«Дар освобождения», курс 13 «Джорчо: песнь медитации», занятие 5

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 13:15)
All right, we're going to be continuing our journey through Dhar Gyor Khyo, which is a traditional text for preparing for a deep meditation. And supposedly if you do the Gyor Khyos nicely, then it drops you into a deep meditation, meditative state, and then you're just ready to start meditating. We're going through the meditation song, and I'm just explaining the fine points of it.

Which are not mentioned in the meditation song. So at the end of the meditation song book, there's a lot of empty pages for writing notes. And I encourage you to write notes because I would like you to pass this song onto your own disciples or your own students, okay?

So please take notes. If you don't have a book yet, take notes in something else and then tear them out and glue them into the book, okay? I want the book and the notes connected forever.

This is a very sweet thing to teach new people, okay? If you're in Guadalajara and you start to teach a couple people, then this is a wonderful thing, the first thing to teach them. This is a very good thing to start with, okay?

In the original text, which is why we're studying this text, the original text means, Khyabje Pabongka Rinpoche's liberation in the palm of your hands or a gift of liberation thrust into your hands. In the original text, we've reached day five, okay? And in day five, he explains the jorja.

He's explaining the meditation song. Before he begins his explanation, he has a quotation from Nagarjuna. And I like it.

I really like this quotation. So here we go. ,'BEL DUN BPAG PA LUS DUG GI GSUNG NAS, ,GANG ZHIG SEMS NUS RIN CHEN PHRAD PA YID, Whoever takes a vessel made of pure gold studded with jewels, ,NGAN GYUG CHAGS PAR RGYIS PA DE BA'I KYANG, and fills it with vomit, ,GANG ZHIG MI ROL SKYE NAS SDIG PA'I LAS, A person who is born into a human life and wastes it is more foolish than the person who takes a golden vase and fills it with vomit.

It means don't waste this, what do you call it? Vessel, which you have been born with. Use it.

Don't be a fool. Don't fill your life with useless things. Make your life meaningful.

Which means serving other people. That's what makes life meaningful. And going to the Arizona Corporation Commission meeting is exactly the kind of thing that would make your life meaningful.

Because it would help many generations after us. That by the way, those of you who care, that's from Surlekha, which means the letter to a friend. And Ken Rinpoche translated it many years ago, I think 40 years ago.

It's a beautiful book. So we're at a section, page 21, okay? If you have a book, and the image is of Luis.

So if you can show that one. This is our friend Luis, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor in Mexico City and really devoted himself to Dharma and had some amazing experiences. And then passed away.

The brain tumor went away, I think. But then he passed away from some other complications in his intestines. So, but those of us who watched the film, which is going to be shown tomorrow night at 7.30 at Paul Luck Theater, P-O-L-L-A-C-K Theater in Tempe at 7.30. It's a wonderful film. It was made by some of our friends in Mexico City. It details his life. Because he was a pretty well-known actor.

And they were already in the process of making a film when he fell ill. And then it became a film about his life. And it's very beautiful.

And how he studied Dharma and how he started using karmic seeds. So I encourage you to go to the film tomorrow. So for this section where it says, I would like to become a Buddha to help other people, we thought it was appropriate to put our friend's face on a Buddha's body, just to represent.

That's how it will feel, right? You will still be a little bit of who you are and that's what you will look like. So we thought that was appropriate.

On the next page, we start the TSE MA'I SHES, the Four Infinite Thoughts. These are an interesting practice because it's a very crucial part of Buddhism. It's a very central part of our own practice.

These four attitudes. And it's an interesting thing and it's a fortunate thing because they also are covered in the yoga sutra. Okay, MA'I TRI, KARUNA, MURIDDHO, PAKSHANAM.

Right, that's the second from the, I believe it's from the second chapter. And they cover these four infinite thoughts. So I think it's beautiful because it's a practice which is shared between all Buddhists and all yoga practitioners.

The yoga practitioners may not know about it yet, but maybe the Buddhists can help them learn the yoga sutra. So we have a very well-developed presentation of that. Yoga was culturally smashed during the reign of the Mughals and the British, which lasted 500, 600, 700 years.

So the yoga community in India was violently suppressed. And it was only through the efforts of recent yogis like Sri Pataji Joyce and Iyengar that they were revived to some extent. But they were pretty much brutally oppressed for many first centuries.

So they don't have a strong tradition of explaining the yoga sutra anymore. And a lot of the details have been lost. But luckily yoga and the yogic teachings came to Tibet like a hundred years before the Mughals finished their destruction of those things.

So we have that lineage. And if you're interested in yoga, if you ever have a chance to teach in a yoga studio, this page, page 23, that's a teaching which is shared between us and the yoga community from ancient times, from a thousand years ago. So I think it's kind of sweet if you learn it and if you share it.

And this book in your hands is the source of many of our presentations. You'll see in here many prayers that you know. Like the prayer that we do before class is in this book.

So there's lots of, this book is a very fundamental book. So if you ever have a chance to speak to a yoga group, it's sweet to show them the book. Say, this is how we prepare for meditation.

And on page 23 is one of the highest teachings of both traditions. Starts here. And it's in very good detail.

This is a very detailed version of it. In what's covered in the yoga sutra in four words is covered here in four verses. So it's very detailed.

It's very beautiful. All right. So let's start on that.

The first thing you have to know, these are four high attitudes. They're called seme shi. Seme means immeasurable or infinite.

And shi means four. So there are four attitudes expressed. In the yoga sutra, the order is maitri, which means love.

Karuna, which means compassion. Mudita, which translates as joy. And upaksha, which means equanimity or feeling equally towards all people.

Treating all people equally. Whether you like them or not. Whether they like you or not.

Okay. These are the four high attitudes. But in our tradition, they are practiced as seme.

Seme means they have no limit. They are infinite. All right.

So what does that mean exactly? There's a way to practice those four attitudes which creates infinite good karma. So normally you make a tea for somebody or you give somebody a ride someplace or you hand them a free book.

