«Дар освобождения», курс 11 «Искусство ценить себя и свою жизнь», занятие 7

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 7:28)
So, just to catch up for people who may not have been here, we're going through a text written in an ancient tradition called Lam Rim. It was started about a thousand years ago in Tibet. It's how to get enlightened from A to Z.

It starts at the beginning and it goes to the end. There are different ways of teaching it. One way is experiential.

The teacher will not go on until you have had experiences in your inside of each step that they describe. A shorter way to do it is to just read it and explain it, which is what we're doing. That will take 14 years.

So, that's the way we're doing it right now. We're on a subject called the Yenlak Dön, which is the seven steps for preparing for a meditation session. Four times a year I get to do Tibetan, which is what I was trained to do.

But I don't get to do it very often and I really enjoy it. I know it may be a little bit difficult or even boring for some of you, but I don't care. This is my chance to do what I was supposed to be doing.

Maybe. Not really. But generally we go around the world a lot and give general talks to large audiences of business people or people needing relationship help or stuff like that, which is also very good.

But it's fun for me to go deep into the ancient sources. My Lama used to say, when you go to the dollar store, take $100. Which means, I think most of you are teaching or you're going to be teaching, then you should know the details.

For everything you don't talk about, that you do talk about, there should be 99 things that you don't talk about. But you could talk about if people need it or if it's helpful for people. It's like being a doctor like Mark.

You have thousands of things you know how to do, but you don't use them all every day. You use one, but you have to know all of them. That said, we have finished the first four preparations for meditation.

One was bowing down to the admirable qualities of your teacher, whoever your teacher is. Thinking about what it is about them that you admire and that you're trying to learn. In that sense, bowing down to them.

The second one was making them offerings, presenting gifts to that teacher. It could be someone who helped form your life early on. It could be someone you're with now.

It could be a historical teacher. It could be someone you haven't met yet. But before a meditation session, you go through these seven steps.

The second one is offering them something. SGRUB PA'I PHYIR PA is the highest form of offering, which means the offering of your own practice. I did my yoga today.

I suffered through yoga. I did my meditation today. I tried to help people today.

Teachers like that more than money or cakes or other stuff. They much prefer to hear that you did your practice today, and that's the best gift you can give them. Then the third part of the preparation is to clean your conscience.

Get things off your conscience that are on your conscience. Little things you've done to hurt people. Then fourth, to recognize the good that you're doing.

To admire yourself, what you're doing. Good things for other people. And to admire what other people are doing.

Some kind of admiration practice, celebration practice of what you're doing. We had just wrapped that up. We were at a place where we were on the final line of that.

Let's see if I can find it. Appreciating yourself and other people. And I had left you with a question, and the question was, at the beginning of the practice of appreciating yourself and other people, which is supposed to be very important before you meditate, before you go into meditation, you're supposed to consciously appreciate good things about yourself and about other people around you.

And that's supposed to make your meditation very successful, very intense. And at the beginning of that discussion, Pabongka Rinpoche, who was the teacher of the teacher of the current Dalai Lama, and was one of my teacher's teachers, he made a statement that he said, this is a bodhisattva practice, appreciating yourself and appreciating other people is a practice for bodhisattvas, those who seek to make a perfect world, so that they can remove the pain of the world. And then he said, therefore, it's difficult for us to really get our minds around this practice.

And then we talked about many ideas, because he doesn't say why. He moves on after that. But then at the end of the treatment, which we just finished last night, and we're ready to go on to the fifth of the seven steps, he made another statement.

He said, bodhisattvas are especially grateful, or they're grateful. It's gratifying. Sorry.

It's gratifying to them. They appreciate other people in a different way than we do, because they are like a father who's been working very hard to support a large family, and then suddenly one of the children gets the idea to go out and get a job and help support the family, so the father has some help. And then the father who loves all the children very much has a special appreciation of this child who's trying to help the rest of the family.

Anybody want to take a shot? And then I asked you to consider what you thought the metaphor, how it applies to bodhisattvas appreciating other people. Alejandro?

Wait, you have a mic? Hang on. Mic is coming.

[Говорящий 2] (7:31 - 7:57)
So, I think the dad is happy because he gets more help in his mission, and he's also rejoicing that the son who's helping is going to get the satisfaction that he has by helping. So, it's like two things in one. That's my take on it.

[Говорящий 1] (7:57 - 8:43)
Good. Melissa? He's like the highest form of bodhicitta.

So, he taught the son, you know, by example, he actually taught. It's like, I think that's what bodhisattva wants. They want everyone to obviously learn how to save everybody.

So, in a way, I think that's kind of like the highest form of bodhicitta. Yeah, good. Okay.

So, the father, I didn't think of that aspect. The son is responding to the father's example. So, hopefully we would be an example that other people would emulate.

That's my take.

[Говорящий 2] (8:44 - 9:02)
I think if the highest offer that we can bring to our teacher is our practice, and if a bodhisattva saw us doing good practice, it's the highest offer that he can receive.

[Говорящий 1] (9:02 - 11:51)
From the child, also. Okay, cool. A few more.

You decide, Rob. I was thinking that in appreciating the son, he's also appreciating himself. So, you get double appreciation because the father has planted seeds to have his son in his life.

So, you get like double. Yeah, I like that. Good.

He's appreciating his son for acting like himself. So, then he's appreciating himself also. Kind of simple, but they're in cahoots together now.

They've joined up. Yeah, I like that. I was kind of thinking that way too, Joe, that there's more people on the team.

It's kind of like the father's not lonely anymore. The father's not doing everything himself anymore. Somebody's helping out.

Then you feel more, I don't know, you're more charged up to do it because someone's helping. Someone else is helping. I think that the bodhisattva is unique and different from other people because he sees the, or she sees the whole world as like a family.

