«Дар освобождения», курс 15 «Найти учителя, которому можно доверять», занятие 7

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 1:00:55)
So last class we had together, we covered the, I think the most important subject in this course this week, which is the ten qualifications of a spiritual teacher, a good teacher. So I thought I would just say them one more time. DUL BZHIN GZHI BA GNYER BZHIN RUNG YON DEN LHAG PA TZON BYED NUN GYI CHUG DE NYID RAB TUG PA MA KHYEN DEN TSE BA'I DAG NI DGOS PA MA BRTEN They are moral, they live in an ethical way.

ZHI BA, they are meditating regularly, deeply. GNYER ZHI BA, they have an insight into where the world comes from. YON DEN LHAG PA, they are more qualified than their student.

Like a piano teacher should know how to play better than the student. TZON BYED, they're willing to work hard as a teacher. NUN GYI CHUG, they have a deep mastery of the traditional scriptures, traditional wisdom.

DE NYID RAB TUG PA, they have a personal experience of emptiness. MA KHYEN DEN, they are skilled at teaching, the mechanics of teaching. TSE BA'I DAG NI, they care for their students dearly.

They care very deeply for their students, love them, want to help them. KYEL BA SPANG, they never get tired of, they never get fed up with teaching the student, even if the student doesn't listen very well and repeats the same mistakes. They have to repeat the same teachings over and over again.

They don't mind, probably enjoy teaching more. Then we shortened that list to five and then we shortened that list to three. And we had five qualities of a good student, and I'll repeat those.

Number one, they have an open mind to new ideas. They are not set in their ways. They are willing to listen to new ideas, even if they're a little bit radical or different from what they grew up with.

Number two, they have some high capacity of analysis. They can examine a teaching and tell if it makes sense or not. They have a moral instinct about what's right and what's wrong.

RDU NYER CHEN PO CHEN, they have a big vision for what they want to do with their life. They would like to help the world. Personally, I think that we teach all over the world.

We have the pleasure and the honor to go all over the world and teach in many countries. In Hollywood, they're always making these movies like Transformers. One, two, and three.

The girl changes, but the story is the same. It's a nerd who saves the world. He's just a nerd.

He's just a normal person and he saves the world. He saves the world three times. Then there's Spider-Man, there's Iron Man, there's Superman 1, Superman 2, Superman 3, Batman, Green Lantern, many others.

Then why when you make a movie about... The Avengers was the highest grossing movie in history. Why when you make a movie about superheroes does everyone want to go?

I think it's because deep down everyone would like to be a superhero. Deep down we all have an instinct to save the world. Most fictional books or many fictional books end up with the same theme.

I think we just have a very deep desire. Each person has a deep desire to save the world. In Buddhism we say that each person has some capacity to see the future.

Each one of us has some capacity to see the future. I think we see ahead to what we will be doing, which is serving the whole world by studying these things, by learning these steps of the path, lam rim. There will come a time when you serve the whole world.

I believe you can feel it, you can sense it coming. I always was amazed that 30 rock and roll stars who died young, like Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin, they seemed to know somehow what was coming and then they gave out more. I think we sense what we will be.

We believe in Buddhism that each person here will save the world. Then you get to have your own world, take care of it like a baby. According to Buddhism, this is your career track.

This is what you will be. So, doing your chenpo chen means even as a student, the student should think big. They should have big vision.

Then small obstacles don't mean much to you. You lose your car or you get sick or something changes in your country or something like that. Then for a Buddhist person it doesn't mean much.

It's gone in a year or five years or ten years. Our vision is much longer than that. Hundreds of years, centuries ahead.

So small things are not, they're just not worth talking about much or things like that. A good student looks ahead to thousands of years ahead. Their instinct is that they are doing something bigger.

Number four, they have a natural quality of affection and respect and closeness to their teacher. Whoever is their teacher. Even in grade school or high school, and they're towards their parents, they have some very natural affection for those who teach them and take care of them.

And number five, YID BLAS PA STE DE NYON MA They have the capacity, they are like a sponge and they can absorb teachings well. I've taught people, I can say for 10 or 15 years who, what's that? They had some kind of spray on them that just repels everything.

What is that stuff? What is it? Scotchgard.

Yeah, yeah. You teach them, it just bounces off. Like those vests that the police wear.

I've watched it. I've seen it. Five years, 10 years, 15 years.

They sit in the class and they don't change and it doesn't affect them. They don't really listen. They don't absorb.

So the fifth quality of a good student is they truly absorb things. I think that process is mainly related to when you come to a teaching you hear things and then as you drive home, as you go to work, as you talk with other people, you mull over, right? You think about what you heard.

It comes to your mind. I think it's possible to be a kind of person who comes to a class, hears everything, and once they get up, they don't think about it again ever in their whole life. And then other people, they're driving home and they're already processing what they heard.

So the fifth quality of a good student is they are processing what they heard immediately and they are integrating it into their life. Of the greatest students, there's a joke in Tibet. There was a llama who was sitting on a tiger skin in a cave.

There's a tradition for llamas to sit on tiger skins because rattlesnakes also like caves. When they smell the tiger scent, they avoid the cave. So there was a tradition to sit on a leopard skin or a tiger skin in a cave.

So this llama was reading a Vinaya book, Gopakishi. It's a famous book by Lord Buddha. Gopak means leather.

One of the main subjects is that you shouldn't kill animals for their fur or their skin or their leather. You shouldn't wear leather. You shouldn't use leather.

You shouldn't use animal products. So he's reading this book and he's sitting on a tiger skin. He got to that sentence and he said, oh my.

He put the book down and he gets the tiger skin and he wraps it up and he walks to the front of the cave and he throws it outside. Then he comes back in and he goes to the next sentence which says, unless it's very cold outside, you're allowed to sit on the leather. Then he'd get up and go back and get the skin and bring it back in.

But the point is that he was processing it immediately before he got to the next sentence. He was processing. So a really good student in the class, we're going to talk about how to treat your teacher in the next paragraph.

We're starting now how to behave towards your teacher. Then they will be making adjustments in their behavior in the class during the sentence about that. They will start adjusting how they are going to behave.

You see what I mean? Then there's a sort of magical thing occurs from karma that the teaching will design itself to your needs. The teaching will unfold exactly to fit you.

If you're the kind of person who tries to put it into, who tries to apply it to themselves as it's being spoken, the karma will actually shift and the teaching will be more customized for you as the teaching goes on. So here we go. Having given the qualities that you should look for in a good teacher, and again, you shouldn't be satisfied with less.

The main job of a Buddhist in this life is to find their heart teacher. If you spend your whole life looking, that's a good use of your life. Then now we're going to have a, it's a section called DE LTAR PA'I BLO MED LANG MA LA BRTAN TSUL JI LTAR BYAS NA Are we okay, Adam?

If you find a good student who has those five qualities and they find a teacher who has those ten qualities, or pretty much, then, BRTAN TSUL JI LTAR BYAS then how are they supposed to relate to the teacher? What's supposed to happen now between them? Like that.

What's their relationship supposed to be? Now we got to, after how many years? Three years now.

We've been in this class for three years. We just reached the first step. How to find a qualified teacher and how to be a good student.

If those two come together, what's supposed to happen? What's the relationship supposed to be? BYAS NA GSUM PA BSAM PA'I BRTAN TSUL LA NYID In this section, the third section of this teaching, we have a long section about how you are supposed to think about your teacher in your mind, your mental, your emotional relationship to your teacher.

That's first. What do you think is going to come after that? And then more like your logistical relationship to your teacher.

Like your physical relationship to your teacher. But the first one is how do you think about them? What kind of thoughts do you have in the back of your mind about your teacher?

How do you cultivate an attitude towards them which is what do you call them? Ideal or something. For your own progress.

So here we go. TSA BA DE PA BYANG BA DANG RGA RIN RJES SU BSTAN PA DRAN NAS KU PA SKYE PA'O TSA BA What's TSA BA? The root or the foundation of all Buddhist practice is DE PA BYANG BA.

DE PA BYANG BA means reaching emotions of faith, reaching feelings of faith towards your teacher, faith in your teacher, devotion to your teacher. And the BYANG BA implies what do you call it? Development of something you don't have naturally.

So it means you have to cultivate it. BYANG BA here means cultivate devotion because you may not have it in the beginning. And can you cultivate that kind of attitude?

Because it's nice to have, okay? And I repeat, I've had teachers my whole life. I think I started when I was 17.

I met my first Tibetan Lama when I was 21 and have never not lived with or been serving directly my teacher since then. It's the coolest thing in your life. It's the most wonderful thing in your life.

