«Дар освобождения», курс 13 «Джорчо: песнь медитации», занятие 8

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 56:06)
We didn't get very far last night, because we did question and answer, which is also fun. So we kind of have to move on. I'd like to start at verse 64.

We actually finished that verse. Within the seven-part prayer that you do just before you meditate, which includes collecting some instant good karma and clearing out some immediate most serious bad karmas before you meditate. We're at the first of them.

The first is bowing down to different people. So I'll just go quickly through. At verse 64, we bow down to the leader of the clan of Shakya.

Not much to say, that's Shakya Muni. And not to be confused with Sakya. Sakya is a Tibetan lineage that came 15 centuries later.

Shakya is a clan in ancient India. Our Buddha, Gautama Buddha, was the head of his clan. Muni, Shakya Muni means head of that clan.

And Muni means, actually in the old days it meant a person who didn't talk much and kept mostly silence. They only said important things. So I think if they were around now, we would tend to think they were kind of quiet.

And there's a Hindu practice called Mauna, which is from the same root, which means to keep silence. It's a practice of keeping silence for a day or a week or three years. How long has that Swami from Mount Madana been silent?

How long? 60 years. So you can keep it for different lengths of time.

Verse 65, I bow down to the lineage of inspired practice, to the keeper of diamond, compassionate one gone to bliss, to Tilopa and Niropa, who looked upon the ultimate, to Dombipa and Atisha, ultimate in their glory. So normally we think of Lord Atisha as being involved with the compassion lineage, which he learned in Indonesia from Lama Serlingpa, Suvarnadvipa. But here he's listed as a lama of the tantric practice.

And we have here the high lamas of the tantric practices. Tilopa, who was the teacher of Niropa. And then we have Niropa.

And there's a nice carving of him on the upper left side here, on the 52. These carvings come from a version of the 8,000 verses that was carved in Tibet just before Tibet was lost. So it was carved in a place called Shulparkan, which is the printery of the Potala Palace, which is at the base of the palace.

And I think it was probably the last work ever carved there before it was destroyed. And it has about 2,000 carvings in it of all the lamas of our lineage. And there's some beautiful ones there, very beautiful.

So this one, which you see on page 52 in the upper left, it's a nice carving of Master Niropa making a tantric offering. It shows him in his yogi's form and sitting on a tiger skin. Then it also mentions, the verse mentions Dombipa, who is below Master Shantideva in the small box.

And he's taming a tiger. This is a representative of secret practice is compared to riding a tiger, because it's difficult and risky. And if you fall off, you get chewed up.

But Dombipa is famous for his partner practice. He had a wonderful practice of a Buddhist partner. And of course, Niropa, who's in the upper left, was the partner of Nygma, Lady Nygma, whose yoga we do frequently.

66, on to the lineage of Bodhisattva teachings. I bow down to the lineage of far-reaching deeds, Maitreya, the Loving One, Asanga, Vasubandhu, Vimukti Sena, Parama Sena, Vinita Sena, Yasha Sri, Haribhadra, the Dukkha Salis, and Suvarna Divipa. So that ends in the person who lived in Indonesia, who taught Atisha, who brought the teachings on compassion to Tibet.

And it's very interesting to go to Indonesia now, which is now a Muslim country. And there's a very beautiful mountain there that was carved into a mandala probably about a thousand years ago, and then covered up by the jungle called Borobudur. And we went there and had meetings with them.

We might work on a book together. It's a UN heritage site. And a volcano went off recently nearby and jammed up their ancient, what do you call it, rain spout system, which is in the pyramid.

And so because of that ancient, very clever system of rain spouts, in a country which is raining much of the time, in a jungle, the stone carvings have survived for a thousand years because the water doesn't stay on the stone. It goes into this special system of drains. And recently a volcano went off nearby and filled up the drains with ash, volcanic ash.

So the UN is helping to clear it out. And we're helping also. We're doing a book together with them about the Wheel of Life, which is depicted in the mountain.

The story of the Wheel of Life, the history of it, King Udayana, is carved in the mountain. And they didn't know. They didn't know it was there.

And we helped them identify it. So we're going to be doing a book together. That's why we're doing the Wheel of Life teachings in New York, because we're working on that book together.

So the Lama from that island, a thousand years ago, taught Lord Atisha about compassion, the teachings on bodhicitta. And then he brought them to Tibet. And that's where our lineage comes from.

I put a picture of Guanyin. I like this one. It's a special form of Guanyin that was popular in the Song Dynasty in China, which was also just about the same time as Atisha, a thousand years ago.