These are good karmas. They will create good karmic seeds in your mind and those seeds will wear out and then you're back to zero. It's like a debit card and then you spend the stuff and then you're back to zero.

There's a limit to the amount of good karma you make and it wears out. These four practices, if you do them properly, are focused towards an infinite number of people. You imagine an infinite number of people and then you feel these four attitudes towards them and then the karma becomes correspondingly infinite.

And if you're like me, I've been doing this, I memorized this when I was 23 or something. I was required by my Lama to memorize it and practice it. And I used to sit there on my bed in the garage in which I was living and close my eyes and try to think of countless people and being nice to them and helping them.

And it was like imaginary. It was something that I knew I would never really be able to do in my life. I can't email, what do you call, blast a billion beings, especially those living on other planets.

The internet doesn't go there. I mean, I thought it was all like a good, what do you call, a sentiment. It was a nice idea but it wasn't practical.

You see, I thought I can try to imagine and I tried and it was pleasant and I tried and it was a good karma. But I'll give you another way to think about it, which is very interesting. You can pray that all living beings might become a Buddha and you can pray that you become a Buddha to help them and you can't really see them and you can't communicate to them and you have no connection with countless living beings.

But think about what will happen if you radically change, right? If you become obviously different than other people. What do we mean?

You're just sweet all the time, considerate, helpful, kind, and you're healthy. Your yoga's going well. You're doing meditation every day.

When people yell, you are calm. When things get hard, you're happy. When people attack you, you are kind to them and forgiving to them.

And then what will happen, you will change physically. Your body changes. Your health becomes very, you become very young.

And then your mind is happy all the time. And then we have very common in DCI, and it's a problem. We don't really know how to deal with it.

We will give a program in Bulgaria, or Hong Kong, or Buenos Aires, and then 10 people will come up and say, okay, I want to join. I want to do what you're doing. I don't know what you're doing, but I want to do it.

And then it would be nice to be able to... Let me show you a video, okay? You have that video, Scotty?

Yes, it's called HMED S. I gave it to you lads yesterday. It's a very profound video.

This is my suggestion on how to reach countless living beings, all right? Practically, not imaginarily, okay? You ready?

Okay, here we go.

[Говорящий 2] (13:16 - 14:51)
What was that supposed to mean? Nothing. It's just that all men are sure it never happened to them, and most women at one time or another have done it, so you do the math.

You don't think that that could tell a difference? No. Are you okay?

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Oh, yeah, right there. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh, God. Yes!

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Yes! Yes! Oh, yes!

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Yes! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh, God. Oh.

I'll have what she's having.

[Говорящий 1] (14:55 - 28:07)
I just found out the older lady is the mother of the director. Okay, Osiris, next time. I showed that once in China and it didn't go over very well.

Maybe Mexico is better, I don't know. But it means I'll have what she's having. And it happens to us, even on airplanes in DCI, we'll be on an airplane and we're having a good time and we're all laughing and just having a beautiful time.

And then the stewardess in the middle of the flight to China, six hours into the night, she'll wake you up and say, what do you guys do? What do you do? And does your company have any openings?

We were at the Good Egg next door to Christine's house. And the waitress asked us, we had a DCI board meeting, and the waitress asked us to hire her son on the spot. And it means I'll have what they're having.

In a practical way, you can help all the beings in the world. You can pray for all the beings in the world. You just work on yourself.

You become a nice person. And that changes your face. It changes your bearing.

It changes your vibration. And then just people ask you, what are you doing? I want to do what you're doing.

I'll have what he's having. You see what I mean? And you don't have to preach to them and you don't have to, what do you call, missionary thing, proselytize to them.

You don't have to do that. You just become a good practitioner. Your yoga's good.

Your meditation's good. Your service is good. You're going to all the corporation commission hearings and all that rubs off on you and you look different and you act different and people are attracted to you.

And then they ask you, what are you doing? How did you find this boy, this nice boy or this girl? And you say, well, I believe in this system where if you want a nice boyfriend or girlfriend, you have to go to a nursing home and you have to help a lonely person at a nursing home.

And then you make seeds in your mind and you, what do you call, farm them properly. And then a perfect girl shows up. And he did that, it's cute.

So then people will say, how did you guys meet each other? And she'll say, I met him in, I don't know where it was. But he'll say, yeah, yeah, but that wasn't how it really happened.

I was doing this karma magic thing. And then people will say, can you teach me to do that? And then they'll do it and then they'll find somebody and then they'll do it.

You see, it just spreads like that by example, by your example, by your living example. In Russia they kept saying, Zhivoy Primir, Zhivoy Primir. It means living example.

So you can pray for all living beings, that's okay. You can sit on your cushion and say, may I help all living beings. But in practice, practically, actually, really, the way to do it is to work on yourself first.

And you become a happy person and a complete person, whole person, spiritually complete person. People can smell it. People are not stupid.

People are like dogs. I had this dog, what was his name? Pancho Villa.

Did you ever meet Pancho Villa? He was Chihuahua or something. We had him when he first, the first ACI course we ever did in New York.

Our place was in a terrible part, it's called Harold's Kitchen. And it was dangerous. Guys walking around waving guns.

The people got their cars stolen during class, it's cute. And then we had this dog and he would bite people. When people walked in who didn't like dogs, he would bite them.

And then I had to pay for all these rabies shots. I had to talk to these people who are all angry. And then if a person came in who liked dogs, the dog smelled it.

And the dog just licked them and be sweet to them. There's a story about punzang. Do you know this story?

I'll tell you secretly. We had a very nice young man. He became a monk.

But there's no place to buy robes. Even at Walmart, they don't sell robes. And so he knows how to use a sewing machine.

So the night before his ordination, he spent all night up sewing the robes. All night. And in the morning he was done.

And he said, he calls upstairs, Geshe-la, can I come up and show you the robes? I'm like, yeah, come on. So he puts them on and he walks up the stairs.