There's nothing like that. It's the most fun and beautiful thing you can do. And I did it for, I don't know, 39 years.

And it's wonderful. It's like so happy. It's such a happy thing.

BYANG BA DE PA BYANG BA So how do you develop this kind of attitude towards them? And then GAT RIN RJES SU BRTZEN NAMS GAT RIN GAT RIN is what? Yeah, thinking about how kind they are to you and then automatically you will have some kind of respect or respect for them.

So GAT RIN RJES SU BRTZEN NAMS means think about the kindness they have shown you. And we'll get there. GAT RIN is a beautiful word.

I don't think it exists in English. GAT RIN means specifically the kindness that your heart teacher has granted you. And then if you start to meditate on that, then you become a very grateful person and gratitude makes people beautiful.

People who have a high degree of gratitude are extremely beautiful people and attractive. And people who don't have gratitude are kind of defective or something. SKYE BA'O DI NYID LUNG RIGS KYI THAG COR RI GOR BYED DI NYID means these two subjects.

First is developing faith. Second is developing gratitude. These two high qualities of a student.

LUNG RIGS means what? Do you know LUNG RIGS? These are the two ways we present a subject in Buddhism.

Either you quote famous scriptures to demonstrate a point, or you use logic. You describe something in a way that anyone in the audience, no matter what their background or what they grew up with, it would be compelling to them. Compelling argument or compelling reasons why to do something.

Either you quote a sutra, but that doesn't help much if you're not a Buddhist. Or you can give a very compelling presentation of why this thing is going to enlighten you or make you happy or beautiful. He says THAG COR RI GOR means we're going to go at it every which way.

THAG COR RI GOR THAG COR RI GOR means walk around the mountain a thousand times. It means that. THAG COR RI GOR DE DGONGS NA, ZHING YIN RTEN TSUL TSUL BZHIN BYAS I will seek to develop a beautiful relationship with some teacher in my life.

If you don't get anything else out of this week, you should leave this place with at least a desire to seek your heart teacher, find your heart teacher. You're going to learn what they look like, what qualities they should have. But then by the time you leave this place, you should imagine what it's like to be in the care of someone that you know will take care of every need you have in this life and take care of you after you die.

It doesn't stop when you die. That relationship and that taking care of you doesn't stop. So it's like a mom, but it's even better.

I lost my mom. The day she died I said, no one loved me that much. I'll never meet a person who loves me more than I do.

Again, I thought that. But if you find your heart teacher, it's like a mom. They love you more than...

They're the one person in the world that loves you more than yourself. And it doesn't stop when you die. It goes on.

It's forever. And you know it. Just imagine how it feels.

Try to grasp what it feels like to be truly safe and protected and cared for forever. And that's cool. That's really nice.

So you have to try to find this relationship. Those of you studying Tibetan, watch out for the repetition of the syllable TSUL TSUL. TSUL TSUL It's not a mistake.

It's not DUS PA'I KHYUN. You have to pause correctly. BSTAN TSUL TSUL BZHIN Say BSTAN TSUL TSUL BZHIN There are parts of two different words.

They just happen to bump into each other. BSTAN TSUL means how you relate to your heart teacher. TSUL BZHIN means correctly.

And then unfortunately, the first word ends in TSUL and the second word begins in TSUL. And it looks like an error, but it's not. TSUL BZHIN Sorry.

BSTAN TSUL TSUL BZHIN BYAS NYAMS PAS RDOR ZHIG CHEN PO means by the time we finish this week, you should be all excited about finding your heart teacher. Someone who can take care of you like that. You should be...

RDOR ZHIG CHEN PO means turned on. Like, wow, okay, I got to find them. RDOR ZHIG CHEN PO It's the most beautiful thing you can do with your life.

And it's the most beautiful relationship to be in. It's the nicest thing in a human life. RDOR ZHIG CHEN PO'ANG DE MIN CHU ZHUG NYAMS PA LAS MI YONG BA'I If you don't have this kind of joy about searching for your heart teacher, DE MIN CHU ZHUG NYAMS PA LAS MI YONG BA'I When you come to a teaching or when you seek spiritual knowledge, it'll just be kind of mechanical.

I would like to pick up another couple of concepts at the talk tonight. I hope he's going to cover something new. And I can pick up a few more merit badges.

I can have a few more ideas in my head. Like that. It just becomes mechanical.

And it's not living. Like that. If you don't have that joy, that happiness.

DE NA DANG PO RTZA BA DE PA BYAMS PA LA GSUM YOD We're going to talk about DE PA BYAMS PA. Developing faith. Devotion.

Generally speaking, faith is discouraged in Buddhism in the sense of blind faith. We are encouraged never to never to accept something because the teacher said or because the Buddha said. We're encouraged not to have the kind of faith that accepts something that doesn't make sense to you.

In Buddhism, we don't ask people to do that. We think it's unhealthy. If you encourage someone to accept something true or logical out of faith, they'll get in the habit and they'll accept something which is untrue and illogical.

It's a bad habit. In fact, there's a term in Buddhism called RIGS PA'I RJES DANG RIGS PA'I RJES DANG RIGS PA'I RJES DANG means people who believe things out of faith. RIGS PA'I RJES DANG means those who believe because it makes sense.

The second is considered highly superior to the first. The first is considered almost like a mentally challenged disciple. The second is a healthy disciple.

Healthy mental state. They question everything. Until it makes sense to them, they don't act on it.

They don't follow it. They don't believe it. But here they're not talking about blind faith.

They're talking about this kind of love or this kind of very beautiful bond between a disciple, a true disciple and a true teacher. This kind of multi-lifetime bond of affection and respect. That's not blind faith.

So let's distinguish between them. How do we develop good faith? DEPA.

There are three categories here. DE DEPA NI SANGS RGYAS DNGUL GYI DE BZHED SKYES PA'I DEPA STE The faith we're talking here is a kind of vision of your teacher. The faith we're talking about here is a kind of vision of your teacher where you purposely cultivate the perception that they are already an enlightened being.

So that's the root of what we call faith for your heart teacher. You artificially cultivate the belief that they are already an enlightened being. And in time it comes to be how you see them.

In time it becomes natural. You actually see them that way. DI DANG MAR SHES NYID MI GOR GZHAN LAS SKYE RGA SHU ZHIG YIN This is one of...

Pabongka Rinpoche says, this is one of two that I can think of of the most difficult perceptions to cultivate in a human being. And the other one, he says, is MAR SHES. Coming to realize that every other person around you has been your mother in a past life.

Each person in this room has held you at their breast and given you milk countless times. Then to really think that when you bump into somebody at the supermarket. He breastfed me.

He tore his guts out to give me birth. With some, I don't know, irritating car salesman or something. To feel that deeply is difficult.

It takes a lot of training and it takes determined meditation. Daily meditation to cultivate that. But you can.

It's possible. Even with the car salesman. It's possible to reach a point where the minute you see them, you're in love with them.

Because they died in childbirth with you many times in the past. Even that chubby car salesman. And then when you meet them, it's a whole different feeling.

You're not like watching out for them or you're not suspicious of them. Right away you're in love with them. Even when they're relieving you of a couple of extra thousand dollars or something.

You're like, I love you. That attitude is hard to develop for a human being. And equally difficult is the perception that your teacher is an angel sent to take care of you.

He's an enlightened angel purposely sent on a mission to take care of you. Sounds like... Angel A, come on.

We saw a movie. We had a movie and pizza the other night. There's a very nice French movie.

Only a French person could make this movie of an angel who is assigned to help a young man. If you haven't seen it, you should see it. Angel A.

Subtitles. Those two attitudes. He says, RGA SHOS We talked today about the basic form of an adjective, the comparative form of the adjective, and the superlative form of the adjective.

Here is an example. Start dictionary entry. There's a...

I forget what you call it. Like a declarative form of an adjective. Here it's difficult.

RGA means difficult. RGA means difficult. RGA BA RGA BA The comparative is more difficult.

RGA BA RGA BA You can say that. Here is the superlative. You add SHOS to any adjective, it becomes EST. Mostest. Bestest. Fattest. Longest.

Happiest. Got it? Here you have the superlative.

SHOS SHOS Here we have RGA SHOS Most difficult. End dictionary entry. What's he talking about most difficult?

Two things. To reach those two states of mind, number one, where you see what? Everybody around you as having been your mom.

And then number two, where you just look at your teacher and you're like, oh, it's an angel on a mission sent it for me personally. And you sense that and that's why they make movies like that. There's lots of movies like that.