And they have joined the family that the Buddhas are in, who also see the world like a big family. And so, it just seems to me like when they see anyone doing even a small good thing, they know that that person is eventually going to, that's the path to becoming a big family altogether and being all enlightened together. So, they're very happy to rejoice in any small goodness that they see because it will bring everyone together.

Yeah, nice. There's a Tibetan saying, right? It was in the ritual we did today.

,DE RING SANGS RGYAS RIGS SU SKYES, ,SANGS RGYAS SHES TU BDAG GYUR TO, Today I have joined the family of the Buddhas. Now I am a daughter or son of the Buddhas because I want to help the whole world. That's what puts you in that family.

Then the family gets bigger. Rob, do you have one? Kind of sort of along the lines with what Joe was saying, that the Bodhisattva has taken up the, I mean there is no other way, he's taken the burden of, he's taken responsibility for all living beings to bring them himself to Buddhahood, and there is no other way.

And finally, the son was smart enough, he woke up, I guess, finally to take up the same sort of burden. Yeah. Good.

[Говорящий 2] (11:54 - 12:06)
The son is his seed. He planted the sun, and he's now seeing him grow and blossom like a beautiful flower. So, that's my take on it.

[Говорящий 1] (12:06 - 13:49)
Yeah, good. That's really nice. That's really nice.

That's a beautiful thought. Tim? He seems to suggest that there's a causal relationship between bodhicitta and the result of rejoicing.

How so? I mean, I like the statement. I just want some detail.

Well, for example, he's, we're not able to, if I was able to remove the suffering of someone just by reaching in and removing it, we know that the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas would have already done that. And so, in his teaching, he was able to, he's taken on this burden. He has the desire to remove all the suffering of every living being.

And all of a sudden, his son has, his son has realized, Or daughter. Or daughter, right? Sorry.

His child has realized that he has, he's applied the teachings himself or herself. And then he's realized that, oh, well, this is the path to remove my own suffering by helping other people. And so there's this special love that he has, this, oh, now my child gets it.

Yeah. Finally gets it. And there's that love of yes.

And I can't really, it's more of a feeling, I would imagine. Yeah, good. My child finally gets it.

Don't he? Oh. After Bunny.

[Говорящий 2] (13:49 - 14:15)
So, I was thinking, like the father is the Bodhisattva, and then all living beings are like the son, because they're the only help or the only hope we have. So, in order to liberate all of them, we must partner with them. So, we're in cahoots with every other living being.

So, every little goodness they do is one for the team.

[Говорящий 1] (14:16 - 1:14:26)
Yeah, okay, good. I like that. I like the idea of a team.

What I thought is that the Bodhisattva is taking personal responsibility, the Laksamnamdaka. So, what happens is that he gives an example to his son, but he rejoiced when his son is taking the Laksamnamdaka by himself now. So, he knows that he's on the path to be enlightened in the end.

So, I think it's the rejoicing of what you're doing and also with others from the personal responsibility point of view. Nice. That's a Tibetan, that's a Buddhist idea that just before you reach ultimate love, you reach a sense of willingness to take responsibility to help the world, to help the whole world be happy, even if you have to do it yourself.

One more, then we'll start. Okay, Rick? I just raised my hand because when I went to open my notes, the homework popped up and that's exactly what I was working on.

Okay. So, it said my personal take on it was to rejoice in your own positive actions and to take the time to dedicate them is something we all like to talk about. We think it's a good idea, but we haven't really made that connection between the head and the heart that tells us what this is really doing and the extent of the power of that goodness.

And a bodhisattva has actualized these practices and knows directly and validly what they will result in. They've kind of taken the medicine already, so for them, it's preaching to the converted. But for someone like us to undertake this, they know the benefit that will be derived.

So, it's kind of like the bodhisattva vows, like now you have joined the family, now your life has been made worthwhile. So, I think it's incredible because they know what it's going to do. Okay.

They know the future repercussions. Cool. I like it.

I like it all. So, keep that image in mind, okay? And I said this morning we had a meditation together and unfortunately we're going to move on out of this appreciation meditation, but I think we should come back to it.

And I think in your own practice you should try to do it every night when you put your head on the pillow. So, I'll keep reminding you and I'll remind Geshe Michael also. Because really, I've been teaching it for years, but I still lay my head down on the pillow and start worrying about my credit cards and stuff.

We have to struggle. Maybe we can help each other, okay? You can help me.

All right, here we go. We're starting class three. The idea is to get through five classes in these ten days.

Like one class every two days. One homework every two days. So, we're okay because Diamond Mountain was a little bit special.

Okay, we'll catch up, maybe. All right. SNGA PA CHUNG KHO KOR BA'I...

Are you okay? You got me there? Yeah, okay.

SNGA PA CHUNG KHO KOR BA'I KUL BA'I YAN LAG NI So, step number five before you do a meditation is to ask your teacher to teach you, okay? In Tibetan that's called, say, CHUNG KHOR? Khorwa.

CHUNG KHOR? Khorwa. CHUG GI KHOR BA means Dharma Chakra, the wheel of the Dharma.

Khorwa means to turn it. And it's an ancient image in Buddhism. Some people say if a cross is the symbol of Christianity and the Star of David is the symbol of Judaism, that the eight-spoke wheel, Dharma wheel, is the symbol of Buddhism.

And the meaning of the wheel, roughly, is that the teachings spin on like a wheel from teacher to disciple. And then the disciple becomes a teacher and they teach it to the next generation. And then that generation teaches it to the next generation.

And as long as the teachings are being passed down, then the wheel is turning. So that's what they mean about turning of a wheel. Then he says, DON PA SANGS RGYAS NAS THO MA ZHAG BDUN PHRAG BDUN ZHAG BDUN PHRAG BDUN PAR CHUNG KHOR MA KHOR BA NA Then he's going to go back to the historical first turning of the wheel in this world, on this particular planet.

