Медитация 11

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 27:44)
Let's meditate. Please check your forehead. Make your forehead soft.

Check your eyes. Make the eyelids soft. Pull in the stomach a little bit.

Pull up the top of the head. Relax your shoulders. Push out your chest.

And please come to your breath. Please imagine that you're laying down on the grass during the daytime. You can feel the soft grass, and below the grass you can feel the earth.

Very pleasant, not too hard, soft. I like to put my hands behind my head. Open your eyes.

Just look at the sky. All you can see is the sky. We'll stay here for a while, just relaxing the grass.

After a meal, like a lunch, when you meditate, you might try just cracking your eyes open a little bit, looking down. But don't look at anything. Don't focus the eyes, and don't drop the chin.

Chin is up. Eyes are cracked open. Eyes can be down a little bit.

On the grass, look at the sky, and be aware of the space that your body is filling. It's not around the body. It's where the body is.

Every part of the body fills that space. But the space doesn't change. When you need, the space will still be there.

Feel the grass. Think, I made this. I planted this grass.

I caused the grass to be planted. I caused the rain to come. I planted the tree here.

This big beautiful tree with the piñata. I planted it. I made it grow.

The mountain, which grew from the earth a million years ago, I planted it. Now, the mountain which you planted, wipe it away. Wipe it away.

Make it disappear. Anything in this place which you created, wipe it away. Wipe away the trees, because you planted them.

Wipe away the grass, because you planted it. Wipe away the blue sky, because you planted it. Between earth and sky, your body, yourself, wipe it away, because that's also coming from me.

Wipe away anything which is coming from you. And wipe away time also. Wipe away time, because that's also coming from you.

What's left, after you take away all the things which you planted, is nothing. Relax in that place, as if you had a body to put your hands behind your head. Stay there quiet and peaceful and happy in nothingness.

Get comfortable to stay in this space. Please come back to the grass, the feeling of the grass on your skin. The feeling of the earth below your back.

The feeling of the earth behind your back, on your back. Totally relaxed and look at the sky. Blue sky.

Peaceful. Then slowly come back to your breath. Then you can open your eyes.

Take a stretch. Meditation questions. Aha, he's very fast.

Wait one minute for the microphone. Geshe-la, everything comes from seeds, and our seeds come from other seeds, and other seeds, and other seeds. And when you say clean the space in the meditation, I just have one thought come to my mind.

Who put my first seeds? Good question. Where did I start?

Where is the beginning? In English we say, which came first, chicken or the egg? A well-trained Buddhist answer.

Yes. It means there is no... By the way, there's a well-trained Buddhist and there are not well-trained Buddhists.

And frankly, I'm afraid many, many Buddhists, native Buddhists, or Buddhists and new Buddhists in western countries, they are not well-trained. Then the physicist is a kind of science, scientist. Science was a big change in the world view of our world.

Many, I don't know, maybe six, seven hundred years ago. It was a big change from superstition to science. Very, very big change in our world.

And the scientist said, everything has a cause, and you find the cause, then you can cure diseases. You can build big machines. You can blow up whole cities if you find the causes.

Then they say everything has a cause. Then you say, where did the world come from? And they say, long ago, I think it's 50 million years, I don't remember, 80 million years ago, there was an explosion called the Big Bang.

Then you heard about Hubble Telescope, right? Hubble Telescope. This was named after Edwin Hubble, Edwin Hubble.

He lived about, almost a hundred years ago now. He measured the movement of the stars and the planets, and he discovered something. Everything's moving.

Nothing is stationary. Then he decided there must have been a big explosion in the beginning. Then people like Einstein and lately Mr. Hawking, they say in the beginning, all the stuff in the universe was contained in the space of one fingernail. All the stars, all the planets, contained in this much space. Then of course that space is pretty heavy. That thumbnail is pretty heavy because it has all the stuff in the world is there, in the universe, all the stuff in the universe.