Because it happens. And they hide them in your family. And they act normal for 30 years and then suddenly one day they reveal themselves.

RGA SHOS SHES YIN LA RGA YANG BAS DE MA TSUN LA DI MED CIG GI LAM GZHAN LAM RGYUD LA MI SKYE BA'O RGA YANG Okay, I admit it's hard. What? To see your teacher as an angel sent from heaven just for you.

But, YANG BAS DE MA TSUN LA If you don't work your butt off to get to this vision of your teacher as an angel sent to save you, DI MED CIG GI LAM GZHAN LAM RGYUD LA MI SKYE Everything on down from here, everything after the first step, MI SKYE It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. In your heart, RGYUD LA MI SKYE You won't get the other lam rims if you don't get the first one.

So, okay, I admit it's hard. It's as hard as seeing the car salesman as your mom. But if you don't do it, you won't get...

The rest of the steps I'm going to describe for the next 10 or 11 years, right? That's our deal, I think. It won't, nothing will happen.

You just won't get it. And nothing... I liked the other day, like I stumbled on a good way to describe the lam rim, I think.

There are about 20 or 30 personality changes that we have to make in ourselves. And that's what this book is designed for. And if you can't make the first one, forget the rest.

That's what he's saying. If you can't... The first one is hard, but if you can't pull it off, you ain't going to get the rest.

You won't change. Nothing about you will change because you don't have a teacher who is a Buddha. Got it?

It's cool. It's logical, I think. And it's wonderful to have the perception that there's a person in your life who is enlightened and wants to help you.

That's a... who was personally assigned to you. Why else would such an amazing person hang out with me?

I often think that. It's suspicious. Okay.

MI SKYE BA DE LA PHYIR BDE PA NI DGAR BYED THAMS CAD KYI PAS ZHIG YANG RTZA BA YIN TE Generally speaking, he says, the attitude of faith. DGAR BYED THAMS CAD DGAR BYED is a nice word. What's PHYIR mean?

Teachings or Buddhist teachings. Dharma. DGAR PO means white.

So in this case, DGAR PO means the good side of stuff. It's the root of all karcha. Faith is the root of all goodness.

Okay? Faith is the root of all goodness. SKYE PA'I ZHIG YANG RTZA BA YIN TE Foundation or root?

Then he quotes a scripture. GONG CHOG BRDUN MED DO You okay? Did I miss something?

GONG CHOG means the three jewels, the three objects of worship, really, in Buddhism. The Buddha. Sorry.

Knees before that, I promise. GONG CHOG means Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. The Buddha and the teachings and the community of people who practice those teachings, roughly.

BRDUN MED means a lamp, like a flashlight. DO means a sutra, the sutra of the lamp of the three jewels. He quotes it.

DE PA SNGON DRO MA LTAR SKYE PA STE YIN RTEN THAMS CAD GSUNG ZHING PHAL BAR BYED Faith precedes all else. It is like the mother who gives birth to the rest of your spiritual practice. He calls it the mother.

YIN RTEN THAMS CAD GSUNG With faith you can protect all good qualities you ever develop and PHAL BAR, you can increase them if you have faith. Then he tells a nice story. Sorry about it, but it's funny.

SNGON, in days gone by, 18 plus, 900 and... No, 18... Anyway, 1,000 years ago, give or take 50 years, Lord Atisha, Joe Chambala, Mishiki, one person said something to him, came up and said something to this great teacher who helped bring Buddhism from India to Tibet, named Lord Atisha.

That person said, Atisha, oh Atisha, DANG NAG ZHU Can you give me some words of spiritual advice? ZHU, ZHES Atisha said, nothing. He said nothing.

The guy is starting to get a little irritated. He said, Atisha, DANG NAG ZHU Give me some advice already. He asked twice.

LEN NI ZHUGS KYANG BYANG MA GSUNG means CI YANG or BYANG MA GSUNG means he didn't say anything at all. BYANG MA GSUNG PA NA KHOS SKAD CHEN PO BOS PA'I TSAD Then the guy thought Atisha's hearing was going bad. So he said, Atisha, can you teach me something?

Okay. PHOS PA'I TSAD HEH HEH What's that? HEH HEH Okay.

KHOR BA LA NA BA DAG SANG PO SANG PO DO It's very colloquial. It's like, hey man, there's nothing wrong with my ears, okay? I'm just SANG PO DO.

ME NGA BYA BA You want some advice? DE BA Faith. Faith.

Faith. And he refused to say anything else. ZHES GSUNGS PA DANG That's all he said.

Repeated it three times. RGYAL BA'O NTSA PA CHEN PO Those of you interested in Tibetan, I don't know. This should be WEN.

D-B-E-N WEN But in modern colloquial, it's kind of shortened to WEN. EN EN WEN Say WEN. It's like, I heard in Paris, I don't know, but they say WE differently and they go EN WET WET So if you're American and you want to fake that you're a Parisian in Paris, don't say anything else.

Just say WET. Okay. That's the only French word I remember.

I'm really trying hard. Okay, RGYAL BA'O NTSA PA I got to learn in this lifetime. You got to help me.

DOR NA MNYAM RTOGS CHE CHUNG GANG RGYAS KYANG DER PA CHE CHUNG BSGOMS PA'I THU YIN PAS DOR NA means... Oh, so this is a Tibetan Lama who is famous because it's widely believed that he definitely got enlightened in this lifetime by following all this stuff well. So that's kind of cool to have someone that supposedly made it.

DOR NA means, to summarize, if you want to put it all in a nutshell, MNYAM means spiritual experiences. RTOGS PA means spiritual realizations. CHE CHUNG, little ones, big ones, any kind of ones.

RGYAS KYANG, if you want them, they follow from the size of your faith. Big realizations and small realizations come from big faith or small faith. CHE CHUNG BSGOMS PA'I THU They come from the THU.

Say THU. Dictionary entry, THU. MA'O THA ZHUGS KYI MTHU M-T-H-U, THU.

THU means... There are several words in Tibetan for power. You heard some of them today.

One is WANG. WANG, which means power. Then we have RTOGS, like RTOGS SHI, the four powers.

And this is the third one, THU. So I thought I'll tell you the difference. I'll explain THU by explaining its contextual place between the other two words for power.

So WANG means more like... How do you say? Power in the sense of political power or personal power or power of an empowerment.

Empowerment is called a WANG. And the sense powers are called WANG. The eye, the ear, nose, tongue, body are called WANG.

So you get the feeling of WANG. Some kind of innate strength or power. Then RTOGS.

SA THA THA LTAR NO DU RTOGS PA SA RTOGS S-T-O-P-S means more like force. RTOGS CHE means they used great force. So it's the difference between force and power.

You get the feeling? Between force and power. But RTOGS is more...

RTOGS is a cool word. RTOGS means mystical power. Mystical power.

It's just like un-understandable mystical forces are called RTOGS. It's a cool word. I like this word RTOGS.

And he says whatever realizations you get in your life are from the two of faith. They derive from the mystic power of faith. But if you're translating a Tibetan text and you come to RTOGS RGYALS be careful, because that means to curse someone with a magical, negative, what do you call it?

Voodoo. RTOGS RGYALS means to like stick pins in a doll. So be careful with RTOGS.

It can mean high, beautiful, pure, mystical power. But in a certain context, RTOGS RGYALS, it can mean to cast a spell, especially a black spell. And in fact, it's believed in Tibetan tradition that Pabongka Rinpoche was the victim of a RTOGS RGYALS.

And that's a long story. He engaged in a mystical battle with some negative forces. And he won, but it hurt his body.

And if you look at photos of him, as a young man he's very handsome and very strong and well built. And then later he was very obese. And they say it was damage done to him by this battle between good and evil.

That's just a traditional story about him. End dictionary entry for two. We're doing a video dictionary.

I just think it might be a cool idea. Because now YouTube will put anything up of any length and they don't care how many you put up. So I thought, why not make 50,000 dictionary entries?

Really, and call each video M-T-H-U, two. And then if you want to know what the word two means, you type two and you get a five minute explanation of it. And that becomes a dictionary.

I think it's a nice idea. MUD DUG BYUNG NAS DRIN CHEN LA MA LA The source of everything good that ever happens to you is your spiritual teacher. YON DANG BSAM ZHING GYON NAS MI LTA BA'I So try to focus on what you see in them, which is good, and try not to focus on whatever problems you think you see.