Pancho Villa is sitting on the stairs. And as punzang walks by, he goes, I didn't say anything. You know, I just, oh, I said all the robes look nice.

I figured it would dry before he figures it out. And so that was Pancho Villa. Dogs can smell who likes dogs.

And people can smell if you're doing your practice, okay? You can get up and try to teach yoga, but if you're not doing regular yoga, you won't have a lot of students and they won't like it. And they won't come back.

You can teach meditation. You can learn all the books, but if you're not doing your meditation, people can smell it. If you're not happy and calm and clear, people can smell it.

People aren't stupid. People pick up a thousand tiny clues from your body, how you move, how you talk, how you smile. People can tell, okay?

If you have a real genuine practice, then people will... And if it makes you successful and happy, people will copy you. And then people will copy them.

And then people will copy them. And that's a virus. Then you become a virus and you spread.

You see? Can you touch all the people in the world? Of course you can.

We are watching movies and suddenly some guy's explaining the pen in the movie. We saw a movie. Some guy's explaining emptiness, the pen in the movie.

What movie was that? Do you remember? Lightning.

Percy Jackson, Lightning, something. A guy does the pen thing. So how did he know the pen thing?

He heard it from somebody who heard it from somebody who heard it from somebody who heard it at a DCI program or something, okay? They spread. Things spread through the culture under, what do you call it?

Subconsciously, okay? So can you affect all living beings? Yes.

Can you change every living being? Yes, practically you can. But not without becoming what you're selling.

Got it? Okay. When you become what you're selling, it sells itself.

Cool? All right then. So it's not crazy to say I'm going to do on page 23 the four infinite thoughts and that karma will be infinite because it will reach infinite living beings.

If you are a nice person, a good example, it will reach infinite living beings, okay? People are not stupid. If something works, they'll try it and they'll stop the other thing.

Are there a lot of horses going up Scottsdale Road? No. Because people got cars now and everybody gave up on the horses.

You can rent a horse and you can ride it in certain areas but nobody uses them to get someplace anymore because cars are easier and nobody had to like, what do you call it? They didn't have to lock up the people who didn't believe in cars or hit them or force them to convert to cars. Once you've been in a car and you have a horse and you got to get 500 miles, you'll use the car, okay?

It just works better. People see what works and they just do it. They will learn.

They will just switch over to that because it works better, okay? But you have to show them by example. Okay?

It doesn't help to preach it if you're not a good example of it, okay? If you're a good example of it, maybe you don't have to preach it. Cool?

All right. So, it is possible to have an infinite good karma. Each of these four has four parts to it, okay?

That's a secret teaching about that teaching from the Yoga Sutra. Okay? Maitri, Karuna, Muruto, Pekshanam.

There's just four words in the Yoga Sutra, but each of those has four parts. Okay? Each of those has four parts.

The first is called, in Tibetan it's called DUM PA TSE MED. DUM PA TSE MED means infinite wish, okay? There's an infinite wish.

I wish something would happen. In the English translation, in the Tibetan it's CI MA RUNG. Say CI MA RUNG.

CI MA RUNG In English, that's how nice it would be. How nice it would be. Okay?

That's the first part of each immeasurable, of each infinite thought. How nice it would be if blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay?

Number two, it's called MUM PA TSE MED. MUM PA, what's MUN LAM? Prayer.

Yeah, so infinite. In this case, it's like a decision. Okay?

An infinite decision. In the English, it's that's the way it should be. In English, that's the way it should be.

The Tibetan is GYUR GCIG. GYUR GCIG That's the way it should be. How nice it would be if blah, blah, blah.

Number one. Number two, that's the way it should be. That's a decision.

Okay? You make a decision. First thing is like a wish.

The second thing is a decision. Okay? Now let's go to the third.

In Tibetan it's BDAG GIS BYA'O which is LHAG BSAM. Infinite LHAG BSAM. What's LHAG BSAM?

The buck stops here. Okay? The buck stops here.

I will, I will, in English, I will make it happen. I will make it happen. And I kind of have that experience.

I was at Diamond Mountain over the weekend and ultimately if the retreat goes on or not, I have to do something. If I don't raise the money or if I don't do the corporate things or I don't find someone to do everything, each thing, then it will collapse. And at some point in your life, you have to say, I'll be the one.

If everybody else quits, I'll take the food there. I'll pay for the food. I'll drive it up there.

You just decide. You're going to have to kill me to stop this retreat. I'm here.

And I'll make it happen. Even if I have to go to work in Burger King and steal hamburgers. You know, I'll make it happen.

I will make it happen. That's the third part of the infinite thought. In Tibetan it's called LHAG BSAM LHAG BSAM NANDA Okay, LHAG BSAM LHAG means extraordinary.

BSAM means intention. But what it means is, I take responsibility. And either, they say in Tibet, sometimes they'll say, either I will die or this thing will finish.

But one or the other will happen. Okay. And I'll make sure it gets done.

And if nobody helps me, more than that, if everyone criticizes me, or if everyone tries to stop me, I'll still get it done. Okay. Got it?

That's number three. Number four. DE LTAR CHUD NUS PA LAM MA LAS GYIN GYI BSLAB TU GSOL It means, ask for help.

Ask for help from your teacher, from your Lama, your heart teacher, whoever it is. My heart teacher is not a Buddhist. Okay, technically.

All right. Who knows? You pick your heart teacher.

It could be your mother, it could be your father. Whoever is the main guide on your spiritual journey. Okay.

Then, at step number four, you ask them for help. Please help me. Okay.

Help me get it done. Because I wish that it would happen. And I've decided it should happen.

And I'll be the one to take care of it. I'll take care of it. There's a beautiful words in English, right?

I don't know what it is in Spanish. But in English, you say, I'll take care of it.

[Говорящий 2] (28:07 - 28:07)
You know.