How was it that the wheel of these ideas was first turned? And it was right after the enlightenment of Lord Buddha, two and a half thousand years ago, sitting under a tree in what's now Bodhgaya, which was then Vajrasana, seat of the diamond. Lord Buddha became enlightened under a tree there.

And then something weird happened. And it's nice to talk about the historical things, which we don't a lot, right? We're so caught up in philosophy.

Sometimes we don't talk a lot about the historical part. But if you look up there, it says ZHAG BDUN PHRAG BDUN means for seven weeks of seven days each. For seven weeks of seven days each, Lord Buddha did not teach what he had learned.

He decided for 49 days he didn't teach. Why not? Then I went and got you the original sutra.

And I thought you'd like to hear the story of what happened during those 49 days. And why did he start teaching? So I got this CHUN CHUNG.

CHUN CHUNG means history of Buddhism. It's a style of literature in Tibet. Where did the Dharma come from?

The same word is used in the Vajrayogini practice for her world, her Star of David world, which means the source of the Dharma. So that's a different CHUNG. So here is a famous CHUN CHUNG by Bhutan Rinpoche.

Bhutan Rinpoche was... You know him because we learned a yoga sequence that he recorded. But also, he lived just before Jatsangkapa, just before the teacher of the first Dalai Lama.

And he helped organize the Kangyur and the Tengyur. He was an extraordinary scholar of the classics of India. And he took tens of thousands of texts and narrowed it down to about 4,600 texts and helped define the Kangyur and the Tengyur.

All the texts that didn't make it into the Kangyur and Tengyur disappeared in the world. They didn't survive. So the only reason we have anything left from India is because of Bhutan Rinpoche.

And he had it carved. 25 years ago this year, we started typing those texts in to preserve them and we finished recently. So every Buddhist book that survived from India is now available for free, digitally.

Searchable. So anyway, here's Bhutan Rinpoche's account of what happened when the Buddha was trying to decide whether he should teach or not. DE NAS STON PA THUG LAS CHUNG ROL ZHUGS TE SABS SHES DU BRAL DUS MA BYAS DUS CES CHOS NI BDAG GIS THOB PAR BSGYUR The Buddha went into his own heart.

He's sitting under the tree, right? He went into his own heart and he said, SABSHES DU BRAL DUS MA BYAS I've reached the kind of enlightenment which is like clear light with no beginning and no end. It is free of all wrong ideas.

It is total peace and it is deep. DUS CES CHOS NI This deathless nectar, BDAG GIS THOB PAR BSGYUR, I have achieved. BDAG GIS BRTEN KYANG GZHAN GYIS MI SHES TE But if I try to teach it to others, no one will understand.

They cannot, they will not understand. MI SHES TE MI MA NANG DRAB NAS PAR BYA BA NYAM And then he thought to himself, let me stay silent in the forest. Which is kind of depressing.

GZHAN GONG ZHING Those are the thoughts that ran through his mind. GZHAN GONG ZHING JIG RTEN KUN LA SNYING RJE'I THA'I NGA GZHAN GYIS GSUL BA THAB LA SNGA MI LTOS SKYE BA DI DAG SANGS NA BDE PA STE DE'I GSUL BA THAB NA KHOR LO KHOR Then he had a different idea. Something, I don't know, they don't say why, but something came into his head.

Another thought came into his head. Here it is. And Pabongka Rinpoche quotes a piece of it, which is why I went and got it for you.

JIG RTEN KUN LA SNYING RJE'I THA'I NGA I am a person who has love, infinite love for the world. I am a person who has infinite love for the world. GZHAN GYIS GSUL BA THAB LA SNGA MI LTOS I'm not going to wait until somebody has the intelligence to ask me to teach.

SKYE BA DI DAG SANGS NA BDE PA STE I live in a country where, at that time was Hindu, right? And they believe in Brahma. The real pronunciation is Brahma.

They believe in Brahma. Therefore, I will get Brahma to ask me to teach and then I'll teach. I'll turn the wheel.

Because people in India will see Brahma asking me to teach and then they will listen to me. But otherwise they won't listen. So he decided to get Brahma to ask him to teach.

And that was the first requesting of the teaching of the wheel in this world. That was the first CHUNG KHOR KHOR BA GSUL BA, the first request to a teacher in this world to teach Buddhism. Happened that way.

Then what happened? SNYAM DE'I OD SKYE BA'I STONG GSUM GYI BDAG PO SANGS PA TSUG PA CHEN GYIS GZHAN NAS THOGS DRIN TE SANGS PA BUM PHRAG DU SPYUD TZA RGYAS DANG, BYAS PA THAL MO BYAR TE Then the Buddha sent out billions of light rays from his heart. They traveled through the universe, through the three levels of this universe, to a billion planets.

That light extended to a billion planets. BDAG PO SANGS PA TSUG PA CHEN And then Brahma, who is also called Shikhanden, it means the one with a top knot. In Tibetan it's called TSUG PA CHEN.

GZHAN NAS He's like, oh, what's the light? What's happening? There's a small light covering a billion planets.

What's happening? Brahma was wondering, what's going on? THOGS DRIN TE Then he realized that he was being asked to ask.

Okay? THOGS DRIN TE He took along his friends. SANGS PA BUM PHRAG DU SPYUD TZA RGYAS 680,000 little Brahmas went with him with their palms like that at their chest.

THAL MO BYAR TE YESHI CHEN PO CHOG GI KHYING RGYUR GDUG NAS NI CHOG CHUD BDAG TU'I SEMS RNAM PAR SKYE MTSE STE YESHES GZER GYIS MI'I BRTEN MA GANG BYAS PA MA BA'I NYID MA DE RING CI LAS STANG YONG ZHUGS Then they came to Lord Buddha and said, you have... let me get this straight. YESHES CHEN PO CHOG GI KHYING RGYUR GDUG NAS You have achieved the immense realm of the highest wisdom there is.

