«Дар освобождения», курс 15 «Найти учителя, которому можно доверять», занятие 4

«Дар освобождения», курс 15 «Найти учителя, которому можно доверять» · записи курса ↗
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[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 1:02:42)
All right, so he's been talking about your relationship with your spiritual teacher. And we've been saying that you should, that in the Tibetan tradition, in Buddhist tradition, in your life, the most important thing you can do in your life is to find your personal spiritual guide. And it's different for everybody.

I'm not here to sell Geshe Michael. I finally understood that everyone needs a different teacher. And I might fit some of you, I probably don't fit most of you.

But it's important for you to find, in Buddhism, it's important for you to find your teacher, your own heart teacher. You have to try to find them. You have to spend your life trying to find them.

And then once you find a person who you think is a candidate, the tradition is to check them out, very, what do you call it? Thoroughly investigate, dig into their life, their personal life, their viewpoints, their attitudes, their history, their teachers. Check their students.

Check what they're doing with their time. Check everything about them. And only after very careful examination and seeing them in different contexts, like how do they behave when they didn't get any sleep for a week?

Or how do they behave when someone gets angry at them? Or check them out in many situations. Then only after very careful examination, then you ask them to be your teacher.

And in my own case, I lived with my main Tibetan Lama, Khenpo Rinpoche. I lived with him for five years before I asked him to be my teacher. And I was on the porch, and he was down on the stair, what do you call it?

The steps to the porch. And I'm like, Oh, Rinpoche, will you be my teacher? And he's like, you lived in my house for five years.

You served me all day for five years. And now you're asking me to be your teacher? I said, yeah.

He said, okay. But after you make that bond, it's a heavy, heavy karmic bond. It's a very, very heavy karmic bond.

Much more serious than getting married or something like that. Because it is not dissolved by the act of dying. That bond will stay beyond death.

Until you become a Buddha, you will be linked to this person. So it's very serious karma to hurt that relationship in any way. And we've been discussing in this text the karmic consequences of doubting that teacher after you've taken them, after you've checked them out and committed to them, you can't break that relationship.

So we've been talking about the impact on your soul of breaking that relationship or harming that relationship. So we went through already the karma of actively disobeying your teacher on major things. And then we had some stories of Indian yogis who disobeyed their teacher on minor things like picking up a yak horn on the dirt.

And then we went through the karmic result of, what was it? Some people who forgot what their teacher asked them to do. They didn't disobey their teacher.

They just slipped and forgot. Now we go to another level. I'm sorry.

Okay, DE NA GZHAN YIN RTEN GZO BDE NI, You okay? Are we there? DE NA, yeah, the end of the first line.

DE NA GZHAN YIN RTEN GZO BDE NI SAM BZHIN DU BYAS PA LTA CI Not only should you keep your relationship with your teacher that we've described so far, but MA BDAG MA BSAM PA RANG BAR BYAS PA'I CHA BYAS KYI RTEN DOG DRA MA KYANG MA BDAG MA BSAM PA means unaware. Unaware is unconsciously, unpurposely. RANG BAR means just kind of like, what do you call it?

Accidentally, okay? You contradict them or you do something, you mess up your relationship to them. What do you call it?

Inadvertently. Inadvertently, okay? You didn't disobey them and you didn't forget their instructions.

You just kind of did some boo-boo by accident. Just by dumb, bad luck. You just did something kind of...

You weren't even just thinking about it. You just kind of just did something and then you messed up. Then you did a tiny slip with them and then it creates some powerful karma, okay?

He's talking now about accidental, unconscious problems with your teacher and having to do with RTEN DOG. CHA BYAS KYI RTEN DOG means, in this case, it means especially when you first meet them. So the first few days with a Lama are considered crucial.

The relationship is set. The tone of the relationship is set in the first few days. So there are many stories about disciples first meeting with their teacher or the first few days with their teacher, okay?

So we're going to talk about some of those. RTEN DOG GRANGS PA KYANG GRANGS PA means very, very subtle slips with your teacher. GRANGS PA means subtle.

KYANG, RTEN DOG SANGS RGYAS NA MTSO'ONG BA So a subtle slip, inadvertent slip with your teacher can affect your whole life, okay? And that's true of anything you do in your life. You turn left instead of turning right and your whole life changes.

You go down Maryland instead of Glendale and your whole life changes, of course. But with Lamas, it's a thousand times more powerful. You make a tiny decision about offering the tea with your left hand or offering the tea with your right hand and it changes everything, okay?

I went to church this morning because I was talking about my old church. I said, oh, let me go, you know? And I went and it was really wonderful.

And I took communion and I was like, I went up to the priest and I was like, I went like this and then suddenly I went, oh, I got to go like that. And it's just a small thing, you know? Because in our tradition, the left hand is more sacred.

So I'm like, oh, all right. And then I thought, I just changed my life. My whole life just changed.

My whole future just changed, right? From one, you just went like this, you know? And the same with your teacher, much more with the teacher, okay?

The ramifications of an action, the repercussions of tiny inadvertent actions with your teacher are huge. They change your whole life. And he's going to give some examples, okay?

More disheartening examples. BSTAN PA'I SANGS RGYAS NUS MI LAS MAR PA SANGS RGYAS MTHONG BA PHU So when Milarepa, the great Milarepa, the greatest meditator Tibet has ever produced, is commonly said, his teacher was Marpa, okay? Marpa had been to India many times.

He had studied with Maropa. And he was not a monk. He was a businessman.

And in fact, he was kind of chubby. He was like a real fat cat, business, pong mao, businessman. And he liked beer.

He was a pretty, probably they went together, his tummy and his beer drinking. But he became a great master. And he's called Marpa Lodzawa.

Lodzawa means master translator. He learned Sanskrit very well. And he translated many important texts.