GYON MI LTA DAM PA DE NYID MTHIL DU BRDZUN PA DANG DAM BYA RDZIN DAG RGYAS MED THAR CING ZHONG DAM PA means words of, friendly words of advice. DE NYID means this friendly words of advice, meaning try to see the good side of your teacher and try not to focus on any mistakes you see. And in general, you should do that with everybody.

DAM PA DE NYID MTHIL DU BRDZUN PA DANG May I hold it in the palm of my hand. MTHIL means, this is locked MTHIL. This is GANG MTHIL.

MTHIL is used for both. What do you call it? Soul of your foot and the palm of your hand.

But this one is called a hand THIL and this is called a foot THIL. Not to be confused with the THIL without the M on it, which means, THIL, sorry. Sesame seed, yeah.

Okay, MTHIL DU BRDZUN PA MTHIL DU BRDZUN PA In Tibetan, to tell someone, this is a precious piece of advice. Keep it in your THIL. It means like, treasure it.

Like you find a nice little bird and you're like, it means keep it like this. I'm telling you something precious. Take care of it.

Don't drop it. Keep it. Keep it close to your heart.

It's like that. Okay, I like that. MTHIL DU BRDZUN PA DANG DAM CHAR DON DANG RGYAS MA'I THAR CHEN ZHOG And then he's saying, may I make a commitment like this, myself, and may I THAR CHEN.

My Lama's name was THAR CHEN. Yeah, may you go to the final goal. May you reach the end.

THAR CHEN RGYAS MA'I means with no problems. With no problems. All right.

We'll go about another ten minutes and we'll take a break. So have hope. BYAS PA LTAR RANG LA RTOGS PA SKYE MI KHYAS SO LAM MA BDE PA YOD MED DANG Whether or not you have spiritual breakthroughs depends on whether or not you have a sweet relationship with a teacher.

I don't know any really good musician who didn't spend a long time with another musician. I can't name one. And every kind of amazing practitioner I've ever met had a close teacher for a long time.

So I think there's a connection. And it wasn't always a happy or easy relationship. But I don't know anyone who's really mastered these subjects who wasn't close to a teacher for a long time.

BYAS PA LTAR RANG LA RTOGS PA SKYE MI KHYAS SO LAM MA BDE PA YOD MED DANG BDE PA BYAS CHUNG LA RAG LAS How far you go depends on the level of your faith. LAS MCHOG GI NGUD DUG PA LA NI LAM MA LA SANGS RGYAS NGUS SU LTA BA'I BDE PA DANG DANG SNGAGS KYIS MA SNOR BA NGES PAR DGOS So you need two things. Oh boy.

I accidentally turned on something which is... What do you call it? Writing down everything I say.

That's kind of cool. Stop. Cancel.

That's so funny. Now it says write out everything I say. It works though.

I got to learn how to use that. PA LA NI MA MA LA Something with the dog. I'm going to write a book about mystical messages that come on your iPhone when it changes the spelling of things you try to send.

DRUG NYID DE It erased part of my text also. Sorry, hang on. DRUG DRIN BU DRUG DRIN BU DRUG Hang on, I just got to copy this.

Okay. PHYOGS KYI NGUR DU GDUG PA LA NI LA MA LA SANGS RGYAS NGOS SU LTA BA'I DER PA DANG If you want to reach the highest attainments of a human life, which is to become enlightened, LA MA LA SANGS RGYAS NGOS SU LTA BA'I DER PA DANG you must develop a form of faith in which you perceive your teacher as already an enlightened being, as an angel sent to help you. DANG SNGAGS KYIS MA SNOR BA NGES PAR DGOS And you need the instructions from them.

It's not enough just that they're hanging around. They have to teach you. Tantra also.

Tantra has a bad name in the United States, which is really unfortunate. The meaning is to make contact with angels and then to become their student so that you can become like them. That's the whole tantric path in a sentence.

It doesn't have anything to do with weird practices. There is something else in India called tantra, which is weird sometimes, but it has nothing to do with what we're learning and what we're teaching. DANG SNGAGS KYIS MA SNOR BA NGES PAR DGOS DANG SNGAGS SNOR KYANG DER PA YI CHEN NA So he says, you're going to need a vision of your teacher as an angel sent to help you.

And they're going to have to teach you the path in an unerring way. MA SNOR, MA SNOR. Start dictionary entry.

SNOR, N-O-R SNOR can mean wealth and it can mean to be mistaken. So you have to be careful when you see the word N-O-R. N-O-R, N-O-R, N-O-R, N-O-R, N-O-R, N-O-R It can either mean mistaken or it can mean wealth.

Here it's the end dictionary entry. Here it's the teacher should teach you the whole path. MA SNOR Without error, no boo-boos.

MA SNOR BA NGES PAR DGOS DANG SNGAGS SNOR KYANG But, this is cool, but even if the teacher messes up the instructions, DES PA YID CHE NA If you have enough faith, THUG MA NGIS DNGUL DRUG CHEN PO'I DRUG GNOD You can get some minor successes. You can get some minor successes just on the power of faith. He gives an example called DNGUL DRUG CHEN PO'I DNGUL DRUG means a siddhi.

Siddhi. What's that mean? Kind of like minor miracle powers.

DNGUL DRUG CHEN PO'I DRUG GNOD DE Then he gives an example. RGYA RGYUR NA In the old days in India, MI ZHIG GIS There was a person, Lama Danga Shubha, who asked his lama or her lama for some personal spiritual advice. Give me some words of wisdom.

The lama said, MA RI LAS DZA MA RI LAS DZA which in India at that time meant, come down to my house and we'll talk about it. MAR SONG Come down. SONG PA YIN PA LA KU DE MA KHOR But the guy didn't understand that the lama meant come to my house, come down to my house.

He took it as a mantra. He thought the lama had given him a mantra. MA RI LAS DZA MA RI LAS DZA which means come over to my house but he didn't understand.

He thought, oh, he's given me a mantra. So he went away. DANG SNGAGS TU GSUNGS ZIG DE GRANGS MED He spent his life doing this mantra which means come on down to my house.

And because of that he gained powers, miracle powers. What kind of powers? RANG BZHIN GYI GNAS SOGS SOS PA He became a healer.

He could heal his own illnesses and he could heal others. Just from the power of faith in come on down y'all. SOS PA CHUNGS There is such a thing.

Four more minutes till your break. I'm using the time. RANG BZHIN GYI RMONGS PA LAS BU LAS BUN DE SOGS HA ZHES LHA MO TSUN DE SNGAGS KYI RTZA DANG BA NOR NAS There is a mantra to a goddess named CHUNG DA which is related to DUM MO, inner fire.

Some teacher taught their student the mantra for this deity which is RMONGS PA LAS BU LAS He heard, the student heard RMONGS PA LAS BU LAS BUN DE SOGS HA but the BA was supposed to be a TSAR RMONGS TSAR LAS It was supposed to be RMONGS TSAR LAS BU LAS BUN DE SOGS HA According to normal Buddhist belief if you don't pronounce a mantra correctly it doesn't work. There is a power in the sound of Sanskrit because it resonates in your chakras. Sanskrit came from your chakras.

The sounds of Sanskrit were heard by the first people to use language from their own inner body. So if you mispronounce it you create a dissonance between the mantra and your own inner body. Then it won't work so well.

So this person heard the mantra wrong and repeated it wrong for a long time. DI'I SKABS BYANG YOD DE PA NI Sorry. NOR BA'I BYANG DE He or she repeated it by mistake mistakenly the mantra for a long time.

MU RGA'I SKABS There came a time when there was MU RGA'I means, what do you call that? Famine in their country. MU RGA'I means famine.

MU RGA'I SKABS DO BRTZON NAS GSOS PA'I RAB And he could take stones and boil them and eat them because of the power of the mantra, the mistaken mantra. GSOS NAS RAB BZHIN DE PA ME NA SHES RAB GYI GANG YANG MI YONG If you don't have faith and all you have is technical understanding, you won't get nowhere. GANG YANG MI YONG DE PA LA GSUM YOD PA LAS In general, there are three forms of faith recognized in Buddhist teaching.

There are three versions of faith that are recognized in Buddhism. DI'I SKABS BYANG RGYUD DE PA NI The faith we're trying to develop at this point in this practice is ZHING YIN LA SANGS RGYUN NUS SU THANG BA'I DE PA It's at THANG BA'I DE PA where you see your teacher as being an angel sent to help you. That in Tibetan is called THANG BA'I DE PA.

Say THANG BA'I DE PA. THANG BA'I DE PA THANG BA'I is a beautiful, beautiful word. Then we'll stop for a break.