[Говорящий 1] (28:09 - 59:03)
YOMEN KADDO YOMEN KADDO It's just like, I'll take care of it. You know, you look around, who's going to do it? And then everyone's like, you say, okay, well, I'll take care of it.

You know, and then you just take care of it. Okay. And if you're going to be a teacher, you're going to pass these seeds on.

You got to have that. You got to be able to take responsibility and just ignore everything else and get it done. Then a question should have come up in your mind.

A couple of questions should have come up in your mind. Why are we doing the Four Infinite Thoughts here? We haven't got to the Lam Rim yet.

You see, the Lam Rim has three stages. What are they? SKYE BU CHUNG SKYE BU DRIN SKYE BU CHEN PO Smaller?

Small, medium, and large, or what? Capacity. Yeah, capacity.

Okay. Some people can lift a small box. Some people can lift a heavier box.

You know, some people... Somebody, one of the retreatants, threw into the truck as I was driving away. I was sitting in the back of the truck and they literally threw to me a box of rocks.

And I was like, I specifically told them I didn't want more rocks, but there's nothing else there. So, they gave me a big box of rocks. And it's hard to carry.

It was really heavy. So, we say lesser capacity, medium capacity, vehicular capacity. It's called yana in Sanskrit.

Maha yana. Hinayana. Okay.

Yana means vehicular capacity. How heavy a load can you take? How heavy can you carry?

So, the question comes up, why does this book jump into mahayana? Why does it jump into the four infinite thoughts? Why does it go straight to the high capacity?

Why don't they build up gradually like we're supposed to in the lam rim? And the answer that Pabongka Rinpoche gives is, it's assumed when you talk about ultimate goals, what? Helping every living being.

Not just me. Not just my family. Helping every living being.

Not just the people in my country. Helping all people, all beings. And not just people, right?

It's assumed that when you make a commitment to help every living creature, you're already covered the two lower capacities. And then he says, when you climb a mountain, you look at the top and you start walking. When you climb a mountain, nobody looks between.

They look at the top, the peak, and they start walking. So, he says, let's look at the peak. Let's look at the top of the mountain.

Then you know, don't worry, you're going to go through the... Between here and the peak, you'll go through that also. But that's automatic.

The peak is built on the rest of the mountain. So, you don't have to look at every piece of the mountain and say, I'm going to climb the bottom part, and the medium part, and the top part. People don't say, I climbed the top part, or the medium part, or the bottom.

They just say, I climbed the mountain. I went to the peak. So, if you set your eyes on the peak, then automatically you're going to have to do the other practices in the lamrim.

Okay? All right. The first one in the traditional order in Buddhism, which is not the same order as it comes in the Yoga Sutra.

But there are reasons to do it in different order. It's logical. Both are logical.

But the tradition in Buddhism is to start with upeksha, which is what? You can say equanimity. Upa means up or over.

Iksha means to look. So, upa, iksha, or upeksha means to overlook the differences between people. Okay?

Overlook, upa, iksha, over. Iksha came into alga and then to I, and that's why there's a Y. The Y in EYE used to be KSH.

Okay, iksha. So, it means to overlook the differences. Pabongka Rinpoche says, how can I help all living beings?

That was the last thing we're supposed to pray for. Louise, right? The picture of Louise.

And then we're supposed to pray for all living beings and that we could help them. And then Pabongka Rinpoche says, well, why can't you help them now? And he answers his own question and says, because you don't treat them equally.

You have favorites. You don't like some people and you do like other people. So, you take care of the people you like and you ignore the people you don't like.

I like to translate it the opposite way, which is how we did it here. May I find equal feelings never closer to those who love me and never farther from those who hate me. Okay?

Some people dislike you. Some people love you. But if you're going to practice this path from the beginning, you have to decide you're going to treat them equally.

People who treat me nice and the people who hurt me, I will, from my side, unilaterally, I will treat them all nice, equally nice. Okay? It's a very difficult practice.

But it's the only honest practice. Then he says a beautiful thing. He says, a person who is practicing the first infinite thought is like a child whose parents are always fighting.

And that was how I grew up. Some days my mom and dad would fight and then we were always trying to distract them. You know, spill something or get in a fight so they would stop fighting.

Give them both ice cream and see if they would stop. You know what I mean? So, we are like children and other people are like parents who are fighting and we have to try to get them to be nice to each other and get them to treat each other equally.

You cannot teach another person to treat other people equally in the highest way unless you are already a Buddha. A Buddha is most skillful at teaching other people to treat each other equally. Therefore, the four infinite thoughts come here.

I cannot teach others to treat each other equally unless I already do it in an ultimate way. And to do that, I have to get enlightened. And that's the same motivation as bodhichitta.

That becomes bodhichitta. What's the definition of bodhichitta in Tibetan? An ascended view.

And that's obe chan dzu du. This is a quotation from the future Buddha, the next Buddha. To come in this world and he said, ultimate love is defined as, I want to help all beings and I will become a Buddha to do that.

I will help all beings. To help all beings, I will become a Buddha. Okay?

That's ultimate love. That's wrapped up in the four infinite thoughts. Because to get other people to treat each other equally, you have to become a Buddha because only a Buddha is skilled enough to do that.

Got it? That's why we do, that's why these two are connected. To the last part, the last page.

All right. So I'll just repeat it. Let's do it together.

You ready? Let's start on verse 31. We never read the italicized part unless it's a mantra.

The Sanskrit I put into italics. But the italicized parts are meant to be, are just instructions. They're not meant to be sung.

Okay? Let's go through. Verse 31.

One, two, three. How nice it would be if every being could find equal feelings for every other being. Never closer to those who love them.

Never farther from those who hate them. That's the way it should be. I will make it happen.

And I ask my angel, my lama, to grant me the strength to do so. How nice it would be if every living being had happiness and the causes of happiness. I'm just doing one time.

That's the way it should be. I will make it happen. And I ask my angel, my lama, to grant me the strength to do so.

Next page on the back of that page. How nice it would be if every living being were free of pain and the causes of pain. That's the way it should be.