So when he got home, Milarepa came to meet him and request teachings. And that whole story is a long story and a, what do you call, adventure story. But at some point, at the beginning of their relationship, Milarepa offered him an empty copper bowl, like a fruit bowl, like an empty copper bowl.

And in Tibet, it's considered bad luck to give someone an empty, what do you call? Vessel. It's considered very bad luck.

Because it's like offering them an empty birthday box or something. You know what I mean? Like that.

It's considered bad luck. When you borrow a cup or a bowl or someone, you borrow a cup of sugar or a bowl of fruit in Tibet, in a monastery, then when you return the cup or the bowl, you always put a little piece of candy or you always put a quarter in there. You always put something in.

Because it's considered very bad manners and very bad luck to offer someone an empty vessel. But when Milarepa met Marpa, he offered him an empty copper bowl. And because of that, tendrel chok, where are you?

There you are. Tendrel, as we learned before, means dependent origination. But in a very tiny percentage amount of the time, it means, there's no word in English.

It's the karma of the first few moments of a meeting, of a relationship. So you meet your future wife on a bus. And according to Tibetan belief, how you behave towards her in the first three minutes decides your life together.

It's called tendrel. It means, I don't know how to call it, the energy of the meeting. The energy of the first meeting is called tendrel.

And chokpa means he screwed up. It's a very specific word. It means he blew it.

Chokpa means he blew it. He blew the first meeting because he offered his teacher an empty bowl. And he doesn't say it here, but I looked it up for you, the whole story.

And Marpa was aware that Milarepa had chokpa, he had screwed up. And Marpa was trying to help him. So Marpa was like, oh, empty.

And he grabbed a stick and he said, empty bowls sound great. And he hit it with a stick. And it was like, wah, wah, wah, wah.

And he says, it's more beautiful empty. He was trying to make a good gift out of it. And then he said, let's make a butter lamp.

And he poured a lot of ghee into it and he put a wick into it and he tried to make a lamp out of the empty bowl. So he was trying to mitigate the karma of the disciple right away. And that's a story of how he met Marpa.

Then they actually met first out in the fields. Marpa was a businessman and he was a farmer. And he had, I think, nine wives or something.

He was a successful farmer. And in Tibet, it was very common to have, it was actually more common to have multiple husbands. It's very common in East Tibet for two men to share the same wife, for example.

And so he was out, what do you call it, plowing his field. And Milarepa showed up. And Milarepa asked him for teaching.

And Marpa said, well, let's discuss it later. You finish plowing this field for me. And he gave him the plow and he went inside to have a beer.

And then Milarepa, he was like, oh, okay, Lama asked me to plow the field. That was the first words they said to each other. And Milarepa obediently plowed the whole field.

And then Milarepa said, after you finish plowing, come in the house and we'll talk. And then Milarepa came into the house and Marpa was drinking beer. Milarepa was ordained.

And Marpa said, here, have a beer. And then he had a moral crisis right there, the first five minutes that they've ever met each other in the house. And he's like, he's thinking fast.

You can hear Milarepa's mind going, rrrr. And he's like, Lama is offering me something I'm not supposed to drink. But this is my Lama and this is our first meeting.

And this is the first words he ever said to me in his house. And he takes it and he drowns, he downs the whole thing in one, they call hup cik in Tibetan. Hup cik means finished, you know, in one, what do you call it?

Yeah, in one quaff. He finished the whole, chug? He finished the whole thing in one, without breathing.

Okay, whatever you call that. Hup cik, it's a very important word in Tibetan. And we won't put it in that in the dictionary tonight.

But he downed the whole thing. And that, he made up for the chugpa. You see what I mean?

He trusted. He said, I don't know why he's asking me to break my vows the first time we meet. And I don't know why he's doing that, but I'll do it, you know, because I trust him.

And he drank every drop. And he didn't want to, and he didn't need to. And he had never drunk before.

But he said, Lama asked me, I'll do it, my Lama asked me. And so he, in the first hour, he set two things in motion. That's called tendo.

Tendo chugpa. Tendo chugpa means to set in motion the rest of your life. You know, in one action for five minutes, to set in motion the path of your rest of your life.

So he did a good one and he did a bad one. Okay? All right, tendo dikpa means to, dikpa means to do it well.

Everything's in order. Dige duway means what in the monastery? Yeah, is everything cool?

Dige duway. It means, is everything in order? And dige du means, yeah, okay.

So tendo dikpa means he set his future path on the right path, on the right track. Okay, dikpa sok tung. So those are his examples.

The whole story is kind of long. And anyway, yeah. I got the rest of the story out for you and that's where he fills it up with butter and he tries to ring it like a bell and he tries to straighten out the mistake.

Then they go to a tendo which someone else chuked. So somebody else screwed up the first few moments with their lama. Or they had a famous, these are a list of famous screw-ups, okay?

And Marpa did it with his teacher, who is Naropa. So Marpa also made a bubu with his teacher and they tell the, he refers to it but he doesn't explain it. So I will, I'll go into the detail.

MAR PA'I YIDAM LA CHAGS BSAL RAS BSTAN DAL BCUG PA Marpa chose to prostrate himself to the deity, to the angel and messed up. And that's all the book says. And you have to know the story.

So I'm going to tell you the story. It says Marpa messed up the meeting or the, how do you call that? He set events into the wrong trajectory or something by bowing to the tantric deity.

So what does it mean? What's the story? Here's the story, okay?

You ready? And this is again from Pabongka Rinpoche's own book called How to Behave Toward Your Teacher. And it goes, SNGAR RGYA RGYUR DU Long ago in India, SNGAR ROD PA'I MAR PA LA YIDAM RGYAS RDOR GYI BRTEN BDAL GYI KHYING RGOR BRTEN PAS Naropa called forth the secret world of Hevajra.

Hevajra is a tantric deity, Yidam. And he showed it to Marpa. BRTEN, BRTEN PA means both the world and its angelic inhabitants.