THANG BA'I means crystal clear, like a mountain stream's water, like super pure snow melt water or the water off the beach in Bahamas. I used to surf in places in Hawaii. Buddhism interrupted my surfing career.

But there are some places where I used to surf that they're so clean. The water is so clean. You'd be on a very large wave and you look down and you can't see the water.

All you see is reefs and sharks. It's really frightening. It's like, if I fall, I'm going to rip up my body.

Because the water is so clear, you can't tell where the water starts. You can see everything underwater, which is not nice to see in Hawaii. Anyway, that's THANG BA.

THANG BA means absolutely glass, like glass, clear. It refers to a kind of faith. It refers to a kind of faith.

A person who has THANG BA'I DE PA has this sweet, intensely pure vision of their teacher. That's called THANG BA. You see?

It's the word for that kind of water. It's totally immaculate faith, clear faith. Crystal clear faith.

Something like that? THANG BA. Those of you studying Tibetan, this is a very unusual word because it has a D.

V. V is a vaso. It's a piece of another letter which is artificially attached to a letter in Tibetan.

When you want to distinguish, you want to differentiate that word from another word. And they have the same spelling. So you just add a little triangle onto the letter, which is called a vaso, or an aso, depending on whose school you believe.

What's the other meaning of DUNG? It means and. So if you don't put that little V there, it doesn't mean crystal faith.

It means and faith. So you have to learn about that. But in later Tibetan literature, it got lost, which gets a little confusing.

All right. Okay, yeah? Have a nice break.

Okay, here we go. Questions. Let's do like 15 minutes of questions and then let's do the meditation song a little bit.

So if you do not have a meditation song, somebody have one that they can show me? Yeah, they look like this. They're back on the book table.

If you don't have one and you want one, get one during the question and answer because we're going to start going through it again. I'm sorry they're 25 bucks. It's a lot of color plates.

It's cost at Costco. And they've been very helpful. They've stayed up.

They've called in extra staff to finish them. And people drove them all over the place to get them done. So I encourage you to get one.

They have a spiral binding so that you can lay it down before you meditate on your meditation table and then you can follow the prayer, which it makes your meditation much more powerful. So we're going to continue through it tonight and tomorrow. So it's good if you want to have a copy in your life, go get one now.

Vicky Woolf is right there. She's willing to go help you. And if you prefer or you don't have funds but you have a laptop, she can give you the same thing on a flash disk and you can just have it for free.

Good? All right then. Thank you.

Monica has a question. Go. So...

It's okay. I'll repeat the question. So if we get angry at a bodhisattva and we destroy seeds, can we do any other misdeed when you're planting negative seeds in your mind so we can go in and take them out?

Technically, you don't take them out. You just defuse them. So if you get angry at a bodhisattva, you might be planting negative seeds but you're also taking out good seeds, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Burning them. By the way, the process when they say burn, they mean in the sense of, someone gave me some nice seeds for some flowers from Mexico.

Or I'll give you an example. I have, what do you call it? Niger seed.

I give to my finches. And this comes from India. And it's a thistle.

It's a thorn plant. And it's illegal to import them unless you radiate them. So they take the whole bag and they radiate it and it won't grow.

If the seed is there, it's yummy to eat for the birds and it will never grow. That's what happens when you do the four powers. So we mean, if they burn these great, great seeds, there's no four powers?

That's a good question. I don't know. Let's go through the text and see.

I don't remember them talking about it. Generally they say that anything you do can be recovered. They say you can commit the five great deeds like killing your mother or father and you can fix it.

So, I don't know. I like to think you could fix it. I imagine you could fix it.

Otherwise it's like impossible to get enlightened. You'd be like a blind turtle trying to hit a life preserver wandering on the Pacific Ocean and coming up every hundred years. That's an old joke.

Okay. No, I would say, I haven't seen it discussed specifically and you'd be surprised how many things are not discussed in the half a million pages of Buddhist scripture. But sometimes a question that would occur to a Westerner very quickly has never been discussed in all the Buddhist scriptures that I know of.

But from what I know, I believe you could restore the seeds. Okay. If you purify it properly.

Sal?

[Говорящий 2] (1:00:57 - 1:01:02)
Yesterday you gave a brief version of what you should find in the teachings of the Five Policies.

[Говорящий 1] (1:01:02 - 1:06:39)
That they should be loaded in the pre-training knowledge system. So, can you explain a little bit the difference between the knowledge system and the pre-training system? Yeah, good, good question.

Let's go back to it. BSLAB GSUM GYIS RGYUD DUL BA DANG They should have softened their heart with the three trainings. They should have love and they should have realized suchness.

So, Sal's correct. There seems to be a duplication of two of them because the third of the three trainings is the training of wisdom. Then on the fifth one mentioned here is DE NYID RTOGS PA which means a perception of suchness.

So again, I think you could go either way, but personally I would go to DE NYID RTOGS PA meaning the direct perception of emptiness, suchness. He's using the word RTOGS PA which is R-T-O-G-S. Which can mean to understand the pen thing.

Outside of a meditation. But given that he's already covered the training of wisdom, it must be that the fifth one means a direct experience of emptiness. Cool.

It was the same repetition in the list of ten really. And the first three of the ten boil down to the three trainings, don't they? Other questions?

Yes, please. My teacher, I wanted to say a few words about the concept of how the grace of the teacher helps us change our karma. Yeah.

And not, oh, I'm the one who's doing it. But it's the presence of the teacher that helps me in that process. Yeah, good.

I have this discussion often with my friends in the ashram where I teach every year, Sivananda, and in Christian circles where I teach. I teach fairly, not frequently, but I teach from time to time. And they ask me this question about what about the concept of grace?

Because grace implies, in the Hindu and Christian traditions, it often implies an unexpected outside source of inspiration that you didn't earn and you didn't deserve. So how does that fit into the Buddhist idea that you only get what you deserve and you never get anything that you didn't earn? Is there a place for grace in the Buddhist tradition?

And I think as you'll see, especially in Tantra, in the secret teachings, you create grace with faith. If a Christian says, if you believe in Lord Jesus, then Lord Jesus can save you, that doesn't contradict Buddhist scripture. It's in keeping with Buddhist scripture.

Because Buddhist scripture says the power of Christ is created by your faith. The karma of believing is what gives Jesus the power to help you. And then Jesus himself said, he cured a lame man, a blind man, and the blind man said, oh, thank you, you are so powerful.

And he said, no, no, your faith has cured you, not me. So that's very much in keeping with Buddhist ideas. So I would answer that there is such a thing as grace in Buddhism, meaning cosmic slack cutting.

And it's created by belief in your teacher. So it's totally in keeping with the laws of karma. If you have enough faith in your teacher, which is the subject we are on.

And he will be giving us tips for having faith in someone that you have trouble having faith in. Because we all do. If you can achieve that faith, the karma of believing in them grants them the power to give you unusual, unexpected, normally impossible help.

Miraculous help. So it's a good question. If you are a well-trained Buddhist, the more training you get, the more you see that most of the major faiths in the world are very similar.

And pretty much, we say, THAR THUG THEG PA GCIG Say THAR THUG? THEG PA GCIG So it's the same THAR THUG that you guys know, but it has a different meaning. THAR THUG means, in the end, THEG PA GCIG It's all one path.

And we believe in Buddhism. There is a book written about THAR THUG THEG PA GCIG. It means, in the end, all spiritual traditions reach the same goal.

We believe that. And to deny that is actually breaking a tantric vow. So that's interesting.

I think that's very interesting. Other questions? Orit?

[Говорящий 2] (1:06:40 - 1:06:53)
So, another question about the four powers. So in previous teachings, you said that we can take the power from that seed by doing the four powers.

[Говорящий 1] (1:06:53 - 1:06:59)
But the seed itself will stay in the mind. We just take the power.

[Говорящий 2] (1:07:00 - 1:07:03)
How can it be explained when you talk about the emptiness of the seed?

[Говорящий 1] (1:07:06 - 1:15:15)
Okay. I'll repeat the questions because then maybe I'll understand it. I'm just kidding.

Okay. So we teach, Lord Buddha taught a sutra called the Sutra of the Four Powers, Chaturbala Nirdesha Sutra, teaching the four powers. Four powers means, or four forces means a four-step process by which you can remove bad karma.

Old mistakes can be canceled. But the mechanism by which it's done is technically you don't remove the seed. You create conditions where it can never open.

So it's like you're walking around with a grenade in your head which will never go off. So you have the grenade in your head but the conditions are insufficient for it to explode. So technically you don't remove the seed from your mind.