So this form of Guanyin is considered to be a relaxing Buddha, who is relaxing. And it's a form of Maitreya, the Buddha Maitreya, Guanyin. Some people say Chenrezig, Avalokiteshvara.

But what's interesting is that between India and China he became a lady. Guanyin is a female bodhisattva. So it's kind of sweet that the bodhisattva that represents compassion, Avalokiteshvara in this case, is a male in India, but when he came to China became a female.

I think it's very beautiful just that compassionate energy of a mother, of a person who has children, is reflected in that bodhisattva. And the word Guanyin means the one who listens to the cries of the world. So it could be related to Avalokiteshvara, the meaning of Avalokiteshvara, looking down on the world, Avaloka.

Okay, all right. Next verse, 67. I bow down to the nature of the profound view to Manjushri and to Nagarjuna who destroyed both sides, the idea that things can exist and the idea that they cannot exist.

To Chandrakirti, to Vidyakukkila the elder, to the realized father and son who defended Lord Buddha's true thought, and to many other masters. So from again the carving from Tibet, a very beautiful carving of Arya Nagarjuna on the left. And there's a story.

Nagarjuna means, Naga means like a, I think dragon. I think what we in Germanic or English culture call a dragon was a Naga in India. And they are said in Northern European culture to be interested in hoards of jewels.

And they hoard things and they sit on piles of jewels or gold. And the same thing is said of Nagas in India. These dragon-like creatures are said to be very possessive and they live in caves, huge lairs, and they lie on treasures.

But the ones in India, in addition to gold and jewels, they like books. They like scriptures. So there was a time, 1800 years ago, almost in the time of Christ, that some books were missing in this world.

And then this monk said he would go to the land of the dragons and recover those books. And he went to the land of the Nagas. And they are speaking beings.

They can speak. They are very intelligent. And you can negotiate with them.

And he negotiated with them and they were impressed by him. So he became a master of the Nagas. So Arjuna, of course, is the archer in the Bhagavad Gita that Krishna teaches, and a mighty warrior, one of the mightiest warriors recorded in Indian history.

So Naga Arjuna means the warrior, spiritual warrior, who gained control over the dragons and talked them into sharing their books. So he brought back from the land of the dragons some scriptures that are now in the Kanya that we were missing in this world. All right.

So I like Nagarjuna and I like that picture because they say that the Nagas came up to this world when it was hot in India. They would form a cover over his head. Probably he had a bald spot.

And very convenient, right Phil, to have a Naga to cover you during the sun. And then on the right there is Lord Atisha who's coming in the next verse. I bow down to the lamas of the Kadampa, to Atisha who kept the highest advices of learning and of practice, to Dromtunje, the forefather of the teachings of the Kadampa, and to masters such as the four high practitioners and the three close brothers.

These are references to early Kadampa lamas like Potowa, Kumbhawa, Sharowa, Dromtunje, Lord Atisha. And I put Lord Atisha there because you can see on his left side is a stupa. And when we get to the teachings on confession or clearing your conscience daily, on a daily basis, before you meditate, he held that practice very strongly.

And even though he traveled by horse through Tibet and he lived many years out of a suitcase from his horse, saddlebag, he would, every day he would get off his horse. He carried this heavy stupa with him and he would get off the horse and go off the road for a ways and sit in some trees and he would do his confessions to this stupa, which he carried around with him. So I thought that was nice to have it there.

I don't know, you and me were too lazy to do a six times book. He carried around this heavy stupa on his horse for, I don't know, 20 years and stopped and did his confessions from time to time. Kadampa is a name of the early Buddhists of Tibet and they are interesting.

They were, a lot of them were lay people. They were family people. They started small Dharma centers in their cities or their towns and those centers were passed down to the children usually.

That's how Buddhism began in Tibet. It wasn't really until later that it became monastic, that it became monks and nuns. So in the beginning there was a very, very beautiful flowering in Tibet of Buddhism in which many lay people traveled to India and studied with Indian masters and then they came back and taught each other.

So the lineage trees of those times a thousand years ago are very confusing. They look like a tumbleweed. This guy was a student of that person but he taught him also the other subject.

It was a very sweet time in Tibet. Very, very, what do you call it, exciting time in which family people, people who never became monks and nuns taught each other, trained each other in what they learned from Buddhism. I think we're in a similar time now.

I feel personally that the immediate future of Buddhism in this world will not be monastic. I'm happy to be a monk. I love being a monk.

I love being in a monastery. But I feel that it's a time in the world that, it seems to me that Buddhism will be passed on by lay people and it's great and it's wonderful because they have more experience in real life. They have worked.