And it was slightly defective shape. It wasn't perfectly symmetrical. Then when it blew up, some stuff clumped together with other stuff, and therefore we have empty spaces, and we also have stars and planets.

So you ask those scientists, how did the world begin? They say, explosion. Then you say, what was there before the explosion?

Nothing. What caused the explosion? Nothing.

Are you a scientist? Yes. What does science mean?

Everything has a cause. If you find it, you can make a bomb, or a car, or cure for cancer. Oh Mr. Physicist, what's the biggest thing in the world?

The universe. Does it have a cause? Nope.

Then when you try to say that to a Buddhist, a well-trained Geshe in Tibet or something, they're like, say again? Everything has a cause. Yes.

What's the biggest thing in the world? Everything. What caused that?

Nothing. Then they're like, are you crazy? Yes, how did you know?

Then of course the physicist will say to the Buddhist, well, what do you believe? All things are coming from seeds in my mind. Who made the mountain?

I did. When did you plant that seed? Over ten million years ago.

And then it happened. Before I came here, my seed created the mountain. What created the seed which created the mountain?

Another seed before that. Then you Buddhist people, you're crazy. Then all the seeds must be beginningless.

Right. Because anything else doesn't make sense. We have a mental problem.

We think everything should have a beginning. And that's a mistake. It's completely wrong to say everything had a beginning.

If things had a beginning, then something can come from nothing. What do they say in Latin? Ex nihilo.

Ex nihilo. Comes from nothing. Then in Buddhism they say, this is not possible.

They say, Buddhist people, you are crazy because you say something can happen without a beginning. And we say, no, you are crazy because you say everything had a beginning. Nothing can happen from nothing.

How's that song go? I must have done something good. Nothing ever comes from nothing.

Nada viene de nada. It's the sound of music. She said, I must have done something good.

Because nothing comes from nothing. So that's the answer. Geshe Michael always gives long answers.

But if you get used to it, it's more comfortable to say there was no beginning. Otherwise you have to say something can come from nothing. And that's uncomfortable.

What's the next question after that? Yeah, will it go forever? Will there be an end to things?

Buddhists say no. I like to call it the long spaghetti, the infinite spaghetti. You, Anatole, Nick, Aaron, you are infinite spaghetti.

Your mind is the infinite spaghetti. I heard half the people in Argentina are from Italy and half are from Spain. But the Italian one can appreciate the spaghetti.

We believe your mind has no beginning. Because to create the first thought, there must have been a thought before that. And your mind will have no end.

But, at some point on the spaghetti, you will see emptiness directly. And just after that, you will evolve into a Buddha. And all living beings become Buddhas.

We believe that. It's just a matter of time. Other question?

I think Canada. They don't get, we don't go to Canada much. Go.

[Говорящий 2] (27:47 - 27:50)
Geshe-la, you were speaking about how the ...

[Говорящий 1] (27:50 - 28:02)
Oh, excuse me. How do you know a person is from Canada? They say, aboot, aboot.

You're talking aboot? You say it correctly.

[Говорящий 2] (28:05 - 28:42)
You were speaking, aboot, how the harsh treatment of your lama is not harsh treatment. It is actually a blessing. So my question is, your parents are high objects.

How do you take a past experience, a childhood where you experienced a lot of harsh, negative, critical treatment, and turn that through meditation, like through emptiness understanding, into a blessing?

[Говорящий 1] (28:43 - 51:09)
Okay, good question. She asks the question, that Geshe Michael was mentioning, that sometimes when they treat you harshly or severely, your parents, I mean your lama, this can be a blessing, or they are very strict, and she asks you if your parents gave you that treatment, and for you it could have been a traumatic experience, how do you turn it into a blessing, just like you transformed, just like you see that, if it were your lama, you would see it as a blessing?

When you reach the higher teachings, called the Vajrayana, Diamond Way, we are going to do a Vajrayana ceremony. Friday night? Sunday.

No, this Friday. Yeah. As you get higher in your training, then you have to start rewriting your past.