It's always going to be there even after you become a Buddha but it will never explode which is as good as not being there. Then Orit said, how does that jive, how does that harmonize with the idea of the emptiness of the seed? It makes the seed sound tough.

I'll say this, and it's a favorite subject of mine right now. When you focus on a seed, let's say you're having a problem with somebody in your life. Like you're not getting along with someone in your life and then you want to change that karma.

But the problem is too serious to confront that person directly. Like you have too much history with that person to sit down and talk to them. In Buddhism you can seek to help other people who are having problems with their husband or wife or friend and that good karma will affect the person that you're having trouble with around the back door.

You see what I mean? You don't have to talk to the person you're having trouble with. You just create some beautiful karma with another person and then apply that karma, send that karma to your friend.

The way you send that karma is a practice of a small, pretty meditation that you do just before you fall asleep. You put your head on the pillow and you think, today I tried to reconcile this couple because I'm having trouble with my friend at work. I hereby send that karma to the friend that I'm having trouble with.

That's a legal transfer of funds in Buddhism. It's allowed. It's smart.

Because I'm too close to this person I'm having trouble with and there's too much history between us. I cannot approach them directly because we'll get in a fight again. I'm going to bring together two other people and then in the evening before I sleep I'm going to send that karma to the person I'm having trouble with.

Then you can speed the karma up through the power of thought. You can cause the seed to ripen faster by thinking about the seed. This is a principle in Buddhism called LUNG SEMS SBYUG PA GCIG PA Say LUNG SEMS SBYUG PA GCIG PA SBYUG PA GCIG PA Where so ever you focus your mind there so ever will the prana gather.

Okay? If you picture a jewel at your throat then prana will gather at the throat chakra. Vishuddhi chakra.

It will affect how you speak. It will affect how you talk. Prana follows the mind.

When you focus on a karmic seed that you've created, the focusing on it with understanding heats it up. I call it mama chicken on the egg. This was invented in Shanghai last year.

Somebody in the audience said that's like a mama chicken on an egg. I said that's great. Thanks for turning me on to that.

So when you focus on a seed with understanding then you heat it up and it opens faster. Which means if you appreciate a good deed you have done today you speed up the opening of the seed. The more you appreciate the good you're doing the faster all your seeds open.

The opposite happens when you want to destroy a seed. Then thinking about the seed, thinking about where it came from will disable it. Not understanding a karmic seed and thinking about it will cause it to grow faster.

Negative seeds to grow faster. Misunderstanding a seed causes it to grow faster if it's a negative seed. The idea is that in the four powers, the first of the four powers is you're supposed to think about the principles of seeds and then thinking about it poisons the fuel which allows a negative seed to open.

You see what I mean? It's kind of interesting. The behavior of seeds in the act of purification fits the laws of karma and doesn't contradict the laws of karma because misunderstanding a bad seed causes it to open faster.

Understanding a negative seed causes it to shut down. Cool? Got it?

It's like, I don't know, putting an ice cube on an egg. What I mean is to say that something remains forever is not to imply that it doesn't have emptiness. You have to understand that.

Something can... seeds, mental seeds can reproduce an object from moment to moment forever. But that doesn't mean that object is not empty.

Okay? You will always produce seeds which in the future create the continuation of your own mind stream. It will never end.

By thinking you put in motion seeds which mean you'll be thinking tomorrow. That process never ends. But that doesn't mean that the mind stream, because it's eternal, is not empty.

So don't confuse eternal with breaking the laws of emptiness and karma. That's why I object to the translation of Mitharpa as permanent. It just means unchanging.

It's not the case that if something is eternal, and it's also not the case if something's quality never changes, that it's not empty. Because all that means is the same seeds are perpetuating the same thing forever. It doesn't mean it doesn't have seeds.

Can we change the power of the seed?

[Говорящий 2] (1:15:15 - 1:15:19)
No, we take the power off, but it's still a negative seed in the mind.

[Говорящий 1] (1:15:19 - 1:18:20)
Yeah, it's still a negative seed in the mind. Could you ever get rid of it? Okay, good question.

Or could we change it to a positive seed? No. I don't think so.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't have emptiness. Something can be eternal, and something can retain a single quality forever. Something can be unchangeable or unchanging and still be coming from karmic seeds and still follow the rules of emptiness.

So can it also be like a positive seed? Yeah, yeah. For example, the fact that the fact that nothing about you is innate will never change.

And that's your buddha nature. And that never changes. Is this wrong?

No, there are many things. The fact that your ear did not come from karma. Every part of you has one of those things.

Good question though. So don't... It is possible for something to be eternal and to be never changing and to be flowing out of karmic seeds forever.

That's okay. That's not a problem. You got to get used to that.

It doesn't mean that that thing is artificially fixed as something. It just means that the mechanism of the seeds is that you will always propagate the same seeds just by being you. Which is how your mind continues on forever.

Everybody, enlightened or not, is always making the same karma to have a mind tomorrow. And that never ends. You never don't make that karma.

But that doesn't mean that the mind does not have emptiness. And it doesn't mean that the mind doesn't come from seeds. Got it?

Difficult question, but a beautiful question. My Lama, if someone looked like that, he'd say, "'Cocaine!" How are we doing on time?

We'll take one more from Brooks, okay? Because he works so hard on the books. We should call you Book Singer.

All right. That's cheating. That's like that desert package fee.

They advertise a car online. I can't get over it. And then you go there to buy it, and they say $3,000 more.

And you say, why? And they say, desert package. And you say, well, of course, you're not supposed to ask, what is the desert package?

They say, well, we're required by law to check the car before we sell it to you. Anyway. Okay.

[Говорящий 2] (1:18:56 - 1:18:58)
Okay, good.

[Говорящий 1] (1:19:00 - 1:50:05)
I'll just answer from one angle, but there are many angles here. As we'll be seeing, when they send the angel on a mission to get you enlightened, they often send them to have a close relationship with you, because they'll have the most influence on you. So the most suspicious characters, possible angels in your life, are those people who are closest to you, like mother, father, children, grandchildren, right?

Recently born grandchildren. Yeah. Or your wife, or your husband, or your partner.

So just logically, which he's going to talk about shortly, it makes sense that the people closest to you in your life are the most likely suspects to be angels. And get this straight. Get something straight.

They are given instructions at central headquarters that they're supposed to act normal and weird and argue with you your whole life until the day comes. So they are required to... Right?

Even in the movie, she wasn't allowed to tell him who she was. She almost got fired. She did get fired, I think.

Yeah, but thank God. And so, they will purposely look normal for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years in your house. And then suddenly you'll have a breakthrough and you'll see who they really are.

Okay, got it? So it's very logical that they would come as your wife, or husband, or girlfriend, or boyfriend. Someone that you're super close to is very possibly your heart teacher.

And your heart teacher can kind of shift around during your lifetime. So at first it seems to be a Tibetan Lama who's teaching you all these conjugations and prepositions. And then you meet a woman or a man who seems to be special.

And then slowly the perception of heart teacher can shift into your partner. So it's not unusual and it's not impossible. And it's not even weird.

It's just cool. And that's a very common process. So in regards to the second, DBANG DU BYAS NAS In regards to the second question, is it useful to go looking for a spiritual partner when you've already found your heart Lama?

The answer is yes. Because there are other advantages to having a heart Lama who is your spiritual partner. Which has to do with inner prana and practices that you can do together.

A man and a woman together in Buddhism, it is believed, can get enlightened much faster than anybody else. And it's believed in Buddhism that Lord Buddha had a partner. So I would say definitely perfect if you can, if you already have a heart Lama.

I don't think it's, I think it's a wonderful thing to go looking for a spiritual partner and somehow they will start to mix. And that's wonderful. I would say that's even a normal career path for a Buddhist.

That's always the case in fact. So you might as well start. Okay?

And I'm not talking about, what do you call, tantra and sex and things like that. I know the newspapers would like to think that. But it's not at all the case.

It's a very sweet, moral, ethical, devoted, clean, happy, pure relationship that you have with them. And it grows more and more happiness and devotion and love. And finally it's two Buddhas hanging out together, standing over the world, holding hands.

And it's a world that they are taking care of. It's in their care. That planet is in their hands.

And it's always like that. That's always the case. So in the back of your mind you should be looking out for this person.

And you might have, what do you call it, false starts? Don't get worried about it. You just didn't have enough karma.

It takes a lot of karma to create a partner like that. To hook up with someone who's going to help you save the world takes a lot of karma. And there will be setbacks and there will be problems.