You are currently, what do you call it, disturbing the universe with a light show. YESHES GZER GYIS MI'I BRTEN MA GANG BYAS PA The brilliant light of your wisdom could open the lotus blooms of humankind. The brilliant light from your mind could be opening the lotus blooms of the people of earth.

MA BA'I NYID MA DE RING CI LAS STANG YONG ZHUGS Why are you just sitting there? This is Brahman 680,000 asking Buddha, let's go, man. Time to teach.

ZHES PA LA SOGS PA'I KUL BA Then they asked Buddha in many verses like that. KUL BA They exhorted him to please teach. BYANG MI GSUNGS MED NANGS TE SONG NGO Then Buddha didn't say anything.

They left. They went on. The same thing happens with a Hindu deity called Shakra.

RGYAL CHEN DRIN DE RGYAL CHEN GYI GNYIS NA BA He's a tabatha. He took a number two alarm. They said to Lord Buddha, your mind has achieved enlightenment in the way that the...

what do you call it? In the way that the full moon compares to the stars. Like the stars are beautiful, but when the full moon's out, I don't know, where I live, you can't see the stars on the full moon.

It overwhelms them. JIG RTEN MNGON PAR SHES RAB DGOS BYUNG GSOL You are the one who has... We ask you to...

what do you call it? What do you call it when you start a battle? There's a word in English.

How do you say start a battle, though? We ask you to... There's a very beautiful idiom, old language, I don't know.

It means engage, but it's older and it's more sweet. I don't know. Think about it.

I forget the word. Anyway, we ask you to start the battle. Take the light of your wisdom and remove the darkness of this planet.

Please take the light of your wisdom and remove the darkness of this planet. They asked him, but he didn't respond. He didn't say anything.

Then, SANGS PA'I KUN TU SA BAR GYUR BA CI LAG GIS THUB PA GYUR GYI CHOS NI RTEN DU GSOL Then Brahma came back and said, we please ask you to teach. Then the Buddha replied, SKAD DGOS GDOD PA RNAMS KYI CING The people of this particular planet are enslaved by their desires. RGYUN GYIS RAB TU BDE PA YIN NGES DI TSEG NI CHEN PO'I RTOG DE LTA BA'I NA BRTEN MI PEN I have reached my realizations with great effort and great trouble.

DE LTA BA'I NA BRTEN MI PEN And so I realized that it won't help them if I teach, because they won't be willing to put out the same effort. But eventually he agreed. SKYE BA'I DI DAG SANGS PA LA BDE PA STE Then he responded to the request by Brahma.

LHAG BSANGS PA'I KUL BA'I Are you with me? LHAG BSANGS PA'I KUL NAS LHAG BSANGS PA'I KUL NAS Yeah, there you go. LHAG BSANGS PA'I Third line of the third paragraph.

Second half of the third paragraph. There you go. LHAG BSANGS PA'I KUL NAS Responding to the request of Brahma, THOG MAR KHOR DE NGA KHOR NGA DE SANG PO KHOR NGA DE SANG PO This is a very famous Buddhist expression.

SANG PO is Bhadra, like Bhadra... What do they call it? Virabhadrasana.

It means excellent, right? DE means... NGA DE means the group of five.

And KHOR means his disciples. These are called the first five. They were the first five disciples of Lord Buddha.

They have a special name in Tibetan and Sanskrit. They're called the first five. And this was a very famous group of five Hindus who were meditating in the forest with Lord Buddha.

Lord Buddha had joined them to meditate in the forest for many years and they were trying to get enlightened. And they were attracted to him. And they became his disciples because...

Say... Huh? Say BDAG MO LUS BYIN BDAG MO LUS BYIN BDAG MO means tigress.

LUS BYIN means he gave his body to the tigress. So there's this beautiful history that many lifetimes before he became a Buddha, our Buddha was a prince and he went out into the forest and he saw a tigress who was dying of hunger. And then she had four cubs and she was unable to give them milk.

And they were all lying on the ground. They couldn't move. They were dying of hunger.

So he was already a bodhisattva and he laid down next to them and said, eat me, eat my body. And they were too weak to eat his body. This is in the Seru Dambedo.

This is in the Golden Light Sutra. I taught it. It's one of the first things I ever taught.

I think that was 19... I don't know, 73 or something, 74? I don't remember.

81, something. Anyway, it's a beautiful story. So he takes a branch from a tree and he breaks it off and he gouges out his skin.

He gouges out his chest until he's bleeding a lot. And then he lays down really close to the mother and she starts licking the blood. And then after a while she's able to eat him.

And he gives up his body. But as he's dying, he says, in exchange for my blood, you will become my first five disciples. So when I become a Buddha, you are the first five.

And it happened. So when he was born in this world, they were attracted to him for some reason. And when Brahma asks the Buddha, the new Buddha, to teach after 49 days, he agrees to teach the five disciples who weren't intelligent enough to ask him themselves.

But a Buddhist is not allowed to teach without being asked, normally. Unless we know that someone is very interested but too dumb to ask. Rinpoche used to say to us, you're supposed to ask me to teach.

And we would object to Rinpoche, we'd say, but we don't know what to ask for. And then he's like, well, what do we do? And then we made up this special prayer.

We said, Oh, Rinpoche, please teach us what we don't know what to ask for. And then he'd say, okay, I'll teach you what you don't know enough to ask for. And that's the deal we made with him.

So it went like that. So I was, I don't know, I'm kind of into those five first disciples. There's not a lot of information about them, but someday it would be nice to read the story.

And I've taught it before, many, many years ago, I think 35 years ago. It's a beautiful story. And that sutra, the Golden Light Suvarna Prabha Sutra, Golden Light Sutra, it is the most popular sutra in Mongolia, and I taught it there also.

But I thought you'd like to hear at least their names, okay. So one is called, the head disciple, I assume it was the mother, I don't know for sure, but I believe it was the mother, is called Kunche Kaundinya. In Sanskrit that's Asnyata Kaundinya.