Because as you get higher in your training, you start to understand the pen more and more, and you realize if someone hurt you when you were younger, it's like a pen and a chew toy. You can see that as hurt you. You can see it.

It's true. Can you chew on this pen? Yeah, it's okay, you can chew.

If you want to know if a pen is Geshe Michael's, you check the end. I'm always chewing them. So did your parents hurt you?

In some cases. Yes. Is this a chew toy?

Yes. Can you see it as a pen? Yeah, if you have a different seed, you can see it as a pen.

So a human can see it as a pen. Now, interesting thing. A human can watch the dog.

What do they do with the pen? Look, the dog is chewing it. Then the human can understand the dog has different seeds and the dog is seeing a chew toy.

And the human can understand, I see it as a pen, dog sees it as a chew toy. Both are correct. And if you are a very smart human, you can imagine, here's a dog, here's a human, maybe there's somebody higher than us, because we can see the dog.

So logically, maybe I look like a dog to somebody else. I complain to the dog, don't chew on the pen. Then I'm writing, maybe there's someone higher than me, and to them I look like a dog.

And when they try to talk to me, it's like talking to an ant. Maybe there are such people. Logically it's possible because we can see a dog.

Then how does the ant understand what the person is doing? If there's an ant out there watching someone try to break a piñata from many countries, then they are, what's going on up there? They are trying to hit the thing.

Why? I don't know. Okay, so as you go higher in your training, you have more and more good seeds, mainly because you have a teacher.

You have to find a teacher. Your own teacher you have to find. In a Tibetan monastery, a pen, you are not allowed to put it on the floor.

If you put it on the floor, who has a mala? Just throw it. In the monastery we just throw it.

Okay. No, yours is too small. If you leave a pen on the floor in the monastery, your teacher will finish many bad karmas to go to the hell.

With the mala. Then, I'll tell you a story. The head of the Asia Division of the New York Public Library, this is one of the highest positions in Oriental Studies, so I used to run there during my lunch break because I used to work on Fifth Avenue.

And I had one hour break. So I run from 45th Street to 42nd Street. Between the two big lions.

Then they have a Kangyur there. They have a Kangyur. This is all the Buddhist books.

There are 900 books there. Then I was checking this typing. So I would run there.

During my lunch, I wouldn't eat lunch and just read the Kangyur and fix the typing. Then after a while he became my friend. Then I said, he said, I really want to see a Buddhist monastery.

I said, oh you can come to my monastery. And he came. First day he got very sick.

Second day he heard, then he looked in the window. Some monk is getting a blessing from his teacher. Then he left.

He left that day. He said, this is terrible. Anyway, what was I talking about?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you can rewrite. As you get more, okay, as you get more good karma, how you see someone who hurt you will change.

For example, if you had a long relationship with somebody, and then suddenly one day they break your heart. They go with some other person. And you stayed with them for many years.

Suddenly you wake up. They are gone. First time in many years.

You're like, what do I do now? You don't know what to do. Then of course you could be angry at them, or upset at them.

You can chew the pen. And it's okay. It's correct.

Or, you can try to see something higher was happening. It's difficult. It's like an ant understanding piñata.

Then you have to think. In this case, maybe there's a higher reason. If there are many Buddhas in the universe, if they are trying to help me, then of course my ex-partner maybe was a Buddha.

Then they hurt me, but they also freed me to go somewhere else. Then if you're a Buddhist person, try to see where is the Buddha sending you next. Try to figure out the piñata.

You have a choice. You can chew the pen your whole life. My parents hurt me.

Oh, they hurt me. My partner left me for another person. It's okay.

That's correct. It's true. But it's also true it could be a pen.

Oh, now I remember about this one. In the monastery, a pen, you're not allowed to put it on the floor. Why?

Because you can write a word with it. One word. And you're not allowed to step on a word or over a word in the monastery.