They have had, bringing up children is a huge education and I think people who have those qualifications, having brought up children, having struggled to make a living, in this world there are uniquely qualified teachers. They are good teachers. So, I'm happy with the way we're doing it.

We have 303 ACI teachers in the world and I would say 95% of them are lay people and that's fine. I like it. It doesn't mean you shouldn't be a nun or a monk if you feel that it's a strong calling.

But I think most people are happy with the normal way of life and they'd like to use Buddhism to enhance that life. So, that's fine. That's a Kadampa.

That's the old Kadampa way. Then there's a, excuse me for slurping. There's a Buddhist group in England, based in England, which has taken the name Kadampa.

But of course it's a much older name from a thousand years ago and it refers to the early Buddhists of Tibet. All right. Next.

69. I bow down to the father and his sons, along with all their line, to Je Tsongkapa, innovator from the land of snows, to Gyaltsebje, king of deductive reasoning, and to Khetubje, lord of the open and secret words. This verse, I'm going to read it in Tibetan because it's very, very, very, very, very, very famous.

Okay. GANG CHEN ZHING RJE SOS RJE TSONG KHA PA MUD DOG RIGS PA'I DBANG CHUG RGYAL TZAM RJE SNONG RAB BSTAN PA'I BDAG PO'I KHAS RIGS RJE YAB TSE RGYUD PAR CHEN LA CHAG RTZA NA If you want to start learning Tibetan, if you want to learn a verse, this verse 69 is extremely famous. Okay.

And it's become so famous in our immediate lineage that it's used before eating food. Okay. It's used as a grace.

So if you wanted to learn a verse of Tibetan, this would be a good place to start. GANG CHEN ZHING RJE SOS RJE This is a reference to... SOS RJE means...

I wrote Innovator, I think. And this refers to people in this world. People like Arya Nagarjuna or Asanga who saw emptiness directly and then used that insight to interpret Buddhism for their world, for their planet of their times.

So they didn't change the content, but because they understood emptiness directly, they were able to make a fresh presentation in the world. So they're called SHING DAG SOS RJE. Innovator or inventor, but not in the sense of making up a new teaching, but in pioneering ways of presenting Buddhism to their modern world.

So SHING DAG... SHING means what? Wood?

Wood or tree? SHING means field, low tone. High tone SHING means wood or tree.

DAG means horse. So SHING DAG is wagon. Okay, wagon.

GSOL means a system. RJE here with the AO, with the prenasal means to open. Like to open a door is called RJE.

So SHING DAG SOS RJE means a person who puts together a new contraption, like a car, like Henry Ford or something like that. So SHING DAG SOS RJE is a very big compliment. There are only two historical SHING DAG SOS RJES.

This is Arya Nagarjuna and Arya Asanga. So it's a big compliment that in the Tibetan tradition we call Je Tsongkapa the third, inventor number three. In two and a half thousand years, he's only the third person who was able to take his insight into reality and turn it into a new presentation for modern times that would fit modern times, but not lose the accuracy of the ancient teaching.

Well-trained in ancient teaching and then very skilled in presenting it to the new world. That's called SHING DAG SOS RJE. I think Gyaltsabje was very famous in logic.

We debate his text on logic in the winter debates. Every winter we do a full month of debating, competition with the other monasteries. It's like, what do you call it?

The Olympics of debating. And each monastery, each of the six great colleges of the Dalai Lama's tradition, two from Ganden, two from Sera, two from Debum, and sometimes we add Darchin Phumbo, which is the pension Lama's seat. Those seven colleges will debate with each other for a month and sometimes all night.

And very, very, very, phew. It's like, wow, it's like the NCAA basketball thing and it's very, I don't know how to say, exhausting and very, very wonderful because you get the best and the brightest. Fifty young monks from each monastery are chosen to compete with each other for a month.

So naturally they become friends and later they become the abbots of the monasteries and the heads of the monasteries. And then they know each other already because they debated with each other for years. So typically a monk might go to two winter debate sessions or three in their life.

I was lucky, I was able to go to four. And you go up to a very high standard of debating. But the book, the main book is Gyaltsabje, Tsongkhapa's main disciple.

And very, very fantastic book about debating. And you only cover a few pages in a month. In hundreds of hours of debating, you only cover a few pages.

He's extraordinary. Very difficult and very beautiful. Then they mention Khedugje, who's Tsongkhapa's other great disciple, who really is known for his secret, his writings on the secret Buddhism, tantric Buddhism.

