«Дар освобождения», курс 13 «Джорчо: песнь медитации», занятие 4

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 54:58)
Okay, good. Please excuse the filming and stuff. We are, this is maybe a, I'm teaching a very famous book.

It's called Lam Rim. And this is an ancient Tibetan custom. My teacher taught it to me for over 25 years.

And it was written, this particular book was written by the teacher of the teacher of the Dalai Lama, who was my teacher's teacher. And it's sort of like a dummy's guide to enlightenment. Recently we were printing something and we bought some new printers because we thought we would save some money.

We were printing this book and so we got, we bought printers because the printer wanted a lot of money to print them. And we said, oh, we could do it cheaper. So we bought these new fancy printers.

Then we thought, well, at the end it will be cheaper and we'll have a printer. And then, I don't know about you, but when I get those big boxes, they tape the instruction booklets to the top and then I just tear it open and take it out of the box and try to figure it out. I don't read those things.

If it's possible, Becky, it'd be good to sit down for you. Just for people, I don't know. As much as you guys can sit down, it'd be nice.

But you don't have to if you have to run something. So anyway, then you know the printer doesn't work and you have to read the manual. And nowadays they make them in 16 languages.

But there's a picture and the picture has a number. I'm really impatient. I just want to print the stuff.

But I have to stop and slow down and look at picture number one and it says open the box. And then picture number two says read the manual. And like that.

So try to imagine a manual like that for the process of becoming enlightened. And that's what we're studying. Lam Rim means that.

It means after two and a half thousand years. And in Buddhism, Buddhism didn't get less pure every century. It got more pure.

And it got more clear. So Buddha was enlightened. He spoke in very high language.

His students were almost enlightened. So when we read those books, it's like impossible. So what has happened over the centuries is that the teachings have gotten more and more clear.

And then a thousand years ago a kind of literature was invented called Lam Rim. And it's the manual on top of the printer. And it just says, okay, number one, do this.

Number two, do this. And if you just follow the instructions, by the time you get to the end, you will be enlightened. And that's the claim, and I believe it.

And I was trained in it for many, many years. And I've taught a lot. I've been teaching for, I don't know, almost 40 years.

But I wanted to pass on this transmission. In Tibet it's considered important to pass on the blessing that I received from my teacher when my teacher taught this thing to me. So in my life, I would like to pass on these teachings.

And then I would like you to pass them on to somebody else. That's my dream, is that I will teach you this manual, printer manual, and you will pass it on to the next generation. That's my hope.

I really hope that you will do that. Then we spend a lot of time, we go around the whole world. Half my time is spent going to 25 countries, 25 cities in the world and teaching people how to apply these principles in real life.

So we simplify them, we present them in a business context or relationship context or wellness context. But then I don't get to teach the real stuff or the original book. So four times a year I take a vacation and for 10 days straight I do it the old way.

For me it's very satisfying and it makes me really happy. So these are not... We're going to go deep into the subject and the whole thing will take I think 14 years.

We're on year number three I think. Four. We're starting the fourth year I think.

Third year? I don't remember. Anyway, we got 12 years to go.

I'm just going slowly through the original and to me it's just really beautiful. To me it's the most beautiful thing in the world. I don't think everyone finds it that way but for me it is.

I'm following the original Tibetan text because I want that also to be recorded. At least, you know, I was very fortunate that I met the great lamas from Tibet when they came out. They're dead now.

They're gone. But I was trained by them. So I want to pass that on.

I want it recorded for people who come in later generations. So that's why we have the cameras up. And I apologize.

They'll be getting up and down and making sure they're not filming my right ear. Please be patient with that process. I know it's not conducive when you're in a spiritual class to have someone jumping up and down but I think it's important for later generations.

And we have many groups in other countries and many students in other countries who unfortunately because of the American border policies cannot come to these courses. Once a year we do the course in Guadalajara, Mexico largely so that friends from other countries like China or Argentina or Bulgaria, they don't have to go through this very unpleasant process of trying to get into this country for a program, for a spiritual program. But we're filming it and we're trying to do a good job filming it so that people in other countries who cannot get into this country for a spiritual program will have the chance to see them.