So you can say Kaundinya, okay, Kaundinya. Say Kaundinya. It's got a lot of retroflex.

It means you turn your tongue back. If you turn your tongue back in your mouth, you will sound like a person from a certain country. Okay, say Kaundinya.

You're talking about Gandenya, Pandita, Mandala, Hatha Yoga, okay? That's the correct pronunciation. Hatha.

So that was the main first disciple. Second disciple was called, in Tibetan it's tatul. Say tatul.

Ashvajit. Ashvajit. Ashva means horse.

Jit means tame the horse. Horse tamer. Horse whisperer?

Okay, his name was horse whisperer. Say langpa. Langpa.

The Sanskrit was very, very hard to find. I only found it in one place. I think it's correct.

But it was vaspa. Vaspa. Which sort of means steam, like off of water.

I don't know why. The next one was called ming chen. Say ming chen.

Which in Sanskrit is maha nama. Maha nama. Say maha nama.

It means high name, great name. Then the last one was named sang den. Say sang den.

In Sanskrit that's badrika, the pure one. So those were the names of the first five. They're called the first five.

de yang nga de la, to that group of five, den shi len sum nam dang chu nyi su de, Lord Buddha, the first teaching was the four truths. The four higher truths. The four Arya truths.

Misnamed noble truth. It's a mistranslation, which has spread a lot. den shi len sum.

He taught the four higher truths three sets, three times. So a total of twelve. So den shi, four truths, len sum, three times, nam dang chu nyi.

So twelve reiterations. su de te, he repeated it. De means to repeat.

lung gi chung kor korwa, and he taught the wheel of the dharma, the physical wheel of the dharma. That's an implication that there is a mental wheel of the dharma. So he taught, he turned the physical wheel of the dharma in twelve reiterations.

korway, dang por kun che gau den ye, dra chenpa thob, and gau den ye reached nirvana in that session. In those sessions, I think the disciple who had been the tigress, probably got the most of the hymn in her, became an arhat in those sessions, during those sessions. shen shi jun shu tob te, and the rest became stream-enterers, which means they saw emptiness directly.

The other four. That's a pretty extraordinary day of teaching. jun shu tob te, tob pay chung kor du je gyu la korwa, and thus he was able to turn the wheel of realizations within their minds.

So by turning the physical wheel of speech or books, he was able to turn the wheel of their mind, inside their mind, and get them to understand emptiness, the pan. He spoke, he turned the physical wheel of speech, or video, or audio, or books, paper, talking, and that triggers the mental wheel inside of the disciple's mind. gyu la korwa tob payen.

He was able to turn the wheel in their mind's meaning to get them to achieve those levels. korwa tob payen. de tob pa lung gi chung kor la du.

So Pabongka Rinpoche is drawing a chain of events. He says if you think about it, there's a three-stage chain of events. For the wheel of the Dharma to be turned in someone's mind, the wheel of the Dharma must be turned in speech, outside.

So for you to reach the understanding of the pan fully, someone has to explain it to you in words. So the turning of the wheel in a person's heart depends on somebody outside of them turning the wheel in words. lung gi chung kor de suwa tapa For the wheel to be turned in words, there must be a request.

In Buddhist tradition, we don't teach unless someone asks. Unless it's an extraordinary circumstance where the whole world is too dumb to ask. Then you send light to Brahma and he comes from another planet and he pretends to ask you.

Like that, okay, got it? So it's been a tradition in Buddhism since the first day of Buddhism that we don't teach unless someone specifically asks us to teach. We do this little prayer before the teaching, you know, SA'I SHI'I PO SKYES DU BZHIN, which is supposed to trigger your eyes wandering around while your mouth moves.

It's amazing. You can do it for 25 years and not think about it. I can attest.

So anyway, you are offering the whole world for the teaching. One day Rinpoche was in a bad mood. I don't know, he was like, I'm teaching for free for 30 years.

Why don't you guys work a little harder to let people know what I'm doing here in New Jersey? As if anyone would come to New Jersey. But anyway, why don't you let people know what's happening here?

Because you're being kind of selfish. You guys are drinking of the Dharma every single day. He taught every single day, many hours, for 30 years, 25, 30 years.

He said, you guys are kind of selfish because you're not really, there's no, what do you call it, announcements in the Dharma magazines that this is going on. You're just enjoying me and you're not sharing me with other people. And look at all these other lamas.

It's like $200 for a tantric initiation. I heard it went up to $5,000 or something recently, which is really not proper. So we're like, oh, Rinpoche, should we put out an announcement?

How much do you want to charge? And he says, he got all angry. He got double angry.

And then he's like, what do you mean charge for Dharma? What are you going to charge? One word of Dharma is worth all the gold in this world.

So what are you going to charge for an hour? $3 zillion an hour. He got all upset.

He said, what number are you going to put on the advertising? A zillion or a gazillion? He got really upset.

He says, we might as well make it free because it's priceless. No one could afford it anyway. Let's just make it free.

So he did that. He never charged for his whole life. He taught for free.

And the same in the monastery. But the student must ask. And we're not allowed to go door to door and knock on the doors and say, did you hear about Pabongka?

You need Pabongka Rinpoche. Give them a pamphlet and get your foot in the door. We're not allowed to do that.

But Rinpoche would always say, if you know someone is kind of spiritually minded, but they don't know what you know, they don't know that you know something, then you can tell them, look, I know this cool stuff. If you want, we can go to Starbucks and I'll tell you a little bit about it. If they just have no idea what you know.

So Abelma, for example, she was my secretary in the diamond company for years. And they didn't know anything about me. And then one day she's like, how come you're so patient with everybody?

And I said, well, you know, we're trained to be. Who's we? Then she came to my class.

And it was really cute because... Oh, that's a long story. I had four students who were black from the Caribbean.

Two guys and two girls. And that night in the class, which normally had like eight people or ten people in it, only those guys showed up. Two boys and two girls.