Very great commentator, especially the Kalachakra Tantra and similar subjects. He also wrote an extraordinary book on logic, which is not as popular as Gyaltsabje's, but it's a good secret weapon if you're debating, if you also have that one. So I used it in the winter debates.

And I'm trying to work with Venerable Nyingpo to translate that, but it's a long, it's going to take a while. I think we finished nine pages in three years or something. Okay.

Then I like this photo. This is called Ngan Dhamma. Ngan Dhamma means looks like me.

And Nga means me. Dha means similar. Ma is a feminine ending which is used for prayers and for statues.

So Ngan Dhamma means the statue or the image that looks like me. And this image was crafted during Tsongkhapa's life, during Je Tsongkhapa's life. And it's the only image we have of his real face.

And he was known to have prominent ears, which in Buddhism is considered good. Like you're close to becoming a Buddha. Khen Rinpoche had huge ears and big earlobes.

And we believe that's a good sign that you might become a Buddha soon. And he had a very prominent nose. He had a beak, hawk nose.

And his enemies, which he had many, called him Mr. Big Nose. They refused to call him Tsongkhapa. They called him Big Nose from the east.

He was from East Tibet. I like it because usually they clean up the face of these holy people and make them very vanilla, like modern music with the electronics. There's never any variation in the drum because it's electric.

So I like that image. It was destroyed in 1959 when Tibet was lost. That's why it's black and white.

There's only one photo taken of it. Taken by a... That's a long story.

Someday somebody should write the story. But the American Secret Service, OSS, sent a mission to Tibet during World War II. They asked if they could come and negotiate an overland route between India and China because India and China were both on the American side in World War II.

The Tibetans said no. So they put a bunch of American military spies on a bomber headed by Leo Tolstoy's nephew, Colonel Tolstoy. They crash landed in Tibet on purpose and they said they ran out of fuel.

But it was a last attempt to negotiate with the Nalai Lama and the cabinet because they weren't allowed to come in the border. And they crash landed near Lhasa. Ken Rinpoche saw the plane.

Everybody went out and looked at the plane because they never saw a plane. These spies took a lot of cool photos of Tibet before they were thrown out of Tibet. They didn't succeed.

The mission failed. But only because of that mission we have these very rare photographs of statues and images that were destroyed in 1959. So I like it a lot.

The hands were covered by a kata in the photo and then my mom helped me restore them many years ago. We doubled over his lapel here. So that's kind of cool.

All right, let's go to verse seven. I like it. I think it's a blessing to look at that photo.

So when you do your meditations, look at the photo. This is Je Tsongkapa's real face. Number 71.

I bow down to my spiritual guides. You are eyes to see each of a billion scriptures. You are the ultimate entry point for the fortunate who seek to travel to freedom.

You show me things with skillful means driven by your love. I had this breakthrough the other day. I was thinking about the word skillful means and it hit me that you could call it by hook or crook.

Get your student enlightened, whatever it takes. Sneaky or outright or punch them. Whatever it takes, get them enlightened.

That's called upaya in Sanskrit or thabke in Tibetan and it means skillful means. It means unusual actions to wake up your students and get them going. They're not always violent, but they are always unexpected.

Like they might dump water on your head. Remember she asked me to dig a tree trunk out by hand, oak. It took three years in the front yard.

And I said, why don't we just bring in a bulldozer? No, no, you have to dig it out. And then I dug for three years and finally got it out.

Then he's like, I think our cesspool needs moving. And then I had to dig up the cesspool, huge cesspool, and move the gravel in it. It took another year or something.

I don't know, you're supposed to teach me something, right? Like that, okay. All right, that's thabke.

The thabke is driven by love, right? They do strange things to wake up a student, but it's all because they love them. And I'm very aware that Khenpo Rinpoche loved me, very aware, strongly aware that he did it for my sake.

And it's hard to be a teacher and be disliked by your student after you push them. So it's easier to just be a nice guy and let the student hang themselves. But it takes a lot of love to be tough on the student.

Okay, all right. Next verse. By the way, verse 71, starting with Rabjam, is also a famous prayer, a famous grace before eating food.

So if you wanted to memorize that one, that's also extremely famous grace before eating. 72, I bow down to the host of angels and close angels, to the secret collection, highest bliss, low diamond and Heruka, to the lady of glory and to the lord of terror, to the countless saviors of all the teachings in all four groups of the secret word. So tantra or secret Buddhism has four classes.

There are four groups of the tantric teachings. And he's listed some from the highest group of secret teachings called Anuttara Yoga. And the Tibetan is quite difficult at this point because he abbreviates drastically.