He called it forth into the room. So imagine this whole room is suddenly filled with angels in their world. And you're standing there and you're in front of all these angels.

Hevajra means hay diamond, but it's a very high tantric deity. Then he said to his disciple, Marpa, GYUR GYI LAMA LA CHAGS TZAL LAM YIDAM LA CHAGS TZAL Are you going to bow to your lama or would you bow to the tantric deity? Who comes first?

No, but what did Marpa do? Okay, so my lama taught me, when I learned this one, he said, it's not in the book, okay, but Marpa paused. And he said, you know, lamas are a big deal, but you don't meet a tantric deity every day.

So technically I should bow to my lama, but who knows when I'll see Hevajra again. So I'll just slip in a little prostration to Hevajra and then I'll prostrate to Marpa, Naropa. So he made a mistake, Tendrel Chupa.

Then something interesting happened. In those days in Tibet, we think of Tibet as being this Buddhist country with eight million Buddhists and the largest monasteries in the world. And sometimes 10,000 monks in a single monastery.

And it didn't start that way, okay? It wasn't always that way. In the beginning, in Tibet, there were these little dharma centers with like five people in them, like smaller than Casa Hardin, okay?

And that's the way it started. Of course, if you think about it, that's how things start. So five people would be sitting in a dharma center and some crazy person would go to India and come back with some scriptures and some training and they'd start a little dharma center.

And then five or six people would come and they'd keep going. And they were not ordained. So the ordination custom started later, but they were all lay people.

And then the teaching position became hereditary. So people would, like the Sakya tradition, was passed on for many years from father to son. And it's still, in some parts of the Sakya lineage, it's passed on from father to son.

So in those days, this branch of Tibetan Buddhism, early Kagyu, was passed on from father to son. The head of the dharma center was the father and then when their son got old enough, they took over the dharma center. In Marpa's case, he had nine wives and he had 11 children.

But his, what do you call it, lineage, family lineage, died out suddenly. It died out very, very quickly. There was no one to pass on the dharma center to.

Why? He bowed to the deity. So it's very serious.

It's a tiny thing. It's only a few minutes. It wasn't conscious.

You see, it was a slip, an unconscious slip. He wasn't trying to disobey his teacher and he didn't forget what his teacher asked him to do. He just kind of just did something and then it killed his lineage.

Okay, okay. ,GROM KYIS SRED ZUN DANG, Where is that? ,'BYOR BA BRTAN PA DANG, ,'BYOR BA SRED ZUN DANG, ,MI LAS MAR PA BRTAN PA, ,RJE TZAM KHAS PA'I KHYUN PO SRED PAS, ,DBANG GANG LA LOGS LA, ,SRED LAB CHUG RDZAS PA SOGS KYI, ,SRED CING RGYAS TSUL SOGS GSUNGS NAS, Then apparently, Pabongka Rinpoche broke down and told some good stories about famous disciples who had honored their teachers and followed their teachers well.

And he started with Drom. Who is Drom? Drom is Dromtunje and he was the main disciple of Atisha, one of the first great lamas from India who spent a lot of time in Tibet.

And Drom is famous because he was a lay person. So Adam and me were looking at those carvings today. When you get to the carving of Dromtunje, he's got a beard.

And you're like, what's this guy doing with a beard? It's because he never became a monk. And he was a wonderful teacher and a very famous family person who became a wonderful teacher in Tibet.

So Drom, before he met Atisha, he had another teacher called Tsetsen. And his monk's name was Wangchuk Shunnu. And I looked him up.

The stories are not very easy to find, but I believe he spent 20 years serving Tsetsen. And what did he do during those 20 years? He was mainly asked to watch the lamas stuff, like a backpack or something.

So there's a famous saying about Drom before he met Atisha, Lord Atisha, that he spent his days... How is that? Let me see.

,GONG GI RNAMS NAS LAMA TSETSEN BRTEN KHAB, ,GNYIS MO GZHON MA SBYOR BA'I PHUNG TEG TSUNG, During the day, he spent all his time watching his lama stuff to make sure nobody stole it. And mostly it was milking stools. The little chairs that you use to milk a cow.

It's probably worth like two bucks. And his lama said, okay, your responsibility is to watch the milking stools. This is 20 years, so don't complain.

,PHUNG TEG TSEN DANG BRTAN MO GOR SEMS CAN MA DRANG MA, And then at night, he also had to stay up at night and watch the house and make sure... Because they were in a part of Tibet where thieves were very common. And he got the name The Thorn.

They called him The Thorn because he would repel thieves. And that's what he did for 20 years. Then he met Lord Atisha and became one of the most famous attendants in Tibetan history.

He made Atisha's mission happen. And he's famous for showing up at the last minute with waffles. Like he's famous for showing up and saving the day with breakfast.

Many times they didn't have money to buy stuff and then suddenly he just shows up with a yak load of butter or something. He's just like that, he's famous. Later generations decided he was a tantric deity.

I have this thing about John Stilwell that I thought he was Dromton Jay. Because he constantly, on the first day I ever taught a class in New York, which was, I don't know, 30 years ago or something, he shows up at a tape recording. He said, we got to tape this.

And I'm like, I don't even know you. And he starts taping on the first day. That's why we have the ACI courses.

And just like that, he used to show up with yak loads of butter and stuff. I got suspicious after a while. DZO'O BSTAN PA means, and then later Dromton Jay, BSTAN PA, DZO'O, say BSTAN PA.

B-S-T-E-N, okay, at the top there. This is a verb in Tibetan that doesn't exist in any other language that I know. And so there's no word for it.

It's like there wasn't any word for Google 20 years ago. And this is a word in the Tibetan language which doesn't, I'm not aware that it exists in any other language. And it means to take yourself to a teacher, to commit to them and to serve them for your life.

So I don't know any word like that. There's no word in English. It means, what does it mean?

I don't know. Find them, commit to them, serve them for the rest of your life. It's called BSTAN PA, okay.

