Занятие 8, часть 2

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 29:12)
Okay, we'll start. We have about half an hour. We're doing the second of the seven parts of the Make Lovely Offerings.

Then when Pabongka Rinpoche gets to the subject, his first comment is, only a fool would leave a fertile field unplanted. Only a fool would pass up a field that they could plant. So in Tibet, a land was very valued, very highly valued, very precious.

And then if you owned an acre or half an acre, to not plant something for a year was considered very foolish. It's just like you could be making something there. You could be growing something.

You could be helping people. Why is that relevant here? Yeah, the garden is there.

The tsok shing is there. The garden is there. So plant something.

Give them. Offer them something. That's planting.

And stuff will come back. So don't be dumb. Invest something in these holy beings.

And of course those things will come back to you ten times. So make offerings. Again, he repeats what we said yesterday.

These particular beings are so powerful and so holy that even if your intention is crummy, it doesn't matter. You will get crops. Offer them something and beautiful things will happen to you even if your intention is not pure.

Because they are so powerful. All right. This section starting with 83 is directly exerted from a sutra called Palpoche.

And that's part of the Kangyur. So these next few pages come directly from an ancient sutra. This is a section in the sutra of Palpoche, Pelchen, Avatamsaka, where a bodhisattva named Samantabhadra describes how to make offerings.

And we already talked about it. This is Kuntasambho. In the translation it's perfect goodness.

So when you see perfect goodness capitalized, that refers to a bodhisattva, a very famous bodhisattva, who made these offerings that covered the sky and then did mantras that made it appear to the lama. That made the thing actually appear to the lama. He imagined the sky covered with flowers, did a mantra, and because of that mantra the teacher will see the flowers.

Cool? Very cheap and efficient. Okay.

So they made this into a separate sutra. They put a prostration at the beginning, I bow down to the realized one, to the glorious gentle voice, become young. And then we start off on the actual words of the sutra written by Lord Buddha.

This part is by Lord Buddha. I bow down to anyone in any corner of the universe who has reached enlightenment, who is reaching enlightenment, who will ever reach enlightenment. I bow with my body.

I bow with my words. I bow with my mind to every single one of them, to these lions of living kind. Next page.

I throw myself down before every victorious Buddha and by the power of the prayer of perfect goodness, that's the bodhisattva's name. It's not just general goodness. May each of them see directly in front of them copies of me equal in number to the atoms of the universe, each one bowing in perfect devotion.

So you can stand up before your meditation and do samsurya namaskaras. By the way, I know it may be obvious or maybe not, but what yoga people do in every yoga studio in the world in the first 15 minutes of the yoga class, samsurya namaskara is meant to be a prostration to high beings. It's not some kind of exercise.

Namaskara means I bow to your name. Namas means name and I bow. It means I honor you and I bow to you.

So of course, that's a prostration. That's bowing down. I'm going to bring you some comments on the next verse.

At this very moment, Buddhas equal in number to the atoms of the universe are sitting surrounded by their bodhisattva sons and daughters inside every atom there is. I close my eyes and see every emptiness there is, filled to overflowing with all the victorious Buddhas. This is true and it's also a very nice meditation technique.

If you want to exercise your meditational powers, if you want your meditation muscle to get stronger, there's a practice and it's called BEL GOMS PHYIR PA. You can focus on something. I'll take the microphone.

You go down into the microphone and there's these little squares here. You go down into one of the sides of the square and then you go down into where the wires meet each other. This is mentally, right?

Down into the wires. Then you focus on the left side of that wire and you imagine an atom of the metal in the wire that's making the microphone cover. You focus on that atom there.

Then in that atom is a Buddha and that atom is their Buddha field and it's true. They do exist in every atom. Every atom of every object, your laptop, your cell phone, your car keys, every atom in that object is filled with Buddha paradises and it's true.

It's not imaginary. It's not a, what do you call, visualization. It's already true.

Buddhas are there. A Buddha is living with all their world inside of each atom of the stuff around you. Your eyeglasses, your nose, your left eyebrow.

It's a beautiful thought. It's a very healthy thought. Oh, my bones are made of Buddhas and my skin is covered with Buddhas and the chair is filled with Buddhas and my cell phone.

Every time you call somebody, text somebody, when you push the buttons you say, I'm tickling you or like that. It's a very healthy thing, mentally, spiritually, to imagine or to see how every object around you is filled with Buddha paradises. Every little piece of every object is filled with Buddha paradises.

It's a very healthy thing. Think about it sometimes. That's a practice.

That's one of the practices of Mantapadra. I was trying to find photos of this and the Buddha I used was, there's a similar Buddha up here. These Buddhas were created by the Huichol people who are the native people of Mexico.

I think it is the largest tribe in Mexico. They're like Apaches or Navajo. We have a nice connection with them.