So basically de, ge, heruka, is, how do you say, de chok, hei vajra, and then heruka. These are three high tantras. De chok is samvara.

Chakrasamvara, for example. And ge is a misspelling, so it's doubly secret. He vajra in Sanskrit.

The he in he vajra means what? He. It means hey dude.

Okay, so the he in he vajra means hey dude. And then in ancient Tibetan, that he is ka or ka ye. These are the two forms of hey in ancient Tibetan.

And then it got corrupted to gye, which is a different word and it means to please somebody. So unless you know that, you could never translate this verse. And then he says heruka.

And then pelchen. And jik che. Jik che is yamantaka in Sanskrit, or bhairava.

Jik che means makes you scared. So we call lord of terror. A bh in Sanskrit often comes into Greek or something as a ph, and then changes to f in modern English.

So bhairava means fear. The word bhair means fear. It came into English as fear.

And then his other name is yamantaka. Yama means lord of death. Antaka means to put an end to something.

Anta means end. Came into English as end. And ka means the doer.

So ender, like enderscape. And so yama antaka. Yama antaka means the one who kills the lord of death.

So the fear in this case is not some scary tantric deity who kills chickens and belongs to a cult or something like that. It means, in the Bible there's a very moving exchange between Jesus and some demons who have inhabited some pigs. And the demons are frightening the local people, and Jesus confronts those demons.

And then they see Jesus as a demon. Got it? Because Jesus is going to kill them.

And there's this whole heavy exchange. And then he shoves those demons into a herd of pigs and drives them off a cliff over the sea and kills them. So what it means is that to a demon, an angel looks like a devil.

Got it? So when we say Bhairava or Yama antaka, and there's this fearful aspect to that being, it doesn't mean they are nasty or horrible or mean. I've read many things online, many people criticizing Yama antaka.

It's stupid. It's extremely, what do you call, height of stupid. It's a supreme ignorance being broadcast.

It just means that to your anger, your understanding looks like the devil. So we paint your understanding as how it looks to your anger or your jealousy. Why?

Because they're going to die. Your jealousy will die. If you continue on this path, your jealousy will die.

Your anger will die. And they don't like it. They fight.

They fight back. It's a very noticeable trend in your life. The better your practice gets, the more obstacles will come.

If you don't have any obstacles, you probably should worry. It means they don't consider you a threat. They leave you alone.

Seriously. Next verse. So that's bowing down to the High Lamas of the secret teachings.

Verse 73. I bow down to the thousand perfect Buddhas who will appear within this eon, and in those blessed years accomplish all they planned. You made your prayers together for us in future times.

You labored to gather the karma in miraculous amounts, and all the deeds you do will spread in the universe forever. So this is a prayer specifically to the 997 Buddhas who are still to come in this eon, on this planet. There will be a thousand Buddhas.

Gautama was number three. Who's number four? Maitreya.

Maitreya is coming. Be, what do you call? Have heart.

Have heart. Be of good cheer. Close, very close.

Maitreya is very close. We live in good days. These are sacred times.

In a way, your work is contributing to that. So Maitreya is close here. There will be a thousand total Buddhas in this eon.

And the reason they come to this world is because they made a commitment together. They met together and they made a commitment to go to someplace bad. Like DCI, we have two kinds of tours.

One tour, we go visit rich countries and we move their money. And then we go to poor countries and spend the money to serve them. And then we're always broke because it balances out exactly.

So we go to difficult places like Vietnam or Mongolia where they can't pay, Bulgaria, they can't pay anything. We just go because it's a bad place. We try to go to hard.

Bodhisattvas prefer difficult places. We don't go much to Paris. We don't go to Australia, for example, because they have so many lamas there already because it's close to India.

So we try to choose places where there aren't enough teachers. We don't go to Argentina much because we have good teachers there already. We have Karola and her group.

So we try to go to places, we try to focus on places that are new or where it's difficult financially, economically, the countries in difficulty or violence and things like that. So we try to, oftentimes we'll try to go to difficult places. And that's a tradition of the thousand Buddhas.

All right, verse 74. I bow down to the eight who have gone to bliss, to good name, jewel, fine gold, the one beyond all sadness, singer of the teachings to the seer, to Medicine Buddha and Shakyamuni. May all the vastness of your prayers and all the wishes of your hearts come completely true.

This is a group of eight famous Buddhas in this world. One whose name you'll recognize beyond all sadness is what in Sanskrit, do you know? Sadness is shokha, shokha, and it means to be dried out because you cried so much.

The Russian word for dry is sukhoi. And it comes from, desiccated comes from that, dried out. So not dried out is a shokha.