I will make it happen. And I ask my angel, my lama, to grant me the strength to do so. How nice it would be if no living being ever lived outside the three higher realms or the ultimate joy of freedom.

That's the way it should be. I will make it happen. And I ask my angel, my lama, to grant me the strength to do so.

Cool. So the first one is called equanimity. I'm a little wary of the word equanimity.

I don't use it much because it has the feeling of ignoring people. In Buddhism there are three forms of equanimity also. Neutrality.

Neutrality sounds too unengaged to me. It doesn't sound active. It doesn't sound caring.

I promise I'll be neutral to you. You see what I mean? And then people misunderstand it and they think Buddhists are supposed to not love people because we're supposed to be neutral, unfeeling, or it's desire to love your family or some wrong ideas like that.

Those are wrong ideas. That doesn't what neutral mean. Neutral means you should love everyone as much as you love your family.

It doesn't mean you should be neutral towards everybody and not love them at all. It doesn't mean that. So many people think that.

Buddhism thinks that. It's so weird. I don't know how it started.

Some demon probably. Oh, Buddhists should never be happy. Buddhists should never enjoy things.

Buddhists should never like their family members. That's all stupid. You should love your family and then take that love and show it to other people also.

And that's equal. I like to call it equality maybe or equal feelings towards all people. Okay, number two.

Oh, and you see the four parts in there, right? How nice it would be if every being could find equal feelings. All of that is the wish, infinite wish.

Okay, then that's the way that it should be as a decision. Then I will make it happen is, the buck stops here. I take personal responsibility.

And then number four, I ask my Lama to help me. Okay, so you see it there. There are actually how many infinite thoughts?

Four times four is 16. Okay, there are really 16 infinite thoughts hidden in here. All right, let's look at the next one.

By the way, what are you supposed to be doing while I'm teaching this? Thinking how you would like to perform it. Is there a performance in here?

Is there a song? Is there a poem? By the way, there could be a group just that lead meditations.

You could lead a meditation. I think it'd be sexy to design a meditation for these four. You could lead the audience in a meditation.

And that's also very appropriate. So you think about it. It could be a piece of theater.

It could be a dance. It could be a song. It could be silence.

Okay, you decide. It could be a video. All right, you decide.

I think these are really, what do you call, fertile grounds for a performance of some kind. And when you eat with others tonight or you sit around with the people tomorrow between the hearing and the movie, you can go out and talk about what you're going to do. Any person here can do something.

Any group of people can do something. Just do something. And don't be shy.

It's not for you. It's for the Buddhas. Okay.

All right. Happiness is easy. And I put in a picture of a guy.

The guy on page 22 lives in my garden. His name is Kui Le. Kui Le in Chinese means Mr. Happy. And I bought him at Pier 1. I was supposed to get Christine one. I never got it yet.

But he's very handsome. I like his feet. His feet are up.

And he lives in my garden. His name is Kui Le. Say Kui Le.

Kui Le. So if you're in China or you meet some Chinese person, you can say Kui Le. I hope you're happy.

Okay. That's happiness. All right.

I'll just point out one thing in that verse, which is verse 32. It says, how nice it would be if every living being had happiness and the causes of happiness. And I mentioned it at Diamond Mountain, but I'll mention it again.

So we have a group in Guadalajara, amazing group. They do everything right. They have a nice attitude.

They do great programs. And they are supporting a medical facility, really like a residential, small residential medical facility, 30 beds, called Casa Huichol. Huichol people are like Navajos or Apaches.

And they are the native people. Not far from Guadalajara. And if they get sick, which typically happens from the chemicals that they are exposed to, like DDT, the use of DDT is not so well regulated in those parts of Mexico.

So you might get bathed in DDT for a couple of years. And then you get cancer. And then they come down to Guadalajara to have operations and they can sleep in Casa Huichol.

And their families can come with them and sleep together with them in the same little room. So the Guadalajara group, our Guadalajara group, works very hard there. I heard, I mean, the director of Casa Huichol told me that because of the group's efforts, 450 volunteers are helping them because of our group.

So I think that's wonderful. Then I went down there and I visited them and there's this guy named Aldo. He's at the end here somewhere.

Where is he? What page is he on? 155?

Yeah, that's Aldo, 155. I met him and I said, Aldo, when I look at you, I see Carlos Slim. And he says, what?

Carlos Slim is the cell phone king of Latin America. And he's the richest man in the world. More wealthy than Bill Gates or what's his name?

The guy who bought my company, Warren Buffett. Okay, he's wealthier than them. And he just built an $85 million museum in Mexico City.

What's it called? Sumaya Museum, his wife's name who passed away. We gave a talk there.

So I said, Aldo, when I look at you, I see Carlos Slim. And he's like, yeah, yeah, Geshe-la, that's why I ride a bike home, you know? And I'm like, no, no, you're going to be, when I look at you, I see a wealthy man.

Wealthier than Carlos Slim. And he said, well, what do you mean? And I said, well, everything you're doing at Casa Huichol, you're giving everything for Casa Huichol.

Then if you could see the future, you're going to be extremely wealthy. You will be a very wealthy person. When I look at you, I see what you will be, okay?

So when you pray for other people, you can say, I pray that you will be happy or wealthy now. But I also pray that you will do the things that will make you wealthy for the rest of your life. You see what I mean?

So you don't just pray for them what they will be now. You pray for what will make them happy for the rest of their life and lives, okay? So in this infinite thoughts, you say, I pray that you will be happy.

And I pray that you will do the karmas that will make you happy later also, okay? You don't just deal with the present. You offer them the future also, okay?

Very beautiful, very smart, okay? Same thing with verse 33. How nice it would be if every living being were free of pain and the causes of pain, okay?

Then most successful people, if you could simultaneously see them in the present and in the future, if you could look at wealthy, selfish people, as some of them are, not all of them, many wealthy people are very unselfish, but if you could look at a wealthy person who is selfish and see their future at the same time, it would be a very sad thing. You see, they will be very unhappy, very sad, very impoverished, very, very poor, or very sick, or very misliked by people. You see what I mean?