So he did it with Atisha, DZO'O BSTAN PA. DZO'O BU'I SER LING PA Atisha in his own day, BSTAN PA to who? SER LING PA, which is Suvarna Dvipa or Suvarna Guru.

And he was a teacher in Indonesia, in Sumatra, which at that time was a Buddhist country. And Atisha undertook a very dangerous sea journey for years to go learn the Bodhisattva teachings from him. So he also did perfect service.

Atisha himself, before he went to Tibet, when he was a student, did perfect service to his own teacher and risked his life to go get the Bodhisattva teachings. MI LAS MAR PA BSTAN PA And Milarepa, in general, did some pretty amazing service of Marpa. And if you ever get to read the story of the stone tower, you can appreciate the nine-story, GUTOG, it's called GUTOG, nine-story tower, which is still there, I think, I don't know.

Anyway, his teacher made him build a nine-story tower out of stones, which are bigger than your, and then he said it was crooked and asked him to tear it down again, asked him to build it up again. And I can't remember Chinese to do stuff like that. BYED SONGS SKABS PA'I KHYUNG PO LHAS PA Then they give the example of BYED SONGS SKABS PA who had a Lama named KHYUNG PO LHAS PA whose monk's name was Shunnu Sunim.

Wangkang, what's Wangkang, what do you guess? Wangkang, what's WANG mean? Power, empowerment, tantric empowerment.

KANG means KANG PA, a house. So any KANG is a building. A NGOS KANG is a bank, silver house.

And then a MTSONGS KANG is a store, selling house. And then like that, the Wangkang, what's a TZAM KANG? Yeah, retreat house.

So he took, he went to his Wangkang, BYED SONGS KANG PA, and he got plates of gold and plated the inside of the retreat house with gold plates. Just to honor his teacher, CHUG. CHUG RDZAS PA SOGS KYI RDZAS CING RGYAS TSUL So our Lama went off at this point on these long stories about these disciples who did a good job.

But unfortunately, he doesn't say more detail. He's going to go back to the depressing ones, I think. GZHAN YIN RTEN TSUL DI GNAS BZHIN DU BYED BA Therefore, how you treat your Lama is crucial.

RTEN BDE'O GRIG LEGS NYES BYUNG ZAD TZAM GYIS KYANG DE LTAR CHUNG BA YOD Small, inadvertent actions can change the course of your life if they are done towards a person who is your ultimate karmic object. So normally we say that intention is paramount. We say that 90% of an action is intention.

If you try to help somebody but you fail, you still get 90% of the karma. But with very powerful karmic objects, intention is less relevant. Which means if you slip around your Lama, your whole life goes on a different course.

Your whole life changes. 50 years, 60 years is changed radically by small, inadvertent thoughts or actions toward your teacher. So we have to be extremely, you have to be joyful and work hard, but you have to be careful and watch your mind.

DE LTAR CHUNG ZAD TZAM GYIS DE LTAR CHUNG BA YOD RGYAL TZAB CHOS BYAS THOB MAR BYAS DANG MA BYA'O Okay, I'll tell you one story, then we'll take a break. RGYAL TZAB, you know, RGYAL TZAB BYAS DGAR MA RIN CHEN which is the principal disciple of Je Tsongkapa. Je Tsongkapa had two great disciples.

We had 12 or something, but the big two are RGYAL TZAB BYAS and KHYAD RAB BYAS. And Adam was talking about the famous book that K.W.J. wrote about logic and perceptual theory, which is one of our projects to translate. So we're translating, we seek to translate the major literature of Tibet.

And if it's not done in this generation, it won't be done correctly, period. If our immediate group doesn't do correct translations in this first generation after Tibet was lost, those books will be lost forever. No one can translate them.

If we don't do it, no one else will, really. Or there'll be some unintelligible blah, blah. It's crucial that we do it, the major works.

It's crucial that we do the major works in our lifetime. And that's one of them. So RGYAL TZAB BYAS, THOG MAR in the beginning, BYAS DANG MA BYA'O KHONG just before he actually met Je Tsongkapa, TSOS PA'I BSAM PA he decided he would challenge Je Tsongkapa.

BYAS RIN PO'I PHYIR BDUN BYUNG SKABS KHYAD RAB And then our Lama imparted to us the story of how RGYAL TZAB BYAS, the first meeting between RGYAL TZAB BYAS and Je Tsongkapa. So Je Tsongkapa is, I don't know, the greatest Lama who ever lived in Tibet, possibly ever. And this is the story of how he met his first, his most important disciple.

So I'm going to tell you the story from oral tradition. And I like it. Because I got this from Geshe Lothar, who's a very good storyteller.

And if you go to Serra, you got to ask him to tell you stories. Because he can tell you a three-hour story and it's like five minutes past, and you're like, whoa. So here's the story of RGYAL TZAB BYAS.

I like this story. And he told it to me for like three hours one day. And it was awesome.

Because the book doesn't say, the book doesn't tell the story. So RGYAL TZAB BYAS at that time was the most famous logician in Tibet. He was a great master.

He was like famous in the country as being the greatest logician, like Stephen Hawking or something, okay? Very, very famous. And what people don't understand, he was only a few years younger than Je Tsongkapa.

They were about the same age. And he was already very, very famous. And then Je Tsongkapa showed up in central Tibet, Lhasa, from the east.

He was born in the far east in a place called Tsongkha, which means onion field. So he was called Tsongkha Par. And he walked to middle of Tibet as a teenager.

And he debated the whole way, like a gunslinger. He challenged every monk he met. And he debated with them.

And he became a real hard-ass debater. And then when he got to Lhasa, he started teaching. And he took off, he took off.

He got very famous. And people were like, man, wow. They'd go to his teachings and they're like, man, who is this guy?

And then RGYAL TZAB BYAS heard about it and he got jealous. And he's like, oh, all my old sponsors are going to this guy. All my students are going to him.

