally good.

Anything which will come back to you as pain is morally wrong. That's the difference between right and wrong in Buddhism. It's very interesting.

What he says here is bad deeds' essence is wrong. Why? It hurts you.

That makes it morally wrong. SOS SOG ZHAG ZHES PA DONGS SUM Then at the end of this verse it says, I confess one by one everything I've done. One by one, to a well-trained Buddhist means one by one of the three sets of vows.

Buddhist morality has three levels. At the foundational level we try not to hurt other people. That's called pratimoksha.

These are pratimoksha morality. All the monk's vows, for example, are negative. Don't kill.

Don't steal. Don't lie. You see?

253 don'ts. We gave her 334 don'ts today. That's what took four hours.

The second set of vows is bodhisattva vows. Those are commitments to help other people. So the first set of morality is don't hurt other people.

The second set of morality is if you get a chance, help somebody. Do something nice for somebody. That's bodhisattva morality.

Then we have secret morality, which is very cool. Secret morality means to make a commitment to believe that there are angels in your midst. The highest level of Buddhist morality is to make a commitment to try to see angels around you.

To recognize the sneaky angels who are sitting right next to you in the class. They will irritate you to test you and make you better. But they are angels.

The highest level of Buddhist morality is to make a commitment to try to see miracles happening around you. Those are the three levels of Buddhist morality. That's the third set of three.

So if you had a homework, is Nicole around? Vigna? Where are you?

There she is. Do you have extra homeworks for people tonight? It'd be a shame to send them home without a homework.

Some is not enough. Figure out how to get some more by 9.30. On your homework, it might say, what are the three sets of three? Why do I give you homework?

I started it 20 years ago. I started giving people homework because nobody remembered anything. Then it's your job to pass this on to the next generation.

You are the second generation. I'm the first generation. Then we got kids here.

They're irritating little mat rats. Mosquitoes in our midst. Somebody's got to teach them.

You're not going to sit them down and say, Geshe-la said something about three threes, but I don't remember what they were. Good luck, man. It's not good.

I got it straight from my Lama. I worked hard. I sweated.

I learned it. Now you have to sweat and I get to relax. I'm giving you homework.

You should do it. I don't care how you feel about homework, even if you grew up hating homework. Now you're grown up.

You realize that it's going to make you remember this stuff. Then when your children need some help, they're depressed or they're having a hard time, you can say, oh, there's three sets of three. You just have to remember.

So please, for God's sake, do the homework. Sorry. Do your homework.

It's a really good habit. It's not difficult and it will make it stick in your brain. Then when you have children and 20 years later and you're trying to explain to them how to purify some mistake they made, you've got something to offer them.

If you don't do the homework, you won't. Also, it'll be lost in the world. Nobody will have it.

For two and a half thousand years, every generation did their homework. Are you going to be the schmuck who blows it? Are you going to cut this lineage off?

Are you going to be the ones that they look back and say, they lost the lineage. They broke the lineage in Phoenix, in Mesa, at the Mesa church. They broke the lineage.

I'm not kidding. You think I'm kidding. Don't break the lineage.

It's your job to hold it. I held it. I'm giving it to you.

It's off my head, my bald head. SDONG GSUM GYI LUG LTA ZHAG PA'I BRTEN YIN Last sentence. RGYUN DU SDIG PA BYAS PA RNAMS DE SKABS YI YUL TU BYAS PA'I ZHAG PA'I NEN DANG BYAS If you are in the habit of regularly making moral mistakes, I don't know why he's accusing us of that.

Then as you do the confession, try to bring to mind with clarity what happened. The whole process. Play back the video in your mind.

I got up late. I didn't have time to make my coffee. I ran to work.

I came in. The usual schmuck who sits next to me said something to me, and because I didn't get my coffee, I said something to them. Play the video back in your mind clearly and clean it.

Clean it. Get the video out of your mind. He says it's important to be able to picture what you did and think about those three sets of three.

Thankfully, we are done with confession, which is kind of a, I don't know, tiring subject. I think it's more fun to rejoice about the good stuff we did. Last thing before you break.

The very short story. The pope, I forget which pope. Everybody asks me which pope.

It was one before John Paul. Who was that? Was it John?

Paul. It was Paul, I think. Just Paul?

Peter? Anyway, there was a pope before John Paul. He issued a statement from the Vatican.

He said all Catholic churches should invite someone from other religion to come and give a talk. It was a wonderful thing to do. All the Catholic churches were calling us, can you come be a token Buddhist?

Can you give a talk at our church? My Lama was sure I'd be honored to come to your church and give a talk. So we went to the local Catholic church, which is a very beautiful cathedral, stone cathedral, and beautiful windows.

My Lama and me and the priest, we walked down the aisle in the middle. I have told you this story a hundred times, but you get to hear it again. I don't care.

We went down the, there's probably a reason why I have to repeat it. We walked down the middle of the aisle and my Lama was poking me like this, and he's like, Mike, make a note. I'm like, okay, I got a pen, Rinpoche.

What do you need? We need windows like that. In our temple, they got these better windows than us.

They got these pictures in the windows. That's so cool. Let's make a Tara window.

Let's make a Buddha window. This is a good idea, colored windows. I said, I got it, Rinpoche.

And he's like, what's that? The priest, he's like, what's that little room over there? What do you use that little room for?

Because there was a priest going in the room on one side and there was a nice looking lady going in on the other side. Then my Lama's like to the priest, not to me, he said, what's that room? What are they doing in there?

He said, don't worry, don't worry. There's a wall between them and there's a little window. The lady is telling the priest the bad things she did last week.

Then he says, well, what happens then? Then the priest tells her to do, what do you call it? Hail Mary.

You have to do 25 Hail Marys or 21 or 53. He gives her an assignment to clear the karma. Rinpoche goes to me, what's Hail Mary mean?

I said, it's a mantra, Rinpoche. It's like, om mani padme hum. He's like, that's cool.

He told the priest, that's cool. You guys are smart. That's the best thing to do.

When you made a mistake, say a bunch of mantras. Good idea. Then he goes, he's got his arm around the priest.

I said, where's the other room? On the other side of the church. The priest is like, what other room?

Rinpoche, my Lama's like, this old Tibetan Lama, he's like, you know the room where the priest comes in and the pretty lady comes in? The priest is like, why do we need two of them? He says, no, no, the room where the lady comes in and tells the priest all the good stuff she's doing last week.

Where's that room? Then the priest is like, that's a good idea. Maybe we get one.

Maybe we put one in the church. In Buddhism you have to give equal time to thinking about the mistakes you made and thinking about the good stuff you're doing. Because that makes the karma stronger.

We are required to do both in Buddhism. You have to tell all the bad stuff you did and then you have to tell all the good stuff you did. We are required to do both.

Equal time. Now we're going to move on to that. We're going to create the other room in the church.

Take a break.