If you could see a person's future in the moment that you shake their hand, and they're wealthy and they're well-dressed and they go to the fitness club and they have a nice wife and big house, but they cheated people to get it, then while you're shaking their hand in their big house, you can see their future. It's very depressing. It's very distressing to know what someone's going to be.

It's very sad. So in this verse 33, you say, may this person not have pain and may they not do things that cause them trouble later. Okay, got it?

Just nod and you might get a break soon. Okay, I know I hate teaching in the afternoon, but we have a ceremony tonight and we have to do the class in the afternoon. Okay, last verse, 34 of the four.

How nice it would be if no living being ever lived outside the three higher realms or the ultimate joy of freedom. It means there are three higher realms. After you die, you could either go down or you can go up.

Okay, to go down, you're like an animal or something like that. If you go up, you become a human again. Most people who teach yoga classes and they talk about rebirth, they assume you're going to come back as a human.

It ain't so. Okay, somebody asked Lord Buddha, how many people come back as a human? He licked his finger and he touched the...

And he went like that, how many pieces of dust on my finger? And they said, I don't know, maybe 50. And then he said, how many pieces of dust in the planet, in the whole planet, down to the core of the planet?

How many pieces of dust? They said, I don't know, billions and billions and billions. He said, that's the odds of coming back human.

He went like that. Those are the odds of coming back human. Most people don't.

To be human, I'm very aware that my last life was much better than my current life. And I'm worried about it. I worry about it.

He did a really good job. The last guy, he did an awesome job. I'm not doing that.

I'm not doing that kind of job. He's amazing. So we pray in this last one, we pray everyone should at least come back as a human.

At least come back as a human. Or get out of, become an angel in this life. That's number four.

What's it called in English, the fourth one? Joy, it's called joy. So be careful, mudita in the Yoga Sutra, mudita.

It's misnamed. The name is not obvious. It's joy.

But what do you mean when you say joy? I mean, it would make me really happy if nobody had to come back in any other way than a human. At least a human.

And hopefully a Buddha. Joy means that would make me happy. So it's a difficult word when they say joy.

It doesn't mean like be super happy to other people. It means specifically, and you should be writing this in your notes at the back, may they come back at least as a human. Or hopefully as a Buddha.

Good. So love, in the Yoga Sutra order, maitri, love, means may everybody have what they want. And may they do the things that are going to give them what they want.

Karuna, mercy, compassion means may they not screw up. May they not do the things that will hurt them in the future. Upeksha, mudita, joy, may they never come back as something lower than human.

And may they become enlightened. That higher happiness. So really mudita is another form of, it's a higher form of maitreya, maitri.

Love enhanced is joy. To wish that they could become enlightened is a category of wishing that good stuff could happen to them. Got it?

So really the fourth one is inside the first one. Sorry, third is inside the first one in the order of the Yoga Sutra. In the Yoga Sutra, Upeksha comes last.

Why would it come last? Why would it come, I'll give you a clue. Why would it come after joy?

Yeah. Purifies what? Uh, no.

Give me a better answer. Bani, Bani last. Yeah, good.

I want the first three to be equal for everybody. Okay, then that should be number four. In the Yoga Sutra, they put it at the last.

They say, yeah, yeah. Wish that everybody's happy. Wish that they never have any pain.

Wish that they have highest happiness. But don't discriminate. You should reach Buddhahood, but you shouldn't.

You should be happy, but you shouldn't. I don't like you, I like her. So she should be happy, but I don't care if you're happy or not.

So Upeksha is last. And it has, there's a reason. That's the reason.

These three wishes should be wished equally to everybody. And I find myself not doing that. I'm like, oh, this person who criticized me, screwed up.

It's not fair. It's not equal. Your love should be equal.

Love should be equal. Doled out equally. Okay, all right.

Okay, wish for enlightenment. In Tibetan, it's a SEMS RGYAS KHYAPA CHEN, which means a special wish for enlightenment. And Pabongka Rinpoche in his text asks, why do we repeat what?

I will do it quickly. Wait, no. Why do you say it twice?

Because it takes more time. No, just kidding. So you know, I will do it quickly.

I will do it quickly. And then he answers. He gives two possible answers.

And he says, on a basic level, you can say it's the difference between the open teachings and the secret teachings. Okay? So the normal Buddhist teachings, if you practice them, it could take, I don't want to tell you, 10 times, 10 to the 60th power, eons, eras.

Okay, eons, billions of years. Billions of years. Okay, if you practice.

One of the retreatants was saying why after two and a half years they didn't get enlightened. So, you know, in the open teachings, it takes a long time. Okay?

It takes a very long time to purify yourself. But if you study the secret teachings, the higher teachings, Diamond Way, Vajrayana, and it's called Tantra also, but I don't like to call it Tantra because the word is misunderstood. It's considered some strange thing and it's not.

It's a very beautiful, pure, innocent, lovely thing. But let's call it Diamond Way teachings. If you practice Diamond Way teachings correctly, then in a single life, in this life, you can become a Buddha.

Okay? So when you say, I will do it quickly, it's like, I'll work as hard as I can on the open teachings. And the second time you say, I will do it quickly, you're like, I will use the secret teachings to do it faster.

Okay? Then he says on a deeper level, the first quickly could mean the Diamond Way, secret teachings. And the second quickly could be doing the secret teachings in the fastest way.

Okay? So you could say that also. The first quickly is using the secret teachings.

And the second quickly is using the secret teachings in the fastest way. All right? And then he again mentions as an example of someone who did it the second way, who?

Gyalwa Wensapa. So we talked about Gyalwa Wensapa at Diamond Mountain. This is a Tibetan Lama who it is believed gained enlightenment in this lifetime.