Punthok was one of them. Thelma was one of them. And they were all like...

This is a good class. Anyway, some miracle happened that day. So if someone's your secretary in the diamond company for five years and they finally ask you, why are you so patient?

Then you can mention it to them. But those of you who don't know her, she's two years into a three-year retreat. She's a Buddhist nun for the last 20 years now?

15? How long? Yeah, about 15 years.

Something like that. And she's doing a good retreat. She's the hardcorest of all the retreatants.

She's been in deep retreat without a break for almost two years. CHUNG PO'I KHOR BA'I DGOS YIN NA DE CHUNG So there's a threefold chain of events, right? When the thoughts turn in the person's mind, the wheel of the Dharma is being turned inside their mind.

That depends on someone talking and explaining the pen to them, for example. And then that depends on someone asking for the pen explanation. So there's a threefold thing.

But in Buddhism, someone has to ask. So as someone who's spiritually minded and as someone who wants to get enlightened to help people, we should be aware that we have to ask the teacher. Well, it's in Christianity, they say, knock and you shall receive, ask...

Knock and the door will be open, ask and you shall receive. But you have to ask. And it's amazing, sometimes you get used to your teacher and you don't ask.

So I was reviewing this class and I thought, I haven't asked my teacher for a long time to keep teaching me. And I did, and it was wonderful. Some cool things happened.

Anyway, so you're supposed to ask. DE NA CHUNG KHOR KHOR BA'I DGOS YIN NA DE CHUNG And that's why the fifth step developed, step number five of preparing for meditation, is to formally ask your teacher, if only in your mind, because you're sitting on your cushion, right? Please teach me.

And then, of course, it should be done physically. I mean, you should ask them physically. And I'm afraid that the more we learn from a lama, the more we get used to them, and we start assuming that they'll be around forever.

And we also, we don't take it as special anymore. There's an Iron Man 3's come out, I'm going to skip Thursday night. Something like that.

We tend to get used to it or take it for granted. And it's important not to. KHOR BA'I KHOR BA'I DGOS YIN NA DE CHUNG DE'I SKABS MDZOD LAS What was I going to ask?

I'm going to add something to that. Also, if you ask every once in a while, you might get something that you didn't know about. And that's fun too.

And I think the asking has to be a little bit serious. You can't, like somebody's getting into their car after four hours, what, six hours of teaching, and, hey, will you teach us? Bye.

It's got to be kind of sexy and cool. It should be done with panache. It should be done kind of beautifully and elegantly.

I made a big French dinner. KHOR BA'I YIN NA DE CHUNG DE'I SKABS The Lama went on a tangent. The editor of the text is saying, who's the Lama here?

Pabongka Rinpoche went on a tangent. And he doesn't record the whole tangent. He says, DE'I SKABS RDZOD LAS from the Abhidharma Kosha.

RDZOD means kosha, right? Abhidharma Kosha. One of the five great books of ancient India, which are studied in the Geshe course.

RDZOD LAS, Abhidharma Kosha, CHUNG GI KHOR LO MTHONG BA'I LAM The path of seeing is the Dharma Wheel, is the Wheel of the Dharma. The path of seeing is the Wheel of the Dharma. To see emptiness directly is the Wheel of the Dharma.

That's the position of the Abhidharma school. ZHES SOGS LAS TSAMS PA'I PHYIR ZHES RDZAS Our Lama went off on a tangent based on those words from the Abhidharma Kosha. And then he doesn't say what the tangent was.

But I can tell you what it was, because I studied Abhidharma for 12 years with Rinpoche. So I thought you might like a little bit of a tangent, just to honor the other tangent. So whether you want it or not, here it comes.

It's one of those tangents you wouldn't know to ask for. In that tangent, they compared the... Well, let me go at it this way.

According to Buddhist belief, this planet is older than people think. This planet has been around longer than people think. And there were many high civilizations, like Atlantis or things like that.

We believe there were such things, and we have records of them in Buddhism. I go to Sedona a lot. When I drive into Sedona, you see all these weird red mountains, and they look like huge cities that melted during a war or something.

And then sometimes I wonder, did people know how to shape stone with their minds or something? And is this really just these huge ruins? Or is it just by accident?

Or Tepoztlan, all of those mountains, were they just good luck that they came that way? Then sometimes it's not so hard for me to imagine there was a civilization there, and it fell down and the mountains are still there. So anyway, according to Buddhism, there were such civilizations.

And according to Buddhism, our world was visited by people from other worlds. And they came in ships, and they were huge. They would fit 1,000 people or 5,000 people.

And there were different colors of ships made from different metals. And some looked like gold, and some looked like silver or bronze. There were different colors of ships, and they were shaped like saucers.

This is Abhidharma. This was written 17 centuries ago. I'm not making it up.

I'm not a New Age person. So the ships came, and then the people who owned the ships became the masters of this world because they were militarily outstripped everything in this planet. So they became the people who ran this world.

And then they had a strange karma. The people who owned the ships had a strange karma that everybody loved them. So the people on Earth didn't feel like they were conquered.

They felt like these were beautiful people. Like the Polynesians who saw the first sailors and thought they were angels. Then they gave them venereal disease and killed all of them.

But anyway, these extraordinary beings came, and they were so gentle and beautiful that the people of Earth, they asked them to be the rulers of the Earth, and they took over the Earth. They were called the Chakravartins. They were called Chakravartin.

The emperors of the wheel. The wheel emperors. The emperors who rule by the wheel, by the power of the wheel.

And the wheel is their spaceships. The wheel is their spaceships, which are mainly used for transporting troops. And how many troops they fed and like that, that's a long story, but it's in the Abhidharma.

So those spaceships had eight sections in the wheel, like a space station. They were shaped like a wheel, and they had eight spokes. And so that wheel became the symbol of Buddhism.