So please put up with the camera stuff. It also irritates me. Then we started this program, this is the seventh course, so it must have been, this is the fourth year.

This is the beginning of the fourth year. And in the last three years we went through a very deep part of the course. We went to the end for good luck.

We went to meditation and how does reality work. And we covered those subjects. I'll be doing them again in 12 or 13 years.

Inshallah, God willing. But in the meantime we spent about, I think a year and a half or two years on a thing called Jorja. Jorja means to get ready for something or to prepare for something.

And chö means practices. So these are six traditional practices that a Buddhist in this tradition, the tradition of the Dalai Lamas, should do before a meditation session. There are six tricks you can use before you meditate that will throw you into a deep meditation immediately.

And if you know them you can have extraordinary experiences in meditation. They've been developed for two and a half thousand years. And the Buddha taught them originally.

So we went through the six preparation tricks for getting into a deep meditation. During that two years of teaching we often heard the author of this book, the teacher of the teacher of the current Dalai Lama and my teacher's teacher, we heard him often referring to a song, a meditation song, that his teacher had written called Jampel Fundop Gyatso. If you can't remember that you can say Dagpo Rinpoche, okay?

Say Dagpo? Rinpoche. Sometimes I'll ask you to repeat Tibetan because I want to teach it to you in your next life, okay?

Dagpo Rinpoche. So Dagpo Rinpoche, the teacher of the author of this book, wrote a thing called a meditation song. And in that text he wrote a song, verses of poetry, which could be sung before you do your meditation.

So it's a pleasant way to do your warm up or your six preparations for a meditation session in this book called The Meditation Song. So he kept referring to it but he didn't explain it in detail. He just kept saying, as the song says, as the song says, but he didn't tell you the song.

So I was getting frustrated personally and I thought, well let's stop for ten days. Let's stop for one session and let's go study the song together. And then we'll go back to the main text.

That's why it's going to take 14 years for this thing because I'll keep adding new stuff. So it's a beautiful, beautiful song. My teacher, his teacher was a Dalai Lama's teacher.

The Dalai Lama's teacher wrote out, he was the editor of this, the main book we're studying for 12 years. And he would not teach us the higher Buddhist teachings unless we memorized the meditation song. He required us to memorize this song.

He thought it was that important. And I can remember, I cooked for him for many years and I would be standing in the kitchen making waffles or whatever and I would recite it to myself while I was cooking. So for me it's very dear.

I learned this when I was 23 or 24. I had to memorize it. So me and a team of friends, we spent the last, I don't know, six weeks translating it.

And then we had it, we typed it out in Tibetan. People here typed it in Tibetan language. Other people checked it in Tibetan language.

Other people put it into pronunciation in Western letters. And then other people translated it. And then a great team from Guadalajara, our best students are from Guadalajara and Mexico City, but they worked really hard and they laid it out in Guadalajara.

And then another team in Sedona spent three horrifying days all day and night printing it lots of adventures. And then another team drove like eight hours to get it to the printer and the binder. So this book is finished and it looks like this.

We printed, because we were depending on the registration numbers, we started with a hundred copies. And we just finished the three day, the first three days of this program were held at our university outside of Tucson. And the hundred copies went already.

We were short. So we have a team which is going to print 50 more tonight and tomorrow, I guess. Right?

Where are you team? You can have 50 done by tomorrow night, you think, or Thursday night. You'll see.

You'll try. Costco will try. And it's our dream to give it away.

So we're just giving it away to whoever shows up. Can I just see a show of hands of people who would like a book? Because it would help us to...

Nicole, can you do a quick count? Keep your hand up and tell your neighbor looks unhappy or... Nicole, how many?

Okay, good. So maybe we make 75 more or something. I don't know.

Okay. All right. We'll try to get it to you by tomorrow night or at worst by Thursday.

And Scott and Orit have kindly prepared some traditional Tibetan cloths, book cloths to wrap the books in. Do you have more for... Do you have like...