So if you say, is there any example in Tibet of someone who practiced the secret teachings and got enlightened in one life? Everyone will say Gyalwa Wensapa. And I think he lived about 500 years ago, 450 years ago.

So what was his trick? What did he do? How did he take the Diamond Way and make it even faster?

Okay? What did he do? Guess.

It's the first picture in your book. Teacher. Yeah, he had a teacher.

Okay? He honored his teacher. He did Guru Yoga.

Guru Yoga means his practice was his teacher. Okay? His practice was his teacher.

His relationship to his teacher. Okay? And I'm not doing this in a self-interested way.

You should all have your own teacher. Whoever calls to you. It could be your mom.

Could be me. Could be your mom. Could be your husband.

Could be your children. Could be Jesus. You decide.

It's not my place to tell you what size pants to wear. That depends on your body. And your teacher depends on your soul.

So that's your own decision, right? But you must have one. And you must have a sweet relationship with them.

Because that can make everything happen in one lifetime. And that's going to be the first subject of the Lam Rim after we prepare. After this course, we jump into how to find a teacher.

How to identify a teacher. What makes a teacher authentic. What makes a teacher...

What kind of integrity do they need? Check them out before you take them. So there's this...

That's the difference, okay? And that's why the first photo is my Tibetan teacher, okay? Got it?

So every time you open up this book and you see that first photo, you're going to say, I need a teacher. I need to have a personal relationship with a teacher. Okay?

Because that's the core of everything. In this tradition, it's everything. You need it.

DE PHYIR DU LAM SANGS MO LAM MA LHAS NYAMS SBYOG GI DGON NAS I will meditate now upon the teaching on the steps of the path. To do that, verse 36, I will follow the deep practice of the deepest path, the path of the angel, the path of my Lama. Okay?

So it's the path of a Lama. How you relate to your Lama, your relationship to your personal heart teacher. In this, in our Buddhist tradition, in the lineage of the Dalai Lama, you can't get anywhere without it.

It's everything. You must find your personal teacher who fits you. Okay?

Everyone's different. And you have to find the one that fits you. And take them carefully.

Don't do it quickly. Okay? If you take your time, that's fine.

Okay. I didn't really ask Ken Rinpoche to be my Lama for, I think, five years. I waited.

I lived with him for five years and I waited. And then one day he sat on the porch and I said, will you be my Lama? And he said, yeah, okay.

I waited until I checked. I lived with him for five years.

[Говорящий 2] (59:04 - 59:04)
Okay?

[Говорящий 1] (59:04 - 1:12:59)
I cooked for him for five years before I asked him. Okay? All right.

Luckily, he said yes. Sometimes I say, okay, I'm going to wait in five years and give you an answer. Okay.

All right. We don't have a lot of time. So the practice of meeting your Lama, thinking about your Lama before you start your meditation is very important.

And that's what we go to next. That's what we go to next. Page 27.

We are going to start a practice which you should always do before you meditate, which is to bring your Lama into the room, ask them to sit in front of you. This is after the last one. And you say, please sit with me.

And you start to collect good karma with them and to clean out bad karma with them. Okay? So this is the garden.

This is the karma garden. Starts again here. Verse 37.

We are blessing the ground. It's called SA GZHI BYIN RNAMS. The very ground of the entire planet becomes suddenly smooth as the palm of your hand, without a single stone, a vast surface made of lapis lazuli, yet soft to the touch. So supposedly, according to Buddhist scripture, when you get to heaven, there's no garbage on the ground.

There's no rocks. It's just all like a nice carpet. My friend Dan Stivers, you know him in Tucson?

He's the head of ACIP. He did this thing. It was so cool.

For his children, he built a rubber floor in a big living room so they could play there. The whole floor is bouncy and the kids love it. They jump in that room.

They just jump up and down on the floor. The whole floor is rubber. And he built it very carefully.

He designed it himself and he built it for them. So underneath there's plywood, then there's all these weird supports, and then there's more plywood, and then there's rubber, and then there's more. It's like a sandwich.

In Tibet, if you drop a book, you're supposed to go like that, okay? Just so you know tradition. So it's funny because when I went to visit him, I also jumped on it.

It was very fun. Me and the kids were jumping on it, the whole living room. And supposedly, according to Buddhism, heaven is like that.

The ground is kind of bouncy, okay? You can bounce on it, all right? So that's why I put the lapis on the picture.

The picture, that's lapis lazuli, okay? Cool stone. Comes from Afghanistan, mostly.

All right. Verse 38. The entire expanse of the sky above is suddenly covered in clouds.

The gifts of perfect goodness unsurpassed all things ever offered by gods and humankind. Some set before me and others inside my mind. Okay.

This is an ancient custom. It's found in the Kangyur. It's two and a half thousand years old.

There was a bodhisattva named Samantabhadra. Samantabhadra. In Tibetan, it's called Kundusambho.

Kundusambho. It means perfect goodness, okay? His name, like Bhadravirasa, was it?

Bhadravirasa. Anyway, never mind. It means perfect goodness.

His name was perfect goodness, okay? And then he created this kind of offering. It's very cool.

Maybe it would make a good song or a good play or a good dance, okay? He made this offering. In his mind, he imagined the whole world covered with rose, the sky covered with rose petals.

The whole sky filled with rose petals. And then he imagined them dropping down softly, one by one, on his lama. Like the whole sky is covered with soft rose petals.

And the whole sky smells like rose. And then slowly, they're like... And then suddenly his lama's got rose petals all over him.

And he did this practice. He was meditating on it. And then he found a mantra that would help it come true.

You see? He found a mantra that would help it come true. And we have that mantra and it's in the text, okay?

So now you know what the clouds are on the right side of page 26, okay? That's actually my house. That's taken off my porch, okay?

Pretty awesome place. And it's easy for me to imagine those clouds of roses because the clouds are like that, where I live. I live on the Mogollon Rim, which is the earth steps up a few thousand feet, and then all the clouds gem up there and rainbows happen and stuff like that.