That shape became the symbol of Buddhism. And Lord Buddha taught an eight-fold path, eight-step path that leads to enlightenment. And as the symbol of that path, he used the wheel, the eight-spoked wheel.

So that wheel has come to represent the turning of the teachings of the Buddha. Because there are eight spokes, and each spoke refers to one of the spiritual practices of the eight high practices. So I thought you'd like to hear them while we're on a tangent.

We should go on a tangent just to under-provoke Rinpoche. First, so there are eight, they call paklam yenlak gye. Say paklam yenlak gye.

The eight components of the path of a person who has seen emptiness directly. And there are eight components. Number one, yan dapay tawa.

Say yan dapay tawa. Correct view, good view. Meaning, I don't know, if you want money, you have to help others make money.

If you want a partner, you should help lonely people. If you want to be healthy, you should help the sick. This is a correct view of where things come from.

So correct ideas about where things come from is the first of the eight. Second, yan dapay tawa. Yan dapay tawa means right thinking as opposed to right view.

So then I went and looked it up, because I wasn't clear, what's the difference between right view, which is number one, and right thinking, which is number two. And the sources that I studied said that right thinking occurs after the direct perception of emptiness. So then you start thinking right about where stuff comes from.

So the first one is more like the direct perception of emptiness. And the Penn lectures you get leading up to that, if you're lucky enough to be on a lot of DCI tours, you get 485 Penn lectures. And then you get the direct perception of emptiness.

That's number one. Then what happens after that, as you process what happened to you, is number two, right thinking. Number three is right speaking.

You can describe it correctly to other people. You can describe the Dharma correctly to other people. Mainly emptiness.

You learn how to teach the Penn thing correctly. Number four. YANG DAG PA'I LAS KYI DAG This is a difficult expression.

It means a correct end of deeds. The correct end of deeds. And it has a special meaning.

So I went and looked that up for you. SOGS SPYOD PA LA SOGS PA MI DGE BA'I LAS RNAMS BYUNG ZAD MI BYAS PA SPANG STE Deeds here means karma. And the end means when you come to a realization that you can't do bad karmas at all.

Then you reach the end of karma. The end of your thinking about karma. And you're very careful never, never, ever to hurt anyone.

That's number four. Very careful. Living very carefully.

Number five. YANG DAG PA'I TSOR BA Say TSOR BA. TSOR BA means livelihood, job.

I saw a guy... Rinpoche used to watch a lot of baseball, so therefore we both saw a lot of Budweiser ads. And there was a cute one.

There's this guy named Corky Carroll who lived in my generation. And he was one of the most famous surfers of my generation. And we all admired him.

So they have Corky Carroll walks into a bar and of course he orders a Budweiser. And he's sitting there and the bar is very loud. And everybody's all, and the TVs are going.

And he's just drinking his beer. And he's talking to himself. And he says, you know, I should do the beer thing.

I was thinking, this surfing life, wandering around from beach to beach, looking for the perfect wave, being chased by girls in bikinis. I don't know. It's not really very responsible.

I was thinking I should maybe get a job. And then suddenly the whole bar stops. Everybody, the whole bar is silent.

And he doesn't notice. He's still drinking. Everybody's like, you know.

Then he goes, nah. And then everybody starts talking again. Then the whole bar starts talking again.

Anyway. YANG DRAG PA'I TSOR BA means honest living, to make an honest living. And it means not grubbing off of other people.

And we've had trouble with that. I think Michael Moore warned me in 1998 or something in New York City. I remember.

I'm just saying I remember. I even remember the person involved, as you probably do. But he said, you should really encourage your students to be more responsible.

They shouldn't grub off of other people. They shouldn't irritate and bother other people. They should have their own living.

And Rinpoche forced me to learn the diamond business. He said, you have to learn something to feed yourself. You should learn something.

You know, like Nicole went to massage school and is doing massage therapy. So, you know, you don't have to do it all day, every day, but you can have a skill that you can make a living and not bother other people, you know, like that. It's okay if a sponsor is asking you to teach and they can put you up in the house or something like that and you're teaching actively, frequently, but just to kind of hang out and...

What do you call it? Just hang out and you're not really using the time. I mean, I distinguish between people who are hanging out and not using the time and something like the three-year retreatants who are supposed to be, probably are, working really hard to get enlightened or something like that.

But anyway, it's part of a high bodhisattva's life that they have a way to make money in a responsible way and not hurt other people by not working, okay? Like that. Which doesn't mean that there's not times in your life when you can't go into a long retreat, but you have to be honest, you have to ask the sponsors, you have to say, I want to do a six-month retreat or I want to do a three-month retreat and will you pay for my food or something like that?

And if they say yes, then it's still right livelihood, okay? It's still correct. But you can overdo it.

You can abuse the privilege, right? And that's what he's talking about. So YANG DRAG PA'I TSOR means don't abuse the privilege of practice supported by someone else.

Have some access to a job or some skill that you can support yourself. YANG DRAG PA'I TSOR It's one of the eight most important practices for an Arya. Yeah.

Number five. Yeah. Yeah, it could be that.

It could be that. If you pushed it to its extreme, it would involve helping others to support themselves. It's the ultimate job.

All right? YANG DRAG PA'I TSOR BA means correct effort, especially in your meditation practice. YANG DRAG PA'I BRTAN PA number seven is correct reflection.

And then number eight is YANG DRAG PA'I RTEN GYIN ZIN which means correct meditation. So these are the eight spokes of the wheel of the Dharma which came about historically because of the spaceships with eight parts to them. Yeah.

You can read it two ways, okay? GEMBA could be reflecting on what you've studied and learned, but it can also refer to the capacity to watch your mind during meditation to see if you're distracted or not. Both of those can be called recollection.

There's even a third one that means to think about high beings and high ideas. Reflect on those, okay? We could do a teaching on that, and different schools have different interpretations of the eight, okay?