We help out at the Huichol house for Huichols who get cancer. I heard a very beautiful thing that over 450 people have come through the Buddhist group there to help Huichol house. We are doing nice work there.

Our group is doing nice work there. But the Huichol people offered me this Buddha which they beaded. It takes many, many, many hours and they created a Buddha with beads and they offered it to me.

So I like that Buddha. I was looking up atoms online and they just looked too scientific to me. So I did a water drop.

But the idea is imagine that there's a Buddha inside of every atom of the things around you. Is there some kind of fundraiser with this Buddha? Am I right, Inder, Paula?

What's the deal? How's it work? It's a raffle?

By tomorrow? Okay, so this Buddha is going for, it's part of the raffle. I have one and I can say they're very special and they work very well.

You should buy a ticket for the raffle. I think the raffle will be held in January when we have our retreat there. But they're very beautiful and it took many, many, many hours.

So that's the story of the beaded Buddha and it's a very healthy exercise to do that. So I encourage you to do that exercise. Okay, last verse for this afternoon.

Well, let me give you some scripture. Okay, this is from the scripture. Pabongka Rinpoche says, a thousand people can look at a single stone.

If I hold up this clock, then 50, 100 people can look at it and there's no problem. If Bertha's looking at it, it doesn't mean that Osiris has to wait until she's finished looking at it and then he can see it. You see what I mean?

100 people's eye consciousness can rest upon this object at the same time and that's not a problem. A thousand Buddhas can think about the same thing and their body goes there at the same time. A thousand Buddhas can think about the tip of a needle and then be there because of, we said it yesterday, sungjuk, right, sungjuk.

Where their mind is, their body follows. Where their mind is, their body follows. A thousand Buddhas can rest on the tip of a needle.

Then he describes prostrations, different ways of prostration. So I'll give you a two-minute prostration review. I think the most important thing you should know is a large goal, one of the main goals of our Buddhist practice, the reason we're having classes in Phoenix for 14 years or whatever, the reason we're doing this together is that one day in deep meditation you could see emptiness directly.

You could see ultimate reality directly. It always makes me think of something in the Bible where Moses meets God in the form of a bush which is on fire. I don't know why, but God appears to Moses as a bush which is on fire.

And if you reread that section or more importantly you watch the Charlton Heston version, Moses throws himself on the ground in front of this bush. He has to dig his face into the dirt. And that's true.

On the day you see emptiness you will see Buddhas for the first time. It's kind of cool because up until then you just believe what other people are reporting. It's a kind of act of faith to be a Buddhist because you can't meet them.

But on that day you will meet them directly. You will meet Buddhas directly. And you know they are real.

It's a very, very, very beautiful thing. You must stand up and you must throw yourself down on the ground, face down, full prostration. It's a natural instinct for a human being to do that.

Every human being will do that. Whoever sees a Buddha, without thinking and without planning and without wondering what you're doing, you will stand up and throw yourself on the ground and you will stay there for quite a while. Because you cannot stand in front of a Buddha.

It's not possible. You will throw yourself on the ground. The minute you know it's a Buddha, which only you can know then, you will throw yourself on the ground.

And then came all this prostration customs. In Tibet, in India, even in Christianity I guess, kneeling down, as you go down in my church, which is nearby here. It's a very beautiful church.

It's still a beautiful church. I still go sometimes. I like the mass.

I think it's cool. So you go down the aisle and you bow and you touch your, you genuflect, you touch your knee to the ground. I believe all those customs came from the same place.

Somebody saw God, Jesus, Buddha, and they bow. They have to get down and bow. Then all of those zillions of people bowing in churches, or bowing in front of, in a synagogue, or bowing in a Buddhist class like we do, all of that comes from people who saw Buddhas and had to throw themselves on the ground.

Burning bush incidents. They all came from the same place. So in the days since that, there have come to be different kinds of bowing.

So let's cover them. One is called Kumbh Chak. Kumbh Chak means, what you're doing before class is called a Kumbh Chak.

Kumbh means, what do you call when you do this with your arm? This is kyang. This is kumbh.

Like retracted. Yeah, a retracted prostration. Those of you who know the Vajrayogini Tantra, there's a kyang kumbh going on with her legs.

But one leg is bent and one leg is extended. That's called kumbh, and that's called kyang. So kumbh chak means, you touch five parts of your body on the ground.

Your head, your forehead, your two palms, and your two knees. And that's called our five-point prostration, or kumbh chak. Like when the plane comes down and touches down.

Then there's three things touching the ground, right? Hopefully. When you do a kumbh chak, you're touching five things on the ground.

Kyang chak is what? Full prostration. You spread your arms out and you do a full prostration.