So we believe that a shokha was a great Dharma King and there's a Buddha named a shokha. All right, next. Verse 75.

I bow down to the high Dharma of all three of the ways, to the mother of the victors and the perfection of wisdom and every other teaching. To those that put an end to the seed, the darkness, the source of pain, and rip from its very roots the agony of the pain itself. This is a reference to the teachings on emptiness, the perfection of wisdom.

So in this verse we are bowing down to the teachings on emptiness because it tears out pain in two forms. First, pain as a result, which is already here. And then secondly, pain as a cause, pain that will come in the future.

So we can go back to the kitchen, back to the moment that your boyfriend is criticizing you or your wife or your husband, partner is criticizing you in the kitchen. And then as they, you know, you walk in carrying your briefcase, you set it down and you look up and they're in your face and they're criticizing you about something. And what do you always say?

They came after me for no reason at all. In Buddhism that's a joke. That's like the ultimate joke.

Like, yeah, yeah, for no reason at all. No, no, I really, I just came home and they started criticizing me. I didn't have time to do anything.

I just walked in the door and they started criticizing. I didn't say anything yet and they started criticizing me. Then in your mind you say, for no reason at all.

And then in Buddhism there's no such thing. That for no reason at all doesn't exist. That's emptiness.

The lack of no reason at all is emptiness. In that moment you are having pain and if you respond with anger you plant new pain. So in this verse we are praying to the teachings on emptiness which at the moment your partner criticizes you, if you turn them on you stop pain and you stop the cause of pain, cause of more pain.

You shut up. I always find it, to break those situations, you can say, excuse me, I have to go to the toilet and I'll be back. And you can continue criticizing me.

But you break the moment. In extreme situations I'll drop a dish or take off my pants or something. No, it really breaks the whole thing.

It's just, they're like, what are you doing? And you're like, go ahead, you can criticize me in a few minutes. I just have to finish this.

Or you drop a dish and they're like, what? And you clean up the glass. It's better than having a fight, you see?

Break the moment, break the tension. I guess there might be lots of households with no dishes left after a while. But don't let a bad situation become a cause for more bad situations.

Don't respond. Don't respond negatively. And that's taking refuge in the emptiness.

Verse 76, I bow down to the Great Ones, the Eight Close Sons, Gentle Voice, Holder of the Diamond, Loving Eyes, Heart of the Earth, Destroyer of Obstacles, Heart of the Sky, and Loving One, and Perfect Goodness too. So this is a group of eight famous bodhisattvas who served Lord Buddha, who were close to Lord Buddha in the time of Lord Buddha. Some of the names will be familiar to you.

Gentle Voice is Manjushri. Technically Manjukosha, Kosha, but another name for Manjushri. Holder of the Diamond, Vajradhara.

Loving Eyes, Avalokiteshvara. Ksitigarbha, you don't know, I think. Heart of the Sky, Akashagarbha.

Loving One, Maitreya. So in the time of Lord Buddha, these beings were disguised as bodhisattvas. They were not Buddhas.

They did not show themselves as Buddhas. They showed themselves as eight bodhisattvas who were very close. They hung out with Lord Buddha.

They were always around Lord Buddha, and so they were called the Eight Close Sons. In later times, they were recognized to be Buddhas themselves. All right, 77.

I bow down to those realized beings, the self-made Buddhas, to those who without any help plumb the depths of the wisdom of the self-made ones, the self-made victors, by meditating carefully on that profound concept, the twelve links of dependent creation. This is a reference to a type of practitioner we call a self-made Buddha. Pratyekabuddha.

Because they have studied with thousands of teachers in their past lives, then when they're born into this world, they don't need a direct teacher. Classically, they run into the teaching on the twelve links of dependent origination and the Wheel of Life that we're teaching in New York. I think, when is it, Mercedes?

Like February? February 10th and 11th. So we'll continue the teaching on the Wheel of Life in New York.

But they specialize in that teaching and it gives them great insights into emptiness. And they become, they reach nirvana on their own. So they're called self-made Buddhas with a small B.

They're not enlightened. That kind of nirvana is called self-made Buddha, but they're not Buddha. They're not a full Buddha.

That's why we call other Buddhas full Buddhas. If you're curious why they're samyak sambuddhaya, full Buddha, fully enlightened person, then the question comes up, what? Are they partially enlightened Buddhas?

And the answer is, yes, these guys. But they're not real Buddhas. Next verse, 78.