And they're all like, what do you call? They're all wowing over Je Tsongkapa. And I don't know what's going on, but it's time to put an end to this guy.

So he decided, he heard that Je Tsongkapa was giving a teaching in a temple a little bit outside of Lhasa city on a certain night. So he decided he would go and disrupt it and challenge Je Tsongkapa and blow up the meeting. So he took off down the road and he got lost.

And it's like afternoon, late afternoon, and he's off the road and he's lost. And he's wandering around these fields. And finally he comes to a meadow and he sees a little girl.

It's like herding cows. And he's like, oh, I'll ask her where that temple is. So he walks over to her and he's like, hey, are you living around here?

And she's like, yes. And he says, did you hear of that big nose from the east is going to teach tonight? Because Tsongkapa had a, what do you call?

Hawk nose. And his enemies, he had a lot of enemies, which is refreshing. And he was called, they called him Big Nose from the East.

And he said, do you know where Big Nose from the East is? And she says, wait a minute. And he said, like what?

He says, you're Geltsab Je. And he's like, yeah, I'm Geltsab Je. Because she's kind of cute.

And he's like, yeah, I'm Geltsab Je. And she's like, you're like the greatest logician Tibet has ever seen. And he's like, yeah, that's right.

And she's like, wow, I'm Geltsab Je. And he's like, yeah. And she says, God, I've always dreamt of meeting you.

And he's like, yeah, who can blame you? And she's like, and I have this burning question about logic that I've always wanted to ask a great logician. He's like, okay, I'll make you see the temple later.

You ask her a question. And she's like, well, I got these cows, you see? I take care of these cows.

And he's like, yeah, I know you're a cowherd. And she's like, yeah, but I got this question, logic question. He's like, what is it?

And she's, look at this cow right now. Look at him. And this cow's like standing there, and his tail comes up like this.

If you've seen a cow poop, the tail comes up like this. And then the rump is like this, but when they raise their tail, the rump goes like this. And then the poop comes out.

The poop doesn't fall out like a human, okay? The poop comes up and falls like that, you see? If the poop comes up and then flops over, it does a thing like that.

And she says, look at that cow. Look at how they poop. And she says, I have a logic conundrum.

What's the top of the poop and what's the bottom of the poop? Because when it comes out, the bottom is the top. But when it falls down, the top is the bottom.

And he's like. And something happens in his mind. His mind goes, and he's like.

I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what's the top, what's the bottom. I don't know.

He's like having a crisis. He's like freaking out. And he's like, I don't know, I don't know.

And she's like, it's okay, it's okay. I'll figure it out on my own. And don't worry.

And then she goes like this. And she's got this incense. Well, she's got incense sticks between her hands and they burst into flame.

And then she's got silk on, and her hair is like beautiful down to her waist. And she's like, I don't know who the hell Big Nose from the East is, but if you're looking for the incomparable, glorious, incredibly holy Je Tsongkhapa, he's over there. And she like throws herself on the ground with the incense.

He's like, and then he's like, okay, okay. She's a goddess. And then he's like, okay, okay, I'll go.

And then he goes to the temple. Finally he sees the temple. And he's thinking all the way.

He's like, I got to show this Tsongkhapa who's the boss around the hostel. So they have these pandit hats, these yellow peaked hats. And he has a wise sage's hat.

And he says, I'll go into the temple and I won't take my hat off because you never take your hat off to someone lower than you. So I'll walk into the temple with my hat on, which is a high, what do you call it? Insult in, what do you call it?

Break etiquette, what do you call it? What do you call the breaking of it? It's just really, it's ultimate bad lama manners to not take your hat off.

So he's like, I'll walk in with my hat on, and everybody will know who's who. And then Tsongkhapa had a student named Tsako Wumbo, Ngawang Drapa, for whom he wrote the Three Principal Path. Like he's devoted, he was a devoted, humble disciple who never got famous.

And if you think you have problems with Geshe Michael projects, Je Tsongkhapa one day said, you're walking to East Tibet and you're going to build a monastery for me. And Tsako Wumbo's like, yes sir. And then Tsongkhapa says, oh, it's not one, it's 108 monasteries.

And Ngawang Drapa's like, yes sir. And he does it. And he walks to East Tibet, like New York from Phoenix.

And he's all alone there. He doesn't know anybody. And he built 108 monasteries for Je Tsongkhapa.

And the last one, there's a word in Tibetan, datsang, say datsang. Datsang means, what do you call it? That's it, that's it, man.

And they called the last monastery, that's it, man, it's called Datsang Gomba. It still exists. One of our Serenade Lamas support it, rebuilt it.

It's called Datsang. So if you're ever in Tibet, you got to go see, that's it, man, monastery. So anyway, he was up on the roof of the temple above the door, like 50 feet off the ground.

And he's got a very long string and a hook. And Gelsobje walks in the door and he goes, whoosh, whoosh, and he knocks his hat off. And then Gelsobje catches it and walks to the door and everyone turns around and there's Gelsobje making the traditional obeisance by taking his hat off.

And everybody's like, oh, even Gelsobje respects Je Tsongkhapa. And he's like, no, no, no, no. And then, you know, Tako Wimbo's like, ha, ha, ha, you know, and then Gelsobje says, I'll teach this guy something, you know.

Je Tsongkhapa's already up there teaching logic. And Gelsobje walks up to the stage and sits on the throne next to Je Tsongkhapa, which is high insult, you know, high transgression. It breaks all 2,500 years of Buddhist etiquette.

He sits on the teacher's throne next to him. And Tsongkhapa doesn't say anything. And he just kind of, he just kind of scoots over and he keeps going, you know.

And Gelsobje's like, you know, and then he starts listening, you know, and he's like, and he starts freaking out. He's like, he never heard anything like that. And then he kind of puts his feet down on the side, you know, and then he's like listening.