We are not allowed to put a book on the floor without a cloth. And in Vajrayana, it's very bad karma to step over a book or to step on a book. Even one word.

We are not allowed to step on it, or a pen. I used to work in Manhattan for, I don't know, 19 years. Try not to step on the New York Times on Sunday afternoon.

Newspapers are blowing everywhere, you know. Buddhist people are dancing down the street. Looks like Latino dance.

Try not to step on the newspaper, you know. Why? You can see this thing as a sword.

As a sword. Manjushri's sword. It means a sword of wisdom.

If you know what you are doing, you can write one page of, like tonglen meditation, you can give to somebody. And if they follow it, it's possible they will not die. So, oh, this becomes sacred.

This pen becomes a sacred thing. It's possible. There are people higher than us.

When they see a pen, they are like, for them it's like holy thing. So the person who hurt you in the past, somebody sees them in a higher way. They are, in this life, if you meet a lama, if you meet the dharma, it's because of all the things that happened to you before that.

So the person who hurt you, especially when someone splits up with you, or something like that, you can see it as, oh, very bad person. I hate them. I hate them.

Your whole life you can hate them. And it's correct, but it makes you a dog. Or, you can rewrite that story.

All the events in my life brought me to this place in Guadalajara today. Without them I wouldn't be here. I met my new, magical, extraordinary Asian partner because my old partner was a Buddha who broke up with me and sent me to the newer.

Is it true? Is it the only truth? No.

Is it a possible truth? Yes. So, we Buddhist people, we live in a world of possible truths, alternate realities.

You choose which one you want to live in. My suggestion is rewrite the past. Throw out the old history book.

Write a new history book. I had a relationship. We stayed together many years.

Then they broke up with me because they want to force me to go higher. And now I did go higher. Oh, my ex-boyfriend is a Buddha.

Thank you for sending me higher. So because of the pen you can always rewrite your past. And you can rewrite it anytime.

You can keep rewriting higher, higher story. You can remake that movie over and over. In the monastery they just throw the rosary.

Be careful Argentina. Just keep writing it better and better each year. Make the movie again every year.

There's two ways to rewrite it. Now listen, okay? There's two ways to rewrite the past.

Number one, you pretend it was different. Still you hate that person, ex-boyfriend. Still you're angry at them.

But Geshe Michael said I'm supposed to rewrite that story. Okay, that boyfriend helped me a lot. Then, okay, that's called artificial rewriting.

What's the Tibetan word for that? Yeah, kyerim or takpay neangjor. Same thing, kyerim or takpay.

Say takpay. Takpay. Neangjor.

Neangjor. What's neangjor mean? Yoga.

It's the Tibetan word for yoga. Takpay means make-believe. Make-believe.

Fiction. The yoga of fiction. The yoga of imagination.

Fantasy. Oh, my boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, maybe he's Buddha. Buddha.

Yeah, okay, he's a Buddha. My ex-boyfriend, maybe he's a Buddha. Okay, he's a Buddha.

Then there's a second kind of rewriting. Because you made many new good seeds, one day you see a photo of your ex-boyfriend. Usually when you see a photo of your ex-boyfriend, you are like, pffft.

Come here. If you make many good seeds, then one day you see the picture. Thank you for breaking up with me.

That's why I got my new partner. That's why I got my new partner. Kiss me a lot.

Okay. What's the seed to have an unartificial, unnatural new perception of your ex-boyfriend? What's the seed?

Then we'll do the class, okay? Then we'll go through the class. There's a special karma to see them automatically as a Buddha, without pretending.

What's the seed? Pretending. Understand?

Difficult. Difficult answer. Correct answer.

In the Vajrayana, in the higher teachings, if you want to see your ex-boyfriend as a Buddha someday, start today and pretend they are Buddha. Like that. Yeah, you're a Buddha.

Okay. Then to say, to try, to try to pretend. That's the seed for them to become a Buddha later.

Okay, got it? This is all tantra by the way. Okay.

Here we go. Let's do a real class.