Okay, good. It's a tradition to wrap a book, an important book in cloth in Tibet so that when you sit on the ground to do your meditation and you set it down in front of you, the book isn't touching the ground, which is considered disrespectful in a country where yaks are pooping all over. Got it?

All right. It's a beautiful, beautiful text. So what I'd like to ask is if people could show it to their neighbor if the neighbor doesn't have one.

Or share... Just sort of try to make sure everybody can look at one. This is a test of your Buddhistness.

Also, those of you... We have added 20 pages of blank paper at the end. That's so that you can take notes.

Okay? So that the notes are forever connected to the book. That's because in Tibet it's considered your responsibility to pass this book on to the next person, to teach it to the next generation, maybe even translate it into Spanish and print it, or whatever you're from.

In our lineage, it's considered important that you take good notes and you be ready to pass it on to the next person without much loss in the transmission. Okay? So I'm asking you to take careful notes, especially if you are teachers.

I'm sorry we don't have enough copies, but if you have a copy, take the notes in the copy so it will always be with you. If you've given up your copy, then take notes on a piece of paper and glue it to the book later or something. But I really want you, by the end of the week, to have a copy which is complete in its notes.

Because you have to teach it to the next generation. When you are teaching other people to meditate, this is the best place to start. You start with these six things.

That's a very ancient tradition. We don't believe that you can meditate without doing these six preparations. That's just our lineage.

So I'm going to teach you the fourth part tonight. And then as we go through this part, which is only one of the ten parts of this week, I would like you to have in mind how you could see this done in a performance. Which parts that I cover tonight would go well as a dance, or would go well as a song, or would go well as, I don't know, someone reading a piece of poetry from Hafiz, or something like that.

As we go through tonight's lesson, I'm asking you, each of you, to keep your eyes out for something that would be fun to interpret. And then I'll ask you at the end of the night, and you tell me, oh that would go well as a dance. I could see that done to a Lady Gaga song that I know, or something like that.

Alright? Got it? Alright, here we go.

I'm going to start on verse number seven. So I'll be referring to verses and not page numbers. Don't look at the bottom of the page.

Look at the side of the page, and you'll see a number. So I'm going to just repeat this section. It's page nine if you're interested.

Verse seven, okay? Here we go. We've already completed the first two preparations for meditation.

The first of those is to straighten up your room, straighten up the meditation space, and set up an altar. Altar means you can have a photo of your personal teacher. It could be your sixth grade teacher.

It could be your dog. It could be your parents. It could be your lama.

And whoever, it could be your children. Put a photo there of who you believe in is teaching you. Put some kind of offering, a flower or something.

The first step is, clean your room, clean the meditation space, make it look nice, and then set up an altar. Step number two is, oh, and put some offerings out, right? Sorry.

Step number two is put the offerings on the altar. Typically a flower or some water bowls or your favorite cookie because you get to eat it after it's offered. That's step number two.

Step number three is to prepare your meditation seat in the traditional way and take the traditional meditation posture. We've covered those three already in the last three days. If you weren't there and you want the poop on that, then talk to, maybe talk to Nick and Aaron.

You ready? Raise your hands. They can help refer you to someone who can give you a private transmission.

It's very important to know how to set up your meditation seat. It's important to know the traditional seven points of posture in meditation. It's important to know those things.

If you missed the last three days, talk to Nick and Aaron or Rob and Esther. Where are you guys? Talk to them and they can help you.

Don't be shy. During the break, we'll take a break, right, tonight? You hope.

During the break, don't be shy. You should know how to meditate. There are certain traditional postures, ways to set up your seat, and things like that.

You should know them. Don't be shy. This is your chance.

We're not covering this again for 15 years. Part of the third preparation after you take your seat properly and sit down properly, which is shown with a little girl. Can you show me that?

You guys got that? Yeah. She's in proper posture.

Once you have prepared your body physically, you should prepare your heart for meditation. There's a warm-up. It's like running a race.