We're doing Abhidharma tonight, okay? You want to do a little bit more and take a break after that? Is that okay?

Five more minutes on this? We're on the wheel of the Dharma. So this gets a little bit...

You ready? Okay. There are three characteristics of a wheel which resemble the path of seeing.

So for an Abhidharma practitioner, if you ask them, why does the wheel resemble the path of seeing? They would give you the following answer. Ready?

Let's consider the eight components of an Arya's practice. We refer to them as the Dharma wheel. Why?

,GOR LUS RGYUR BA'I RGYAL BU, ,GOR LO RIN PO CHE DANG, ,CHOS TSUN PA YIN PA'I PHYIR, Because they are very similar to the wheel that the ancient wheel emperors used to have, meaning their spaceship. Okay? This is...

Who is this? This is Choney Lama's Abhidharma commentary, which is extraordinary, which someone should translate. ,GOR LUS RGYUR BA'I RGYAL BU, ,GOR LO RIN PO CHE DANG, ,TSUN PA YIN PA'I PHYIR, ,DE BAR THAL, He's using debate format.

,GOR LO RIN PO CHE NI DE LA, ,RTEN PAR BYED PA'I LTA BA DANG, ,DOD CHI NYUR DOR PA'I DOR BA SOGS KYI, ,MU GYUR DANG, ,CHOS PAR BYED PA'I TSOS SOGS SUM PA, ,DE BZHIN DU, Because a wheel has three components, and the eight parts of an Arya's practice also has three components. They can be grouped into three themes. What?

Number one. ,RTEN PAR BYED PA'I LTA BA, LTA BA means, what do you call the center of a wagon wheel? The hub, yeah.

So there's the hub, which centers the whole practice. There's the hub of the wheel. What do you call it?

In Tibetan, it makes it firm. Stabilize? Yeah.

Or it kind of centers the whole thing. It's the centering force. The hub is the centering force.

,DOD CHI NYUR DOR PA'I DOR BA SOGS KYI, ,MU GYUR MU GYUR means, what do you call the thing around the outside of a wagon wheel? The rim, yeah. That's called MU GYUR in Tibetan, MU GYUR.

The rim holds the whole structure together and also allows the thing to move fast. More efficient than legs, the rim, the outside of the wheel. And then there's the, what's left?

The spokes, ,CHOD PAR BYED PA'I TSIP TSIP means either ribs or spokes. TSIP The Sahasrara chakra is called TSIP DONG, the thousand spokes. Sahasra means thousand.

Ara means TSIP. What do you call it? Spokes.

So Sahasra Ara means this chakra at the top of the head. So spokes, the spokes which delineate, they use the word cut. The spokes divide the wheel into sections.

That's the function of the spokes. How does that relate to the eight practices we just talked about? Here's the correlation.

Number one, three of the eight practices are similar to the hub of the wheel. We could guess all night, but it's been a long day, a long week. I'll just give them to you.

First, speech of an Arya. The speech of a person who has seen emptiness is very extraordinary and it centers things like the hub of the wheel. The care with which an Arya tries to help people, LAS KYI MTHA' the end of action, the end of karma, is the other centering principle.

As is the having an honest living. Having an honest living. By the way, if you are a person who has devoted themselves to practice, and you are living off the happily offered gifts of sponsors, then right livelihood refers to thanking them, giving them updates about your progress, keeping good records of your expenses, cleanliness in your use of donations is correct livelihood for a Dharma practitioner who is engaged in some deep practice and needs a sponsor.

You can still do correct livelihood, but it involves being very careful with the money, never misappropriating a penny, accounting for it properly to the sponsor, giving them constant updates about how the money was used, and like that, receipts, like that. It's a pain, and it's a big part of Buddhist practice to have clean, clean, accurate records of donations spent, how they were spent, and where they were spent in accordance with the donor's wishes. TSOR BA GSUM DE YANG TSUM Then here are the next ones, the ones which relate to the, which part of the wheel?

The rim. YANG DAG PA'I LTA BA RTOG PA TSOR BA GSUM Correct view, correct thinking, and correct effort in your meditation practice are like the rim, which had two qualities. It kept everything together.

DUPA means it combines, keeps everything in and helps you move fast. Then the third part is, which part? The spokes.

What's left? I'm sorry, I blew it. The last three were the spokes.

He changed the order on me. The last three were the spokes and not the rim. Sorry.

Because they allow you to move fast. In some commentaries it says GZUGS CANG PHYIR PA means to start and to go. The spokes are correct view, correct thinking, and correct effort, which refers to your meditation practice, which only leaves two to be the rim, which are reflection and meditation.

That's why the Abhidharma Kosha school thinks that the path of seeing is similar to a wheel. If we're really going to talk about the wheel of the Dharma though, and turning the wheel of the Dharma to truly appreciate it, I think you have to mention, at least briefly, the three historical periods of teaching of this historical Buddha. The last Buddha, Gautama, he had three great periods in his life.

He taught, his teachings went through three great periods, themes, like themes of 10 or 20 or 30 years long. He followed certain themes, and then he switched over to another theme, and then he switched over. So in his lifetime, in Buddhism we say, the Buddha turned the wheel three times.

In three, what do you call it, periods of his life, there were three periods of the turning of the wheel. I think we should take a break. Then when you come back, see, I don't want you to think about the turning of the wheel without knowing the three turnings of the wheel.

All of these things have a lot of relevance to our own lives. They can be applied to your own life. In your lifetime, you will go through major teaching periods, like Joni Mitchell's, those of you who ever heard of her.

First she did pop, then she did jazz, then she did symphony stuff. Musicians go through those huge periods, 10 years long, 20 years long, and Lord Buddha did that. He went through three major periods of teaching.

That's also called the turning of the wheel, the three turnings of the wheel. Just to complete the tangent, I'm going to go on an additional tangent that Pabongka Rinpoche didn't even go on. But we'll do that after a break.