And then he's like, he gets down on his, he puts his face into the ground and he bows to Tsongkhapa. And he said, I never heard anything like that, you know. And then he became his main disciple that night.

And when Je Tsongkhapa was on his deathbed, he took off his hat and he gave it to Gelsobje. He threw it to him like a Frisbee. He said, catch, you know, and he caught it.

And then everybody said, oh, he's Gelsobje means the teacher's replacement, the replacement of the Dharma King. So he tossed him his hat. That's the story.

Okay. So that's about somebody who got off to an okay start after, by the way, the point of the story is the opposite of what we were talking about before. Gelsobje's intention was to insult Tsongkhapa.

But because of the power of his teacher, when he made the prostration, his whole life changed to become the head of, the first head of the greatest lineage of Buddhism in the world that ever existed. Just by accident, he did that one bow and his hat fell off. And because of the power of Tsongkhapa, not of his intention.

His intentions were bad, but the actions by accident were correct of the hat falling off. So then he became one of the greatest lamas in history. Because of the power of the lamas.

So it's possible to do the opposite of what we've been talking about. You can have a good intention and screw up with your teacher, or you can have a really lousy intention and by accident make some really good karma. So that's the good news.

All right. Got it? You understand?

Intention doesn't matter around a lama. They are so powerful. Their relationship is so powerful that anything you do is going to have very serious repercussions.

Okay, cool. All right. You'd be born in cell phone hell.

Okay. Just kidding. Okay.

Let's take a break. Okay. Okay, we'll start.

I'm going to just do a little bit more and then we'll do questions and answers. So if you have any questions, get them ready. RAB GSUNGS NAS means, RAB is short for kheerab.

Okay? And this is not the RAB in RIRAB, which means highest mountain or something, right? This is R-A-B-S, which means kheerab.

What's kheerab? RAB means a lineage or a tradition. And kheerab means jataka.

So kheerab means the jataka tales or the stories of the Buddha's birth. So RAB means story. And here it's the RAB.

He told the story of how Geltsabje met Tsongkapa, right? Our Lama. Okay?

RAB GSUNGS NAS DE LTAR KUN LONG NGAN YANG So there can be cases where your motivation is negative. YANG, but, GENGDAL SANG PO GRIG Something, some very auspicious thing happens by accident and you get off to a good start with your teacher, like Geltsabje. His hat fell off and he became the second most famous Lama in our tradition.

But his intention was to blow up the teaching, right? Then, so it's possible to have a, if the karmic object is powerful enough, you can, things can happen independent of your motivation, which is normally not the case, right? So KUN LONG NGAN YANG, even if your motivation is bad, GENGDAL SANG PO GRIG PA It's possible to get off to, it's possible to set in motion events which will make your whole life happy.

And the opposite is true. Somebody tell me what that means. You have a good motivation, but you offer an empty bowl or something like that and you mess up.

And that changes the course of your life, okay? KUN LONG SANG YANG, GENGDAL GCOD PA NA MTSO'ONG BA'I Means, all kinds of stuff can happen. There's a whole variety of stuff can happen.

SAB DGOS SAB G-Z-A-B This SAB is very unusual. Most people don't know it. It means you got to be careful.

You got to watch your step. SAB SAB SAB CHE means watch your step or be careful. You're walking out on some ice and the person will go SAB SAB CHE DA.

Be careful. Take care. Once you're around your teacher, SAB SAB CHE.

It's like ice, like be careful. A small slip and you break your... Bengali broke his arm in New York.

He just slipped on the ice and he broke his arm. And who was that other person? Ori's friend's brother smashed his leg on the same night.

Just a small slip. But cars are like that. You look over there and...

I saw an accident in... A truck driver, he dropped his water bottle. He looked down.

Six cars had stopped in front of him and he crushed all of them. And we saw him on the side of the road with his head in his hands and he was going to... I thought he was going to kill himself or something.

He just reached down for his water bottle. He ducked for a second. And at that second, there was an accident on the other side of the road and six cars stopped and he crushed all of them.

And it's the same with your Lama. Like don't look down for a second. Be very careful.

Be very, very mindful. And in a happy way, in a joyful way. If you're paranoid all the time, it's probably not going to come out very well.

If you're up to... You have to be relaxed and joyful and very, very mindful. All right.

He goes off on a small point that I would like to address also. RANG CAGS LAM MED TSEN GYIR PA NA He's been on the subject of unintentional slips with your teacher, right? And now he's going to talk about how you talk about your teacher.

How do you refer to your teacher? He says RANG CAGS means people like us and that's the charitable, sick, first person plural. LAM MED TSEN GYIR PA NA When we mention our Lama's name, so he has used the honorific for name.

TSEN means honorable name. What's the unhonorable? MING MING RDZUS also, right?

In Chinese. They may be related, I don't know. Nope.

Anyway, MING means name. But it's unhonorific. It's the non-honorific.

And then TSEN is the way you... It's the word you use for your Lama's name. His holy name.

Holy name, okay? TSEN, when we mention our Lama's name, KUSHAB TSUL ZHIG MA DANG KUSHAB CI ZHIG PA ZHES ZER MO means in colloquial Tibetan, KUSHAB, which means the holy feet of his holy body, is KUSHO. We say KUSHO.

Say KUSHO. KUSHO is a corruption. It's a colloquial corruption for KUSHAB.

So here's the written version, KUSHAB. And that's the honorific word that you use in Tibet for mister. Or you always refer to chukos as KUSHO.

You don't call them... So in Russian, there's a word GAS PA DIN, which means sir, as opposed to... And then later it became like SATRUD NIGOR.

In the revolution in Russia, they banned the use of the word GAS PA DIN, which means honorable sir, like that. And they changed it to comrade. You see what I mean?

So it's honorific. KUSHAB means sir, but you're not to use it with a Lama. You're not supposed...

He's saying, don't call your Lama sir. Don't call him mister, mister Mike or something. Don't call him that.