You can't run a race without stretching your hamstrings, and you can't meditate without kunlong chöpa. Kunlong chöpa means preparing your motivation. Setting your motivation for the meditation session.

It's very similar to doing a yoga session. You get a lot more out of it if you dedicate it to someone at the start and during shavasana at the end. I'm going to start covering tonight the traditional inner preparations for meditation.

There are two. There are two traditional meditations within. One is called going for shelter.

Protection. I like to call it the umbrella. It's not very relevant in Arizona, but if you lived in New Jersey, which is where I lived for a while, you have to have an umbrella.

You carry around an umbrella all the time because sometimes you won't need it. Here we go. This is verse 7.

This is a visualization that you do with your eyes closed. But you can sing it first and then close your eyes and visualize it. Don't forget, starting now, you are thinking what would be a nice interpretation of this.

It doesn't mean you have to do it if you suggest it. You can say someone who can dance should dance that one. Here we go.

Standing before me in midair is a jeweled throne held aloft by eight mighty lions. It is high and wide and upon it sits a cushion of a multicolored lotus and the disks of the moon and sun. So in Tibet, the moon and the sun and the earth were thought to be disks, flat disks.

If you sailed too far off the disk, you would fall off. So the moon and the sun were... By the way, the word for that disk in Sanskrit is what?

Mandala. The word for that disk is mandala. Mandala means a disk.

We picture this holy being sitting on two cushions of the moon and the sun. The moon represents compassion and love for other people, cool light. The sun represents the burning power of a person's intellect who understands reality deeply.

So the moon is love and the sun is wisdom. This being is sitting on them because this being has both of them, mastered both of them. Next page.

You're going to see... Can you put up the picture of the Buddha's hand? We have put photos in the book which you're going to get to remind you of what you're supposed to be thinking about at that point in the preparation for meditation.

I'll read from the text. Upon the throne sits a holy being. Inside there my heart Lama who has been so kind to me.

Outside there the Buddha, Lord of the Shakya clan, victorious one, with a body shining like molten gold. Their hair is tied up in a knot. They have one head and two arms.

Their right hand presses the earth. Their left hand is held in the gesture of meditation. So to prepare in this tradition, in this lineage, before you meditate, you picture in your mind an enlightened being.

We use Shakyamuni Buddha. We use the Buddha. Why?

To remember where these teachings came from. It's not that we are worshiping the Buddha. It's not like that.

It's not that you have to be a Buddhist to do this preparation. We are not worshiping a person. We are recognizing who gave us these teachings, who granted us these teachings.

Traditionally we picture the Buddha. Let's see. The eight lions have a meaning.

I'm not going to go through it because it would take an hour. We don't have time. What I thought would be interesting to you is to tell you why the person you picture...

By the way, if you have a teacher, if it could be your parents, I have a sixth grade teacher who is very important to me. I have other friends who I see as teachers. So you can picture this Buddha as them.

That's okay. It's important because it's considered important that their right hand is hanging out over their knee and touching the ground. That's the picture you see here.

That's called sadhnunjakya. It has meaning. It's a mudra.

It's a symbol of something higher. So when the Buddha is touching the ground with the right hand, it has a meaning. It means they have overcome certain demons or certain forces in the world.

So I thought you'd like to know the four demons. The reason the Buddha's hand is like that and the reason whoever you picture as your teacher, she could have their hand on the ground. Picture them as having their hand on the ground.

Why? They are pushing down four forces in the world which are negative. They have overcome those four negative forces.

Here they are. Number one, LHA'I BUD DU This means getting distracted in your life. Getting distracted in your life from the spiritual side of life.

You should have a job. You should have a career. You could have a family.

A partner is considered very good in Buddhism. You should have a life. But you shouldn't ignore the spiritual side of life also.

You should spend a certain amount of your life, your day, should be devoted to spiritual things because all life ends in death and only the spiritual things can help you in the end. Get ready for what will come and don't spend all of your life only on your job and your family and things like that. Try to also pay attention to your spiritual needs.