You can do that sometimes if you have a good carpet at the teaching place. Otherwise it can be a problem. But traditionally you'd stretch yourself out completely on the ground.

People in Tibet sometimes walk from Guadalajara to Mexico City doing kyang chaks the whole way, but that's not culty. That's a tradition. That's called kyang chak.

And my Lama, he used to, I don't know, he would come into the temple and he'd be goofing, not goofing off, he'd be cleaning bowls or sweeping and then suddenly he'd go. And you see the Dalai Lama doing that all the time. Like Dalai Lama passes some people and he's like, and this is considered a prostration.

Okay, you should know this is a mini prostration. It's like, and Dalai Lama leans back. He's like that.

That's a prostration. Okay, just so you know, he's not just being friendly. He's like, that counts as a prostration.

In Tibet, it's a custom. When you see something cool, when you see something spiritual, it could be those clouds out there right now, pretty awesome, over the mountains, and you just go, God bless you Geshe Michael, that you did that karma like 10 years ago. It's awesome.

It means awesome. You're awesome. If you're at Costco and they're going to bind all my books at six o'clock in the morning, you're like, and they don't have to know what it is.

You see, it's just a private thing. It's a secret thing. You're like, and it's very pleasant to do little secret symbolic things.

You should, it's a big part of tantra actually. We see somebody out here doing something kind for somebody else, and you can just do that and keep walking. They say you don't have to stop walking.

Just do that and keep going. Anytime you see something cool, be on the lookout during your day for beautiful things. Mother helping a child.

Somebody stopping for another car. I'm like driving. I'm like, that means I get down on my knees before you.

You are so cool. You let that person come in front of you. Keep going.

Like that. It's a very beautiful custom. There are karmic results for doing that.

I'll give you some of them. Physically, you get more beautiful. It's as if you had put on makeup or something.

You get more physically. As the years go by and you keep doing this, the cool things you see every few minutes, your face changes, and your body changes, and you get more beautiful. The older you get, the more beautiful you get.

It's very strange. Second, your voice changes and you get a sweet voice. You get a gentle, sweet-sounding voice.

People say, I like your voice. I'm not a special person, but recently we sang a sting song in the prison and somebody said, you sound just like Sting, man. And I'm like, yeah, he's always stealing my stuff.

So anyway, your voice can change. If you honor, just go around honoring people. Third and maybe most interesting to you, you will lose your fear of speaking in front of groups of people or doing performances in front of groups of people.

One of the ancient karmic correlations is that you lose your fear of speaking in public or performing in public. I know it's hard to believe for someone who can't shut up, but the first time I was asked to speak publicly, I froze and I couldn't say a word. I had to sit down.

The first time I was asked to speak publicly Buddhism, I was like... And it was very embarrassing and it was very powerful. I couldn't speak and I had to sit down.

And it was very embarrassing and now I can't shut up. You're late already. Next karmic results.

Holy beings enjoy watching you do this. It makes them happy. Every time you honor a person in traffic or you honor a lady at Costco or you honor one of your...

Tomorrow you can do lots of these things, right? You don't have to make it. You can just go...

Rinpoche would be like... You'd have to watch carefully and he'd be doing it all the time. And it means, I love that.

That's a holy thing. That's a beautiful holy thing. I love to see Luis in the middle of all the group of people laying down on him and he looks like a Buddha sitting there and I'm like, cool.

And you can do that. And when divine beings see you doing that, they're proud of you. They're like, oh look, somebody's smart enough to do these mini prostrations.

They get happy. They feel... They enjoy it.

That's nice, right? Nice karma. CG.

CG means you become respected by other people. People respect you. It's very frustrating not to be respected, right?

You're saying... You're giving some good suggestion in a group and no one's listening to you. That's the opposite of CG.

If you constantly honor people in tiny ways as you walk through the world, people start to respect you. It's a karma. It's a karmic result.

People respect your ideas. People respect your suggestions or things that you do, which is pleasant. That's nice, right?

It's very frustrating when you have a good suggestion and no one wants to listen. Okay. Wealth, obviously.

You will... What do you say? Your credit cards will get paid off.

You'll be comfortable. Financially comfortable. Prosperous.

Last thing, obviously nirvana and enlightenment. Karmically, to honor the people around you and to respect them in a small way with just your hand, it's a very heavy karma for becoming enlightened. So those are the benefits of this practice, prostration.

Almost done, okay? Hang in there. I have like, just a few more things.

And these I took out of the scripture. I'm just giving you the highlights. Each grain of dust that you cover with your body during your prostration creates the karma to be president of the world later that many times.

You can believe it or not, but it's true. Also they say that extended prostration, the full prostration, is a very important practice in tantra. And Pabongka Rinpoche says that it was one of the favorite practices of Naropa, Niguma's partner.