It's a very cool place. So, here comes the mantra, page 39, okay? Here comes the mantra.

And they don't explain the mantra much, but I thought you would enjoy an explanation of the mantra. Since you're going to be saying it, it's nice to know what it means, okay? They don't explain it, but I found it in the Kangyur, okay?

Here's the mantra. I'll give you a lung. Lung means a blessing that comes from my Lama of how to read the mantra.

Okay, here we go. I'll just say it one time. So just listen carefully.

OM NAMO BHAGAVATE VAJRASARA PRAMARANE TAT GATAYA ARAHATE SAMYAGSAM BUDDHAYA TAD YAT THA OM VAJRE VAJRE MAHA VAJRE MAHATEJA VAJRE MAHA VIDYA VAJRE MAHA BORI CHITTA VAJRE MAHA BORDI MANTO PA SANKRAMANA VAJRE SARVA KARMA AVARANA VISHUDANA VAJRE SVAHA Three times, okay? Focus. OM NAMO BHAGAVATE VAJRASARA PRAMARANE TAT GATAYA ARAHATE SAMYAGSAM BUDDHAYA TAD YAT THA OM VAJRE VAJRE MAHA VAJRE MAHATEJA VAJRE MAHA VIDYA VAJRE MAHA BORI CHITTA VAJRE MAHA BORI MANTO PA SANKRAMANA VAJRE SARVA KARMA AVARANA VISHUDANA VAJRE SVAHA One more time.

OM NAMO BHAGAVATE VAJRASARA PRAMARANE TAT GATAYA ARAHATE SAMYAGSAM BUDDHAYA TAD YAT THA OM VAJRE VAJRE MAHA VAJRE MAHATEJA VAJRE MAHA VIDYA VAJRE MAHA BORI CHITTA VAJRE MAHA BORI MANTO PA SANKRAMANA VAJRE SARVA KARMA AVARANA VISHUDANA VAJRE SVAHA Okay. I translated it. Just for fun.

You won't have time to write the whole thing. You can get it from Venerable Jigme. Maybe she can print it out or something.

I bow down to the three jewels. By the way, this is the long form of the mantra. The translation is the long form from the ancient times.

This is a shorter form. I bow down to the three jewels. I bow down to the conqueror, to the heart of the diamond, the destroyer, to the one gone thus, to the destroyer of the foe, the totally enlightened one.

Thus it is. Om to the diamond, the diamond, to the great diamond, to the great diamond of glory. These the secret words of greatness.

Svaha to the diamond of the wish for enlightenment, to the diamond of the great enlightenment, which is the very essence, to the diamond which purifies us of every karmic obstacle. Svaha Okay, so that's the... It's called chö tin gyi sung.

Say chö tin gyi sung chö means chöpa, what's that? Offering. Tin means a cloud.

Okay, a cloud. Like a radio is called lung tin. Anyway.

And then sung is an ancient word for mantra. Okay? It's an ancient word for mantra.

So this mantra will help the offering come true. Okay? So you imagine in your mind the sky filled with flowers.

And you start them, the petals floating down like pieces of cotton or feathers on your lama's body one by one. Thousands of soft petals falling down. And then you say this mantra and it comes true.

Okay, got it? It becomes true. And then Pabongka Rinpoche says be careful what you wish for.

He says why make it wimpy? Cover the whole sky. Don't have a little puff of rose petals.

Cover the whole sky. Since it's going to come true and it costs you the same, why not just cover the whole sky? Don't cover a little piece of the sky.

Don't wimp out on your visualization. At this point, screw down your attention, screw down your focus. Cover the sky with rose petals or whatever petal you like.

And then start them falling and then say the mantra three times. Got it? Very cool.

And you nail it down with dentop. Say dentop. Dentop means an act of truth.

A classical act of truth in ancient India is you say if it's true that I did my yoga every day for the last 30 days may the Ganges River flow backwards for the next hour. So obviously you have to have something you did that you can tell the truth about. I often say if it's true that I tried, it's kind of get out of it, you see.

Because it's always true that I tried, right? Maybe not. And there's many stories of people who, it's like turning the Mississippi backwards or something for an hour.

If it's true that I love my Lama may the Mississippi River flow backwards for the next hour. And it will flow backwards. That's called an act of truth.

So I'll read the act of truth and then we'll finish for the night. And then the last word is by that truth may those offerings, may the flower petals come and fall. Got it?

To whom, in whose perception do they fall? The Lamas. From the Lama's side they will see it.

From our side we're wishing, we're imagining. From their side they see it falling. Does that mean you see it falling?

No. Because we're just doing an act of truth so that they see it falling. That's enough.

It'd be nice to see it falling but maybe we're not there yet. Okay, last thing. Then we got to run.

I have a bunch of dates tonight. I call on the truth that the three jewels do exist. I call on the blessings of every enlightened being and everybody's sattva.

Page 29. I call upon the unimaginable might of the two collections, total and complete, meaning wisdom and merit. I call upon the absolute purity of emptiness which is called the realm of Is in this text.

And by its inconceivable power may all this actually be. And then suddenly your Lama sees flower petals falling. Got it?

So the mantra makes the petals really happen. But then the act of truth makes it really happen. An act of truth, you can do anything.

If I tried to be patient with my husband for the last 24 hours, may my Lama see rose petals fall. Just any spiritual practice that you did, you can use it as material for an act of truth. Something you did, good, should be good.

Not by the truth that I got irritated with my friend yesterday. That's not an act of truth. It's true, but it's not an act of truth.

Got it? It's very cool to do acts of truth. You can do them sometimes.

You have to have done a good thing and then you have to swear by that truth. And then weird stuff can happen. Like your Lama seeing flower petals fall.

Okay. Are you ready Venerable Phil? Is your voice okay after all that birthday singing?

What does it feel like to be 16? I'm just curious. To be 16.

Okay.

[Говорящий 2] (1:13:01 - 1:15:11)
17. Namo Buddhaya, kone kundu, phewa shok.