KUSHAB TSUL ZHIG MA means mister so-and-so, or KUSHAB CI ZHIG PA means mister, what's-his-name. Don't use lesser honorific forms for your Lama. ZHIG PA ZHES SER MA I admit that we do that, but DE LTAR MI SBYAR, you shouldn't do that.

When you talk about my Lama said something, you should say ZHAL SNGA GNAS, or I met my Lama, ZHAL SNGA GNAS. ZHAL is the honorific, high honorific for the mouth or the face. SNGA GNAS means from in front of the face.

SNGA means in front of and GNAS. And I usually translate it as the holy lips of my Lama. So you don't say my Lama said.

In Tibetan, you never refer to your Lama and say, my Lama said. Pabongka Rinpoche himself, whenever he spoke about his own teacher would say, thus I heard from the holy lips of my teacher, you see, my high teacher. He wouldn't say my Lama said.

And I think it'd be a little cumbersome in our context, but I'm just saying to refer to them respectfully. That's the idea. ZHAL SNGA GNAS ZHES SA ZHES SA here is an important word.

ZHES SA means the honorific form of words. So in the case of, in Tibetan, there are several languages. There's a PHAL SKYE, which means colloquial.

Then there's ZHES SA, which means honorific. And then there's high honorific. So every body part has two words.

This is MIG or CHEN. CHEN RESIG, loving eyes. We don't say MIG RESIG.

You can't use the non-honorific for a tantric deity. You use the high honorific. Mostly body parts.

ZHES SA DANG PHYED SEMS SBYOR DGOS You must speak of your Lama in hushed, reverent tones. SBYOR BA SEMS SBYOR PA NA When Lord Atisha would mention his Lama's name, which Lama? Serlingpa, the Lama of the Golden Isle, meaning Sumatra in Indonesia.

SBYOR PA NA, PHYAG THAL MO BYAR He would always go Serlingpa. Just, what do you call it? Reflexively he would say, I was thinking about what Serlingpa said and he couldn't stop himself.

He would automatically go like this when he said his Lama's name. SEMS SBYOR THAL MO BYAR NAS PHYAG RGYUD ZAD means he would speak in reverent tones of his teacher. GZHAN GYIS SERLING PA'I SEMS DNGOS BDAG PA CHUNG NA If another person said his teacher's name, we call naked name.

SEMS BRJEN MA If they said his name without respect, he would get upset. If someone spoke of his teacher lightly, he would get really upset. GHO BOS KYANG GHO BOS KYANG BDAG NI GROS PA MIN YANG This is a very rare personal statement by Pabongka Rinpoche.

It's very rare in scripture that a Lama will make a very personal statement. So he's GHO BOS KYANG means I also. BDAG NI GROS PA MIN YANG I'm not trying to, what do you call it?

Praise myself. Or I'm not trying to say what a nice person I am. But KYANG LAMA RIN PO CHEN THUL CHUNG DU GROS PA MTHONG BA NA When people speak of my own teacher's name lightly, YID MI BDE BA CHEN PO'O YIN It's extremely uncomfortable for me.

I really don't like it. And I also have the same experience. When someone mentions my Lama's name lightly, it feels really, really bad.

It really hurts me. And I don't feel comfortable with that person after that. So you have to be aware of that.

Okay. DE YANG ZHAL ZHUGS PA'I TSE Then there's a custom in Tibet, and we're about to finish the third class. Then we'll do questions.

SEMS SBYOR PA KHA means, SEMS SBYOR PA KHA means whose name I speak only with great difficulty. And it's an expression used in Tibet when you speak of your Lama. So it's a tradition to say, Ken Rinpoche, whose name I utter only with great purpose.

Otherwise, I wouldn't dare to speak the name. I wouldn't mention his name in public, but I have to. I want to tell you a story about him.

So I have to tell you who it is. So it's a custom in Tibet to say, Ken Rinpoche, whose name I utter only with great need. Okay, that's a tradition.

And then he's saying, don't say that, don't use that traditional expression if your Lama is still in the world. He's just saying it's traditional to use it for if your Lama has passed from this world. Then you say, it's hard for me to mention his name, but I mention it.

Okay, like that. DE NAS LA RANG BSGOM GYI SA BCAD NAM LA BSKYAR ZHES DRIN GYUR GNYIS MDZAD DO Then it was time to end the class, but Pabongka Rinpoche went on for a few more hours. So I'm going to spare you.

But he repeated all the stories again, and then he repeated them a third time. At the original teaching, he repeated all of the stories a second time, and then he repeated them a third time. Get it?

I don't have to do that, right? Okay. Americans are busy people.

They have to move on. Okay, okay. All right, we have about 15 minutes if anyone has a question.

If you don't have a question, I'll go on. I think it's appropriate time to ask a question. These are, by the way, I want to say something.

These are hard topics to teach, and they are hard topics to learn, especially in a culture which has never had anything like a heart teacher tradition. We just don't have it. And it seems culty, or it seems extreme, or it seems too much, or it seems, you know, people bow down, I get complaints from other people.

And it just seems weird in our culture to speak in such extreme terms about this subject. But it's true, and it's correct. And it's hard for me to teach it to Americans.

That, frankly, to teach in China is much easier because they have that tradition. They never call me Michael. They don't ever call a DCI teacher anything but lao shi, means honorable teacher.

I mean, an 80-year-old Chinese woman will refer to or read lao shi, and they will be very respectful. And it's a beautiful, in my opinion, it's something we could learn, and it's something healthy, and something beautiful, and elegant, and graceful. So I'm not trying to be culty, and I'm not trying to be weird.

I just consider it, us to be barbaric in this sense, and other cultures to have, what do you call? They're more cultivated and evolved. Their attitude towards teachers in Asia, I think it's beautiful, and I think it's very sweet.

And I think if you, we can catch up. You know what I mean? If we try hard, artificially, we can catch up to a place where we have this very sweet tradition of a disciple-teacher relationship is revived in our culture.