I bow down to the sixteen elders and all those in their retinue serving at Lord Buddha's decree, upholding the banner of the Dharma, to the one born in the branches and the undefeatable, to the forest hermit and the patriarch, to the son of the lady of the diamond, to good one and the golden child, to the great Bharadwaja of the gold and the realized being Bakula, to dark planet and the trail, to Bharadwaja the mendicant, the guide, dragon's horde, the concealer, and to the unbroken. These are sixteen famous arhats from ancient India. Two of them have the same name, Bharadwaja, so they call one Bharadwaja the gold and they call other Bharadwaja the mendicant.

So don't be confused, there's two Bharadwajas. Do you recognize anybody there? Trail, that's Lamchung.

Who's that? Yeah, he's that guy who had to sweep the temple and couldn't remember. OM when he got to BUR, OM BUR BHAVASYA TAT SAVITUR VARENYAM BARGO DEVASYA DIVAHI DIOYO NAH PRACHODAYAT What is that?

Gayatri Mantra, most famous mantra in Hinduism. He forgot BU when he got to OM and he forgot OM when he got to BU. And then he practiced cleaning up his room and he became an arhat.

Then he got to be in the 16th. These arhats are classically related in our current tradition to long life practices. So in New Jersey, we used to do the ritual of the 16 elders.

They're called Neten Chudruk. We used to do it fairly often to request Rinpoche to live a long life. This is traditional prayers of the 16 arhats.

All right, next page. Verse 79 is a reference to female Buddhas who wander around the world and enlighten people, get them enlightened. I think they're usually disguised as yoga teachers or something.

Or something. Anyway, according to our practice, any woman on this planet is especially suspicious and could very well be an enlightened being. Therefore, it's considered a very high practice if you can find one of them and you can try to practice with them, then you can get enlightened faster.

So in our immediate tradition of the Dalai Lamas, we're supposed to honor women much more, especially honor ladies, and respect them, and show honor to them. I heard a nice story about Lama Supa Rinpoche that he was driving through India one day in the back of a car. They had a bunch of offerings.

They were headed to some temple and he saw a young lady carrying firewood on her back on the side of the road. And he had some insight that she could be Vajrayogini. She could be an angel.

And he ordered the car stopped and he jumped out and he bowed. He prostrated to her and then he took all the offerings out of the trunk and offered them to her and then got in the car and went on. That's kind of a nice practice.

So I put the ladies who danced in Guadalajara and we had incredible flamenco dancers. There's four of them. They each had a different color of light on them that matched the four modes.

And Alejandro had this beautiful idea. I would love to bring them here to Phoenix, have them perform. The guitar player is the best I've ever seen in my life.

And I'd really like to take them to Beijing and just turn on the Chinese because the Chinese people who came to Guadalajara were so happy. They took flamenco class. They taught us flamenco and they were awesome.

One day I'm going to try to get them to China and have them dance. But to me, at that moment, they looked like, it wasn't hard to imagine that they were angels, that they were deities. So in this verse, we bow down to all the angels on this planet who are unrecognized, that we're not sure who they are.

Any lady could be one of them. I bow down to the multitude of the angels of the sky who cover all three realms, who see beyond the scene, who can appear anywhere at will. Women of miracles, who from their holy paradise, the heaven of the sky, look down in love on those of us who try to do our practice as mothers gaze on their children.

So they like us. They're happy with us. We're not great saints, but we're trying.

We're not doing our little songs and dances and stuff. All right. Verse 80.

And then we'll take a break. Give me about 10 more minutes. We'll take a break.

I bow down to the host of guardians, protectors of the Dharma, who in ancient days knelt before the conquering Buddhas and swore they would protect all those who rightly practiced the Dharma, as if they were their very own beloved sons and daughters. So there are lots of enlightened beings who many, many countless years ago in other planets, in front of other Buddhas, or our Buddha, they knelt down and they swore, I will protect anyone who tries to practice the Dharma. They're called guardians or protectors.

And they're very nice if you can make contact with them, even in your imagination. If you're having a hard time with your practice and things get hard, then you can ask them for help. Dharma phala.

Phala is an ancient word meaning protector. Pha is a root that means to protect. And it came into the word pastor, one who protects their flock.

So nowadays there's a controversy among the Tibetan people, especially about one of the protectors. There are hundreds of protectors. There's one that in the past was traditionally used during, what do you call it, times of conflict between our lineage and other lineages.

So people would do like black magic and try to call on this protector and try to hurt people in another tradition, which is totally against all of our vows, specifically against our vows, especially our tantric vows. We're not allowed to look down on other traditions. We're not allowed to speak badly about any other religious tradition.