There was a custom in this country. When I was a kid, I grew up in Phoenix and Sunday was a very, what do you call it? It was a sacred day.

It was like Shabbat in Israel. Friday night in Israel, right? People stopped driving cars.

If you drive a car around Jerusalem on Saturday, you'll get rocks thrown at the car in the old days by the Jewish people, not the Palestinian people. It was sacred. Even when I was growing up in Phoenix, you go down Central Avenue and there's churches all the way down.

I used to go to one of them for many, many years. It was wonderful. Sunday was reserved for spiritual stuff.

They had blue laws. Blue law means you can't open a business on Sunday. Everyone was sort of forced to go to church or at least reflect on the spiritual side of their life.

That custom has gone. It's changed. It's not really there anymore.

But think about it. A certain part of your life should be reserved for spiritual things. It could be an hour every morning.

It could be Sunday. But set aside some part of your life. You're very busy.

Your work is very important. Your career is compelling. But have the wisdom to set aside something to get ready for later.

And to, what do you call it? Recharge your life. To give your life meaning.

If you don't do that, you have the demon of destruction. And if you can overcome that demon, then you can have your hand on the ground. Your right hand.

It means, I take my Sundays off, thank you. I made Wednesday. I had a big career for 19 years.

I was a big executive. But I took Wednesdays off. I closed my own immediate department on Wednesdays.

I took off. And that was my spiritual day. And they couldn't buy it.

I didn't do anything on that day. I did my meditations and things. Take one day.

Then you can hold your hand down. You beat the first demon. What's the second demon?

PHUNG PO'I DUS PHUNG PO'I DUS means mortal body. Mortal coil. Human body.

Flesh and blood body. In this life, during the course of your life, it's a worthy goal to overcome the mortal body. Can you overcome a body of flesh and blood?

I mean, in the Christian tradition, Jesus did that. Overcame the blood and bone and flesh and body. In the Buddhist tradition, we are all meant to do that in our lifetime.

During our lifetime, we should meditate. We should learn practices that will take us to the body of an angel. On the day that you reach that, you can hold your right hand on the ground and say, I beat demon number two.

I am no longer locked into a physical body which will die and get old. It's sort of a race against time. The body is quite good at falling apart, like an old car.

As each year goes by, more and more parts will fail or get old or worn out. I'm starting a honey bee hive this year, I hope. I bought the hive.

I'm trying to get the bees. You have to buy them. They are $90 for three pounds, which is 10,000 bees.

That's enough to start a hive. Then you have to go out and dump them into the hive, which is fun. I was reading.

My approach is to read every book about beekeeping. The worker bees, they only live for six weeks. In the summer, at the height of the hive, there are 60,000 bees are born out of the 10,000 bees in the start of the spring.

Then they go out and collect honey. I think each teaspoon of honey takes 10,000 flowers or something like that. Each bee in their lifetime will make one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey.

They will fly for six weeks and they will fly their wings off and they will kill themselves to feed the new bees. They will die on the ground and they won't be able to get back to the hive and they will freeze or they'll starve. All honey bees are that way.

They fly their wings off and they die within six weeks to serve the hive. They travel 6,000 acres, two to three miles every day. We are like honey bees.

We live a little longer, but you will fly your wings off. You are like that. We are like that.

You will walk your legs off and you will wear your hands off and you will die. Everybody does that. Our practice is meant to transform the body before we die.

If you master that through meditation, you can hold your hand on the ground and then you've beat the second demon, of this flesh and blood demon. Then you reach number three. Number three is you defeat the demon of death.

You don't have to die anymore. People say, I never saw anybody who didn't die. Maybe you have to be a really good person to be able to see them.

We believe that. We believe if we were good enough, we could see them. That's a long story.

We'll talk about it. You don't want the Pentagon tonight. Demon number four.

NYON MONGS PA'I BSTOD means negative thoughts, desire, jealousy, anger, irritation, minus jealousy, I don't know. There are 84,000 negative thoughts in Buddhism. We all have some of them.