It was one of his favorite practices. It's a custom in our tradition watch my hands, to put your thumbs inside. That's just our immediate lineage, the lineage of Jetsun Kampa.

The custom of our lineage is to put the thumbs inside. We don't go like this. I do it sometimes in yoga or something because it feels good.

There's some kind of channel thing going on. But traditionally we put the thumbs inside and it represents offering your Lama a jewel of your practice. So you imagine this is my practice.

This is a jewel in my palms. And I offer you that jewel. That's just a tradition that we have.

When you do a prostration, it's customary to touch your body in four places as you move your hands. One is at the top of the head. And that means that it changes the chakra here and you will gain the body of a Buddha up here.

Then there's, especially the tsukdor. Tsukdor is this bump on the top of the head. I hesitate to tell people because one American told me, I don't want that.

I'm like, oh, okay. You don't have to have one. They have a slight protuberance here.

The head comes up a little. Rinpoche had a very noticeably one here. That's a sign of an enlightened being.

Then you touch here at your third eye. In Tibet, it's called minsam. In Sanskrit, it's called bruhor madhya.

Bruhor is the dual possessive. Of the middle of the eyebrows, the two eyebrows, bruhor madhya, and you touch there. In the yoga tradition, it's important.

In Tibet, we call minsam. You touch there. That creates a kind of omniscience that the Buddha has.

And there's a little hair there in a Buddha. If you ever check closely, there's a little hair in there. If you pull it out, it will reach to Jupiter.

But people don't like that either, so I don't talk about it. Then you touch your throat, at your throat, okay, one time. And that means may I speak as an enlightened being, beautifully as a Buddha.

May I speak. They're supposed to have a voice which has 60 high qualities. YEN LAG GRUG CHU Sixty qualities of a Buddha's voice.

The most important is mentioned in the Yoga Sutra. It says, SA BA BUDDHA RUTAS NYANAM What is that? SA BA BUDDHA RUTAS NYANAM You speak all languages.

You speak English, or you speak Spanish, and your audience could be speakers of a hundred languages, and they will each understand you in their own language. It's also in the Bible, right? When they start speaking in tongues.

So, when you touch here, you have to imagine that one day you will have the ability to speak in all languages. Automatically, you speak Spanish and everyone understands it in their own language. It's a very beautiful thing.

I think you can get, what do you call, premonitions of it. You can get kind of close where it's easy for you to learn languages, or like that. So, touch here.

And then when you touch at your heart, so the fourth stop is at your heart. One, two, three, and then four. And don't rush.

I see people going like... And Tibetans do that. They've made so many prostrations, they're like...

Take your time. Touch each place gently and consciously. And the last place is at your heart.

Meaning, I would like to have the mind of a Buddha. So, that's just tradition to touch those four places. Then it's a tradition to go down slow and come up fast.

That's a tradition. Going down slow means after I die, I ain't going down anywhere. Coming up fast means after I die, I'm going up fast.

Like that. It's just a statement of what you want to happen. Pabongka Rinpoche mentions that the act of prostration fulfills both the goals of the seven limbs.

What are the two goals of the seven parts that we're studying right now? One is to collect a good hit of, espresso hit of good karma just before you meditate. And one is to clear out the things from your conscience.

You can't meditate if something's on your conscience. If you just hurt somebody and you try to meditate, it's not going to work. You have to confess.

Prostration has both powers. It collects good karma and it cleans bad karma. One prostration does both.

Two more things, then we'll stop. No, I covered that already. Oh, we covered everything.

Okay, we're done. So this evening we'll go on to, I really like the next verse, the next page, because it has a surf on it and I love surfing. It's a very beautiful photo.

It's a real photo of the ocean and we'll talk about the meaning of it tonight. Let's do a mandala offering. Dedicate the karma with Venerable Phil.

And then I think Esther might have some notes. Yeah, okay. So whenever you're ready, Venerable Phil.

[Говорящий 2] (31:17 - 31:18)
Okay, thank you.

[Говорящий 1] (31:18 - 32:25)
It's been a very sweet week and it's very sweet to see everyone's performance coming together. If you still, I think it's not too late still, if you have a poem you'd like to read or, you know, a song you'd like to, even if you just want to play a recorded song or have us play it for you or show a video clip that you like off YouTube. There's this awesome clip of a three-year-old reciting a poem from memory, like a 10-minute poem.

He's like some kind of miracle kid and, you know, if you just have something sweet like that and offer something, you know. Give something. Tell Jonny O or Ram or Esther.

Just give them anything that you'd like to offer, okay? Don't be shy. Do something.

Don't miss out on tomorrow. You don't have to do it. You don't have to get up.

Just tell them, download that song and play it. That's from me. Okay?

Give them $2.99. Okay? Don't be shy. Do something.

Offer something tomorrow, okay?