And I don't personally feel it as anything weird, or inappropriate, or culty. I don't feel that way at all. I think it's very elegant, and gracious, and beautiful.

And it feels right to me, and it just feels like home to me. So I encourage you to think of that. I'm not trying to make you weird.

I'm just trying to turn you on to something very elegant. It's like French culture, it's unbelievable. It's just something cool, and so is this culture.

The culture of being a disciple, I think it's extremely beautiful. I did it for 25 years, and it was cool, and I was really happy, and I'm still happy about it. Okay, Cecile had a question, I think.

[Говорящий 2] (1:02:44 - 1:03:01)
So there's a karma for somebody to have some kind of suffering, but what about the person who is friend, or a relative to this person who is suffering, and who is living the pain of his friend, or the person of his family?

[Говорящий 1] (1:03:01 - 1:11:33)
I guess there's a seed for that, and I would like to know what kind of seed you can plant, not to have to be by the side of somebody who is suffering. Yeah, okay, good, good. I'm going to go off a little bit on collective karma.

Is it possible to collect a karma with someone else? And is it possible to transfer a karma between people? So the first question, that question is clear.

It's very clear cut. We cannot transfer karmas. I cannot give you the karma to speak Tibetan tomorrow, and I can't learn the karma to speak French, even if we tried for 10 years.

We pooped out already. But you can't give someone a karmic seed. That's not possible.

Karma is accumulated per individual because individuals themselves are simply the firing of a line of karmas. And that's very subtle. That's very subtle.

What you call Michael, through time, is a success or firing of a certain number of karmic seeds. So by definition, I can't share a karma with you because I am the firing of my own seeds. That's who Michael is over time, through time, like a stream, a stream of seeds going off.

So I can't share them with you, or we would be sesmical or something. You see what I mean? And we're not.

So that will be true forever. Each person gets enlightened separately. And after you get enlightened, you continue to have your individual identity.

You don't mix with all other Buddhas or something like that. Can you collect a group karma? Duh.

We're all together tonight because we knew each other in the past and we did something very sweet together. And therefore, we get to have the privilege to sit together and talk about something holy together in a country which doesn't normally do that. We were talking about it the other day.

DCI is a weird thing because people pay to come to hear someone talk for three hours. And we don't do that. We don't have storytellers in our culture anymore.

You don't go to someone's house and listen to stories for three hours. You listen to your iPod or TV, but it's no tradition anymore of a storyteller. But we are.

We're still there. It's very weird. It's very unusual to go someplace and listen to someone for three hours.

But we're doing it tonight. And it's because we all collected a certain karma together in the past. So it's not mistake that you came here.

It's not random. We knew each other. I was probably your student.

You made me sit on my butt for three hours and now I get to make you sit on your butt for three hours and wander. So, so it's definitely possible to collect karmas together. Now, what you're talking about is a relationship, like a family relationship, where you feel close to your brother or your mother and your mother starts going through a hard time.

And then their mind starts to get, I'm guessing what you're saying is, their mind starts to get a little disturbed. And then because you're close to them, your mind gets disturbed also. And in Buddhism, that doesn't have to be the case.

If it's happening, it's not because they got disturbed and then you got disturbed from them. It's that the same karma, one single karma seed is ripening into your perception of a disturbed mom or sister and then you're feeling your own mind be disturbed. Those two disturbed minds are flowing from one seed.

In this case, your perception of a disturbed person next to you and then you getting disturbed because they're disturbed. That's not what's happening. They're not affecting you.

They're not causing you to be disturbed. If you're around a depressed person and you start to get depressed, it's not because they're depressed. It's that you planted the seed to create a depressed person near you and that seed is also making you depressed.

It's like this. One seed has split into two depressed people. And it's not that this person's making this person upset or depressed.

So you can't blame your environment or you can't blame your friends for being down and then they made you down. There's no such thing. You created one seed which created them in your life and you in their life.

So how do you fix it? Whatever the problem is, like they're disturbed about a relationship or they're sad about losing someone, you have to help someone with the same problem. And that's all.

And then two things will happen. Then the reverse happens. The seed reverses.

You become happy and then they become happy because they are coming from you. So you help. You feel disturbed because your friend is disturbed.

Then you help someone else who's disturbed. You'll stop being disturbed and the same seed will stop the other person from being disturbed. So can they make you disturbed?

No. Can you stop them from being disturbed? Yes.

Because they're coming from you. Got it? It's very sexy.

It's kind of cool. You can do anything. You can fix anybody around you by taking the seed out of yourself.

And it's a very sweet process. We talked about it the other night. It's fun to change the people around you because the way you do it is you take some seed out of you that you don't want anyway.

So you can't lose anything. You're taking the seed out of you and they change. And it's so easy.

There's no discussion. You don't have to ask them anything. You don't have to discuss with them.

All the discussions you ever had with your past ex-partners were wasted time. In Buddhism, you don't even have to talk to them. Just before you break up with somebody, you talk all night.

You think you're going to work it out, but you're just making it worse. And in Buddhism, you don't need any of that. You just go to the park and sit by yourself and take seeds out, and then they will change because they're coming from you.

It's a very smooth process and a very delightful process because it means just make yourself a nicer person and they have to change. It forces them to change. And it's so non, what do you call it?

I hate tension and I hate, what do you call that? Confrontation. I just can't do it with anybody, anytime.

I can't do it. I really don't like it. I can't take it.

And I like Buddhism because I don't ever have to be confrontational. I go home, hide in my closet, take some seeds out, and then I come out the next day and the person's changed. And I'm like, whew.

And I didn't have to talk to them because I don't like that. I don't like to talk to people like that. I just work on myself and they change.

It's such a beautiful system. It's so nice. And according to Buddhism, there's no other way.

The other ways don't work. So it's not only more pleasant, it's also the only thing that works. Okay.