The practice of Buddhism is meant to help you overcome those thoughts. If you practice well, then by the end, you are incapable of anger. You cannot get irritated with anybody.

It's not possible. Or you cannot get jealous. You reach a point where you're beyond those things, completely.

The person who most irritates you, even if they put their heart to it and worked on it for three weeks, couldn't get you irritated. When you reach that point, you can hold your hand on the ground. And you have defeated the fourth demon.

Remember, by the way, we are in the back of your mind. What are you supposed to be thinking about as we go through this? Yeah, how would I interpret that?

Those four. Could I do a dance where I touch the ground? Or could I show it in a film?

In a two-minute film? Or could I show it in a photographic essay? Or could I play a song that represents...

Okay, keep that in mind. Because that's what you have to do by Sunday. All right.

We'll continue on. Well, let's pause here. Upon their left hand, this is verse 11, rests a sage's bowl filled with the nectar of immortality.

All right. That nectar is called what in Sanskrit? Amrita.

People mispronounce it as amrita. I don't know why. It's amrita.

Amrita came into English as mortuary, mortal. Am means not. Amrita means nectar.

Nect means death in Greek. Necrophilia. Tar means to go beyond.

Tara is the teacher who teaches us to go beyond. Nectar means amrita. They have a bowl in their left hand.

And in that hand is nectar. Traditionally, there will be a gesture like this. This is called a mudra, a sacred gesture.

There will be this gesture with their right hand. And then there will be in left hand, there will be a bowl of nectar of immortality. And in this visualization, at one point, you will see your teacher like this.

And they are holding a bowl of nectar. And then they say, this gesture, what we call a mudra, a sacred gesture, this one means I'm teaching you. This is the traditional gesture of teaching.

When you see a statue or a painting that has the lamas like this, it means the lama is teaching. The right hand at the heart in this gesture means teaching gesture. And then in the left hand, typically it's a bowl of nectar.

And they are connected. See what I mean? This gesture leads to this one.

Learning the sacred wisdom takes you to immortality. Immortality, by the way, I mean, let's talk about immortality. Amrita, immortal, right?

It's not like, I always used to think of these terrible horror movies where somebody lived for 5,000 years and they got more and more wrinkled. In my mind, I'm like, I don't want to be immortal. I would be more bald and more wrinkled.

I don't want to live for 5,000 years. But it doesn't mean that. When you reach that state, your body turns to light.

And then that body can go to different worlds and help many people. And that body can take any form. It can be a dog, it can be a cat, it can be a human, it can be a tree, it can be the ocean.

That's a fun body. So don't think, I don't want this immortality stuff because it just means I get older. It's not like that.

It's freedom from a form. And you can be anything you want that will help people. That's a mrta.

And the teaching leads to it. And there's a beautiful teaching on this also that this gesture means please study. Please learn this wisdom.

Please learn the deeper things. Please learn the spiritual things. Learn what you're supposed to be doing spiritually.

And then this hand is on the Buddha's lap. You can see it in the picture. The left hand is on the Buddha's lap.

That's a meditation gesture. They're in meditation. The left hand means do what I taught you.

Practice it. The right hand means learn. The left hand means do it.

Don't just learn, do it. Don't learn the meditation song. Learn it and then meditate.

I have friends who have mastered this song and they don't meditate. The purpose of this song is to prepare you for meditation. So you got to have both.

You can't meditate without knowing how. And if you know how and you don't meditate, it doesn't count for anything. It's not going to help anybody.

You got to have both. That's why Lord Buddha's hands are often like this. When you picture your own teacher at this point, you can have their hands like that.

Be careful how you picture your teacher's hands and let them have meaning. That's the point. Those of you who are interested in How are we doing on time?

If you're interested, at this point in the original scripture, Pabongka Rinpoche says there's a way you can interpret this image of the Buddha as including the four modes of a teacher. The four modes of a teacher. And he drops it.

He says, you figure it out. What are the four modes of a teacher or a good parent? ZHI RGYAS DBANG PHRAG Say ZHI RGYAS DBANG PHRAG ZHI RGYAS DBANG PHRAG ZHI RGYAS DBANG PHRAG ZHI means a good teacher or a good parent should know how to be sweet to their students.