But sooner or later all people find this partner, according to Buddhism. No one gets enlightened without a partner like that, according to Buddhism, even in the open teachings. The open teachings say, the secret teachings are right.

Got it? That's kind of weird, but it's true. You can see quotations like that.

And then don't get all upset. Don't get all nervous. Oh, I don't have a spiritual partner yet.

It's already six o'clock. Take it easy and keep doing nice things to people and that creates them. That brings them into your life.

So just be sweet to other people. Help other people. Go to nursing homes.

Go to hospitals. Help retail people by buying a raffle ticket. Keep doing sweet things.

Don't get all nervous. It's like trying to do yoga when you're tight and you're competing with everybody. It's the difference between that and going to yoga class and saying, okay, I'm a klutz.

I'm not Anatole. I never will be Anatole. I'm just going to enjoy myself.

I might have to do child's pose half the class, especially if our reader is teaching it. And then just relax. It's the difference between fighting in a yoga class and just relax and do what you can do.

And then suddenly you're pretty good at it. Okay? Meaning the partner stuff.

So don't get all uptight because then you're kind of messing up the karma. Just say, I'll be sweet. I'll take care of people.

I'll serve people. I'll be nice to everyone I meet. And that night before I go to bed, I will send that karma to my future partner to create my partner.

And then they'll come. So don't get all... I mean, don't get all uptight about it.

Just relax. Be sweet to everybody. Do your meditation.

Do your yoga. Serve in the prison. We need people to serve in the prison, by the way.

Do nice things for people and they will come. In fact, in Buddhism, they say you can't stop them even if you want to. I have misogynist friends who say, I don't want a girlfriend.

I don't want the karma to create a partner. And I say, I'm sorry. But that's the only cause.

So anyway, you're stuck with them. All right. We're going to go.

We have a few minutes left. Adam, can you get up verse 54 of the... Wow.

Good job. RTA BYA SHES RTA BYANG SHES RTA BU Say RTA BYANG SHES RTA BU RTA BYANG SHES RTA BU RTA BYANG SHES RTA BU RTA BU means similar to... RTA means horse.

BYANG means... BYANG SHES means... CI YANG SHES PA means they read the rider's mind.

So just before the rider pulls the reins, they turn. Okay. Adam did that.

All right. It's a cool idea, right? I mean, if you're a real...

If you're really serving a Lama, you should... The guy who founded Sony talks a lot about anticipating the needs of other people before they know they want an iPod, you invent it. Before they know they need an iPod, you invent it.

You invent it the week before they want it. Got it? That's a good Buddhist practitioner.

All right, here we go. We're going to do verse 54. We are...

We've reached a part... This is now we're switching over to another text which is called the meditation song or in Tibetan it's called GYOR GYUR which means... This is a series of visualizations that you can do to augment your meditation as you go into a meditation.

It makes your mind sweet and fragrant and pure just before you start meditating. And then you have these extraordinary meditations that you could never have otherwise. So we've been going through that.

We're on verse 54. In this verse, you imagine in your mind that you are bathing your teacher. That's strange for a Westerner.

You wouldn't think of going to the college and giving your teacher a bath. I rather think that if you offered one you would get in trouble. In India, it's an ancient tradition.

You can even see followers of Krishna or Vishnu, they will be bathing those statues. So it's an old tradition at least to pretend that you are serving your teacher so fully that you actually bathe their body and offer them bathing. Because by offering a divine being cleanliness, you clean yourself.

So it's very traditional. It's very pure. They aren't having sex halfway through or something like that.

It's a very innocent thing that you are bathing your teacher's body very gently and with great devotion. So I think it's a good practice. I think if you did it, got good at it in your mind before you meditate, it puts your mind in a sweet space.

And that's the purpose of this ritual. It's to put your mind in a sweet space. So the Tibetan goes, JI LTAR BRTAM PA TZAM GYIS NI, LHAG RNAMS KYIS NI, DRUS SU LTAR LHA'I DRUS NI, BDAG PA'I DE BZHIN DAG GIS GUS DRUS SU Very famous verse.

Very, very famous. OM SA BA'I THAG TU RGA TA'ABI ZHIG GYI LTAR SEMS MED YANG SHRED DANG HUNG It's a very famous verse. It's in the Vajrayogini Sadhana with a slight difference.

JI LTAR BRTAM PA means... I'm going to do this word by word because I like to savor the words. JI LTAR BRTAM PA means as on the day that you were born.

So BRTAM PA, blood TAMS, start dictionary entry, B-L-T-A-M-S BA'O LA LTAR BRTAM PA SA BRTAM is an ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient word for to be born. And you will never see it anyplace else. So BRTAM PA means to take one's divine birth.

It's a special verb in Buddhism for to take one's divine birth. BRTAM PA That's all. Nowadays the colloquial is KHYER PA, the KHYER BA, to be born.

But the ancient high honorific is BRTAM PA. There are two or three levels of honorificness in the Tibetan language. Towards a high person you can start using a higher vocabulary.

There's a separate vocabulary for speaking to high beings. If a high lama comes to your house you are required to speak only in a higher language, which is kind of hard to learn. It depends on how often you're around them, how well you can speak it.

But it's something like, if thou wouldst allow me, I would be honored to give thy precious lips a divine cup of ambrosic tea. And there's a whole separate language for that. So BRTAM PA is extremely high honorific for to be born.

There's a medium honorific, if you're interested, called DRUNG, DRUNG PA. DRUNG PA For example, the Dalai Lama's birthday is called DRUNG GAR DU CHEN. DRUNG GAR DU CHEN.

DRUNG means to be born, honorific, normal honorific. GAR means karma, which in Tibetan means a star. So DRUNG GAR means the star on which this high lama was born.

DU CHEN means the holiday. So DRUNG GAR DU CHEN means the birthday of a high lama. But only with Lord Buddha do you say BRTAM PA.

He was born. Not DRUNG PA. And definitely not SKYE BA.

Good. Three levels of honorific. Nice thing to know with the verb BRTAM PA and dictionary entry.

JI LTAR BRTAM PA TZAM GYIS NI As on the day of your birth, LHAG RNAMS KYI RI CHOS SU LTAR So there's a tradition that these divine beings came to offer Lord Buddha a bath on the day he was born. LHAG RNAMS KYI RI CHOS SU LTAR LHAG RNAMS KYI RI CHOS SU LTAR I offer this water of the gods. LHAG PA means pure.

DE BZHIN BDAG GIS KU CHUR SU As they did their offering, I also bathe your holy body. KU KU means it's the honorific for LUS LUS is non-honorific, body. KU is your holy body.

So it's difficult to translate into English without sounding artificial or too sappy. It's a challenge to translate honorific into English properly. Then there's a bathing mantra which was used by the divine beings when Lord Buddha was born.

OM SAVYATTA THAGGATA ABHISHEKHARA SAMAYA SHURIYA OM AHUNG are called the buns of the burger of the mantra. I just thought of that, obviously. But a mantra should have a what do you call it?

A top bun and a bottom bun. You wrap a mantra. There are certain syllables that open the mantra.

OM is called DREN BYAS or GO BYAS It means the opening sound of a mantra. It means you should start a mantra with the word OM, with the syllable OM. Then you should conclude a mantra with AHUNG.

AHUNG is called SHI TZUG. SHI TZUG means nailing down the mantra. So you wrap the mantra in OM AHUNG and then in between is the mantra.

OM SAVYATTA THAGGATA ABHISHEKHARA SAMAYA SHURIYA AHUNG We got covered OM AHUNG. Now we got to cover the burger. SARVA means all.

What's the word for a shoulder stand in yoga? SARVANGASANA It's three words really. SARVANGASANA SARVA means all your limbs.

Sorry, SARVA means all. ANGA means limbs. And ASANA means yoga pose.

So the yoga pose which is supposed to benefit all your body is a shoulder stand because of the effect on the thyroid theoretically. OM SARVA means all. THAGGATA means those who have gone that way.

And you're not supposed to say THA. There's no THA in Sanskrit. When you see TH in a Sanskrit word, you're supposed to go, you're supposed to breathe heavy.

THAGGATA THAGGATA THAGGATA GATTA means gone. TATA means that way, gone that way. It means gone to enlightenment.

THAGGATA ABHISHEKHARA is the Sanskrit word for granting an initiation. The word for initiation in Sanskrit, tantric initiation or empowerment is ABHISHEKHARA. Well, that's a long story.