This is our secret vows. But it was misused. The protector was abused.

So His Holiness the Dalai Lama asked people, please don't use that particular one because of its history, because of the history attached to it. And it was controversial because his own teacher was very heavily into that particular protector in a nice way. So Trijang Rinpoche, who was my teacher's teacher, was very much into that and taught it to many lamas.

So the lamas were conflicted. They said, well, we promised Trijang Rinpoche that we would practice it. But the Dalai Lama said, I understand that and Trijang Rinpoche was my teacher also.

But just out of respect for other traditions, I suggest we voluntarily just give it up. And there are thousands of other protectors. We can just choose one.

So that became a big source of controversy among Tibetans. I personally am not involved in that controversy. That's one that I'm not involved in.

And I'm not interested in... I think it's foolish. I think it's unwise.

I think it's sad. I think it's just a waste of time and energy like most controversies. And I'm just not involved in it.

So if anyone asks you, am I involved? I'm not involved. I was never given that teaching.

I never practiced that teaching. But I understand both sides. I see each side's point.

One side takes it as a religious freedom. I should be able to practice what I would like because I don't intend to hurt anyone. And then the other side says, well, the Dalai Lama is...

many of you recognize him as your teacher and if your teacher asks you to do something, you should agree to do that. So there's a controversy. And I...

What do you call it? What do you call it? I sympathize with both sides.

I understand how both sides feel. But I feel that to have a controversy like that is very much against what we're doing and what our goals are. So I think it's...

I wish they would kind of sit down together and have a mediator and they could probably work out some kind of compromise. But unfortunately that hasn't happened. So I think it'd be wise for us just to avoid that whole controversy.

It's a very sad and I think destructive thing. So that's my opinion. Okay, next.

So when people ask you, do you honor a Dharma protector, you can say, yeah, but not that one. We're not involved with that. But of course we have hundreds of Dharma protectors.

Somebody has to help protect the Dharma. All right. Verse 81.

I bow down to the four great kings, each with their own group of followers whom they have subdued, and each protecting one of the gates, to the guardian of the land, to the highness, to dreadful gaze, and to prince of learning. These are four great, powerful, worldly beings who are supposed to be protecting a certain part of our planet. We can talk more about it when we study Abhidharma.

I haven't taught Abhidharma yet. That's a 12-year project also. So we'll have to figure out what we do about that.

Okay, 82. And finally, I split my body into as many bodies as there are atoms in this universe. And with each of these bodies, I throw myself down and bow in perfect devotion to anyone, anywhere, whose deeds deserve my honor.

I like this verse. 82. You can kind of skip to 82.

If you don't want to go through all the Lamas and Lineage and all that. By the way, the Lamas and Lineage are coming later. This is just a preview.

These are the highlights of the big Lamas, but we have many more coming. But personally, if you have to go to work as the comptroller of the city of Colorado Springs or whatever you are, and you're busy, then you can just go to verse 82 and say, I bow down to everybody who's doing nice stuff. Whether you lived before or whether you're living now, I bow down to you.

You're special. I like you. I just wanted to say thank you and acknowledge you.

I like that verse because you can include Dorina. Who's Dorina?

[Говорящий 2] (56:09 - 56:13)
Who's Dorina? Nicole Vigna.

[Говорящий 1] (56:14 - 58:12)
Where are you? Who is she? She's the lady at Costco.

What's wrong with you? Dorina at Costco. Epi, her assistant.

You go in and she's like, we're like, we need this meditation book. She's like, calm down, calm down. She actually said that.

She said about Jigme, she looks like she's meditating. She looked at me and said, I don't think you're meditating. You're too nervous about this book.

And then she said, we need it tomorrow. Which is impossible. And she said, okay, get out of here.

I'll take care of it. Just leave, okay? Let me get to work.

I'll take care of it. I'll bring the staff in at six o'clock tomorrow morning and we'll finish it. We'll bind it.

And we're like, so you can bow to her also. You see what I mean? Anyone who's cool, anyone who's amazing, anyone who's doing some special thing in the world, there are thousands and thousands of them.

I would like to bow to the corporate commissioners of Arizona who let solar survive, but also gave something to the electric company, nice compromise, and I bow to them. Like that. So when you get to verse 82, you can bow to anybody who's doing cool stuff.

I like that. You don't have to restrict yourself to famous Buddhist saints. You can bow down to Dharina and Epi and corporate commission.

That's okay. That's even better, I think. Okay.

We're at the second of the seven parts, which is making offerings, and I think it's a good time to take a break. We're about halfway through the time.