Smiley. The Dalai Lama when he comes to the West and not when he comes to my monastery. In the West he's like, Oh, ee, ee, ee.

Very friendly and supportive and kind and warm. That's ZHI. First mode of a good parent.

First mode of a teacher. Second mode, RGYAS. RGYAS means generous, outgoing, gets everybody involved, has a big waffle breakfast.

Everyone feels like, oh, I'm in this project, generous. I don't know how to say it. How do you call that?

Effusive? Like, just joyful, joyful maybe, something like that. Like, let's have a party.

Let's have a Dharma party. Let's stay up all night and print books on these printers that don't work. And then you just have fun.

That's the second mode, like a cheerleader mode. Cheerleader mode. Second mode of a good parent, second mode of a good teacher.

Wong, number three, powerful. When the Dalai Lama comes to our monastery, he's yelling at us the whole time. He's like a tough guy.

He's push you. A good teacher pushes you. You talk to those Olympic athletes, there's not one that doesn't have a good coach.

And there's not one coach who didn't push them, push them hard. The better the student, the harder you can push them. And then if they're not so good, you have to use the smiley thing.

Take them out to movies, second one. But if they're a fine student, if they have a strong heart, you can push them. And those people who have, what do you call that?

Aptitude. Good raw material, then the Lama should push them to make them more. And it's not fun.

It's hard. My teacher didn't say one good thing about me for 20 years, 25 years. I complained one day.

My friends came from my workplace. They said, we've got to meet your teacher after like 10 years of working together. They're like, we want to meet your teacher.

I said, okay, you can come to our house, but just be aware, he's never said anything good about me for the last 10 years, 20 years. And then they went up to meet him and I was all nervous. They all came down.

I said, what did he say about me? And they said, he said you're the most wonderful student he ever had. I'm like, are you sure?

He never ever said anything like that to me. So, I mean, if the student is strong enough, the Lama should push them, like a good athlete. He should kick their ass, get them going.

And a good parent should demand more of their child, if they're strong enough to take it. Trark, fourth mode. Trark means fierce.

Fierce, like gets angry or pretends to get angry. If you have a child who constantly crosses a dangerous street, there may be necessary a day when you spank them. Same with a Buddhist student.

If they're strong enough. And for number four, they have to be even stronger. They have to be really devoted.

Not to quit. When you discipline them, it may be necessary. If the student is close enough to you that you can discipline them severely, strongly, and they will rise higher.

A good student will rise higher. If you ask him, step number three, to do something very difficult and they fail or they give up, then you punish them. And a good student will transmute into gold.

At that point, they will become true gold. That process, the four stages, will make a golden student. And the same with an Olympic athlete.

The coach, my coach, I had a coach, I did rowing in college. I was in a boat that won the Henley the next year. I wasn't there.

They won the Henley, and my boat that I wasn't in. But our coach was ruthless. Our coach was brutal.

But after we won the Henley, we were like, this is the Super Bowl of rowing. And we were like, our coach is Joe Schmoe. And we won the Henley.

So a really good student can handle it. All four modes. Now, why am I mentioning these four modes?

First of all, I think you'd make a cool dance or a cool song, or maybe someone could play four songs and they start out with smiley and they go to punishing mode. You think about it. I want something creative from all of us.

Together, by Sunday, maybe someone interprets the four modes. When we get to the part about the Buddha's hands, this part, verse, I don't know, ten. When we hit verse ten, maybe someone could play four songs or they could have four paintings up.

You could paint something. You can do a poem. You could go smack everybody.

I don't know. But Pabongka Rinpoche's homework at this point is you figure out how this represents the four modes. You figure out how the Buddha's sitting itself, hidden in the way the Buddha sits, are the four modes.

And he doesn't give us an answer. And I don't know what they are myself. All right?

Let's go about ten more minutes. I'll give you a break. And we'll have refreshments.