ABHISHEKHARA But it means to sprinkle water on something. So in this case, we are bathing the Lama in this water. ABHISHEKHARA Say again.

Say again. Okay. After certain vows, the non-retroflex SHA is required to change to a retroflex SHA.

Retroflex means turn back, right? Retroflex. So it means you turn your tongue back.

Instead of hitting the top of your tongue on the top of your mouth, which is what we do in English when you say SHA, you consciously turn your tongue backwards in your mouth. Then you are talking like that. That is why people from India are sounding like that.

Because their tongue is turned back. To pronounce Sanskrit properly, after an I-vowel, you must change SHA to SHA. ABHISHEKHARA So if you are going to be a hardcore Sanskrit pronouncer, which you should be, why?

It will match the sounds of your chakras more closely. Like Hatha Yoga. Say Hatha Yoga, not Hatha Yoga.

When you say Hatha Yoga, your navel chakra goes POW! Did you ever feel that? Hatha Yoga.

It's Hatha. Hatha Yoga. Hatha Yoga.

And it has a meaning. HA means sun, TA means moon. TA doesn't mean anything.

So Hatha Yoga. ABHISHEKHARA If you want to be precise, you will hear Tibetan Lama say ABHIKHEKHARA And that's because in Bengal, in the 11th century, SHA was pronounced SHI-KHA-KHA So it's not bad, that's pretty close. ABHISHEKHARA SAMAYA means pledge, right?

And then SHRI-E means to in your glory. SHRI means glory, SHRI-E means in your glory. So the mantra, I didn't look it up exactly, but I can take a shot.

It's something like, Oh, all those who have gone thus, I keep my pledge to offer you bathing. AH HUNG You are so glorious. I bow to your glory.

Like that, SHRI. SHRI is like in Sri Lanka. It means glorious or blazing.

And it's often used in Indian religions as a form of address for a Lama or a teacher. SHRI PITTABHI JOYCE Like that. It's misspelled in the name of Sri Lanka.

Isn't that sad to misspell a country's name? All right. Huh?

Maybe it's better than Sri Lanka, I'm not sure. Okay. Let's do one more just for...

Okay, is that okay? We'll be 15 minutes late. I'm sorry for that.

And I know it's hard to sit here and listen all night. I know it's hard. I've been there.

It's hard. And you're sleepy and you're like, why isn't this guy shut up and let us go home? Okay.

But I don't care. PHUN TSOGS DGE LA'I PHYIR BA'I DRIN PO'I GUS THA'I DRO BA'I RIGS PA'I SEMS MA LUS SHES BYAS CI SHING ZHIG PA'I DUG ZHAG GIS SOGS DE LA GUS DRUG GSUNGS THUB BU'ANG DOR GYI CHEN PO'I GUS DRUG GSUNGS OM SA BA'I THA THAG PA DAG ABI ZHAG GIS DAG SEMS MA YANG SHRED PA'I HUNG Okay. These are continuing with bathing mantras and acts of bathing.

We're going to bathe different people. Here we're bathing the Lord of the Able Ones, which means Lord Buddha. THUB PA'I DBANG PO Say THUB PA'I DBANG PO The Sanskrit is munendra.

Say munendra. And that has THUB... You care?

You want to know all this? Okay. MUNA INDRA Then MUNA means...

The Tibetans chose to translate MUNA as Able One or Capable One, THUB PA. But literally it means the quiet one or the one who doesn't talk too much. And there's a yogic practice called MA'O NA which you strengthen the vowel.

You strengthen the U to AO, which is just a strengthening of the vowel. Initial strengthening, MU to MA'O. Sorry, MO.

Strengthened further to MA'O. VERDE means MA'O NA which means the practice of not speaking for a day. Or there's a nice yoga teacher in Mount Madonna?

I think he hasn't spoken for 50 years or something. An Indian. He's been keeping MA'O NA for 50 years or something like that.

It means ritual refusal to speak. It's a nice custom, say, for the first couple hours of your day. If you want to try it, it's a nice custom.

So MUN NENG DRA means the Lord. IN DRA means Lord of those who keep silence or don't talk too much. Okay, MUN NENG DRA.

Your holy body was born from a billion perfect deeds. PHUN TSOGS RGYAS LA'I PHYIR BA'I DRUNG PA'I KHUL He's praising the three qualities of a Buddha. KUL GSUNGS THUGS Say, KUL GSUNGS THUGS If you visualize holy body, holy speech, holy thoughts of an enlightened being as colors in your body, what would they be?

White here, red here, blue here, dark blue here. KUL GSUNGS THUGS This is the verse that relates to that. Your holy body was born by a billion perfect karmas.

Thank you. Body means how they act. Respecting life.

Respecting others' possessions. Respecting others' partners. Mainly.

Your words fulfill the hopes of infinite living creatures. So when they talk, the repercussions affect millions upon millions of creatures, living creatures. In time, what we say tonight, the questions and the answers will have repercussions for millions of people.

Okay? Your mind perceives all things exactly as they are. So Buddha's mind can see all things.

How that works is a long story. We definitely don't have time tonight. But briefly, the inability to see future and past.

If you think, I just throw something out to you. The older devotees here have heard it before. But try to reflect on the fact that your life is almost like living in a closet.

It's almost as if your whole life has been spent in a closet. You cannot directly perceive what happened yesterday. And you cannot directly perceive what's happening tomorrow.

In fact, you can't perceive what happened 30 seconds ago directly. And you can't perceive into the future. You don't know what time he's letting you out.

So, we live in a tiny slice of time. It's like the spectrum, like the visible spectrum is a very small part of energy in general. What you can see, I don't know, what is it?

Gamma... Red, what do you call it? Infrared and ultraviolet.

We can't see. We only see a tiny slice of what's there. But our temporal experience is much worse.

We are stuck in a single moment in time. And that's due to the way seeds are opening in your mind. You could just as well have different seeds that would allow you to see directly what's going to happen hundreds of years from now.

And when you see emptiness directly, you will have that experience. You will see directly things that will happen 500 years from now. And you will see directly events happening on other worlds that no one has discovered yet.

If you meditate well, if you do these dumb practices that we do every morning, the point is that one day you'll have a breakthrough and you will see countless planets directly that have never been observed by Hubble telescope. And you will see what's going to happen to you in 500 years. Then what happens to being worried about next week?

It's kind of funny. Try to upset a person who can see 500 years ahead and is acting in consideration, wang du che ni, of what's coming in 500 years. They're not worried about something that happened this week.

To try to talk them into being worried about it, they're just like, you know, that's okay. I'm working on a century from now, right now. The limitations of time and space are artificial.

They are coming from seeds in your mind. Everybody in this room right now has the capacity to see all time and all space. It's just which seeds are popping open.

You can break through that. And you should. It's frustrating to see people who are in a closet and you bang on the closet and you say, look, there's a kitchen out here.

Maybe you need the bathroom. You don't have to stay in that closet. And they're like, no, no, I don't believe in the kitchen and the bathroom.

Okay. I bade this divine form, Lord, the keeper of the diamond. So, keeper of the diamond is Dorje Chang, right?

In Sanskrit? Rajadhara, which is the form that Lord Buddha takes when he teaches the secret teachings. So, Lord Buddha, classic Coke, Coke classic Lord Buddha, bump on the head, long ears.

What? 81 other, 112, 32 plus 80 marks on their body. But, when they teach the secret teachings, such as partner practice, then they would wear silk jewels, like divine clothing, divine beings clothing.

Divine beings don't feel comfortable in blue jeans and stuff like that. They like silk and jewels. Okay.

They're a little more, they have more style than that. Seriously. And that's a long story.

And that's called the keeper of the diamond. Rajadhara. So, both of them are Buddha.

It just depends on who they're teaching at the time. Sometimes you wear jeans, sometimes you wear robes, sometimes you wear silk. And it's all the same thing.

It just depends on who's in the audience. Okay. We stopped at 55.

We'll do 56 tomorrow. And I just think every time, let's do a little bit of this meditation song. How to prepare for meditation.

How to make your meditations hot. Mr. Mark, you ready? BUDDHI JOSHI VEDOTAM RIGRAM LINGSHI NINDEKYAM PADI SANGYE SHINDU MEDTE HUWAGI DOKUN NAMTA SHINGLA CHE PASHA YIDAM GURU RANGNAM ANDAGAKANUIDAYAMI DIGYE OKUN SANAMI SHINTSO TSOKSIN SANAMI SHINDE CHUNGWI DANG PA KUN NYID DOG PA SHOG Okay.

Thank you for coming. See you tomorrow.