Verse 12. Draped upon their holy body are the robes of russet gold. Their body is adorned with the marks and signs of an enlightened being.

Their body is made of crystal light. Next page. Their two legs are folded in the lotus posture and they sit in the center of a mountain of light that pours from their own body.

Around my lama sit my own personal teachers and the teachers of the lineage. When you picture the Buddha or whoever you picture, on the outside, they may be the historical Buddha. On the inside, they're always your personal teacher, your heart teacher.

In the form of a Buddha. If your teacher is a woman, you can picture Tara. You can picture a white angel.

If it's your mother or your sister or your daughter or your teacher is a, if your lama is a lady, then you can picture Tara. Hands should be the same. They are surrounded by gatherings of close angels, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, warriors and their angels and protectors of the teachings and the guardians as well.

I think it'd be interesting if someone interpreted what it would be to be a guardian. We're going to have to cut a lot of them. We won't have time for 500 of them, but we'll see.

Set in front of each of these holy beings is an exquisite cushioned stand and upon each stand rests each of the teachings each teacher has ever given, the physical Dharma in the form of a book made of light itself. Maybe someone could figure out how to make a painting of a book of light or, I don't know, or a video. You pick something which calls to you.

Each person in this room should try to read through this book tonight and tomorrow and find something that calls to you. Like, I want that part. Then tomorrow we start fighting over the parts.

17, page 15. Each being in this garden of karma is extremely pleased with me. When you visualize your teacher in front of you, by the way, they are in mid-air.

They are floating in mid-air before you. Traditionally it's a little higher, like at the level of this chakra, and that's supposed to influence this chakra. So they are here.

You don't picture them down. You don't picture them up too high. Traditionally they are floating in mid-air at the level of this chakra.

We call them the garden of karma. Your teacher is a karma garden. Why?

Yeah, it's where you can plant good karma. Your teacher, meaning your mother who taught you, someone in school who taught you, a priest or a rabbi who taught you, someone who taught you your career, people who have mentored you through your life, these are very powerful karma. Anything you do to help them is extremely powerful karma.

So we call them karma garden. Your mom is a karma garden. Your dad is a karma garden.

Whether you like them or not, it doesn't matter. Whether they were nice to you or not, it doesn't matter. They suffered to bring you into this world and they suffered to bring you out.

So for you they are karma garden. You can go there to that place and plant your flowers because that's powerful soil. I too am overwhelmed with devotion.

They are extremely pleased with me. In this part of the visualization you are supposed to imagine that this being who you are visualizing, again it could be your mother or your lama or your sister if they've been particularly inspiring to you, then in the visualization you are supposed to imagine that they are extremely happy. They are just like your mom on a good day.

I had this thing. When I was a kid in high school they chose me to go to the White House and meet the president. I'm not even going to tell you which president because then you'll know how old I am.

Okay, it was Nixon. So I got this telegram from the White House and you should have seen her face. She was like, yeah, all these years struggling with you.

Then the scripture at this point says, why is your lama so pleased? Why do they have a big dumb smile on their face and they are so happy with you right now? Because finally you are meditating.

When you visualize your lama in meditation they always have a big smile because you are not out eating a big breakfast that good egg or you are not out watching a movie or you are not out wasting your time. You are meditating. So they are like, yes.

Just before you meditate you are supposed to picture your teachers like, good job, you got on your mat. You got on your meditation cushion. I love you.

Like that. You are required to think that. That's a big part of the preparation.

Okay. I too am overwhelmed with devotion just thinking of the fine qualities and the kindness of everyone here in the garden. So you picture the most important people in your life, the people who have been most kind to you, who have helped you the most, and that's a karma garden.

So include them in the picture. Is this meditation? No.

This is preparation for meditation. Is this an Olympic race? No.

It's warming up before the race. Can you run an Olympic race without warming up? I don't think so.

You can't do meditation without warming up your heart. That's what we are doing. So we've got the picture right and next we are going to take shelter.

We are going to warm up our heart for meditation with a practice which is called taking shelter. We will do that after the break.